A former prime minister, an olympic athlete and a civic leader each name what they see from where they stand: the political, physical and civic body under pressure.
Honest but not despairing, we are here. From AI, climate, power and institutional decay, the forces reshaping humanity are not separate crises, but interconnected conditions.
“The line that haunts me is ‘the centre cannot hold.’ In this polarisation, we’ve lost touch with the centre. It is fraying. It really is fraying.”
— Malcolm Turnbull
“Who am I when so much of my day-to-day capability is augmented? Do I defer more and more of my agency to this all-knowing, mysterious black box?”
— Jess Scully
“We’ve seen all of what we’ve taken for granted, taken from us, quite quickly.”
— Ian Thorpe
“The shock of the fragility of the institutions we grew up experiencing as bedrock: how quickly they can become sand, and fall away.”
— Jess Scully
“Australia can take the position as a middle power. We can actually be the rationale that the world needs. We have a conversation that most people connect to.”
— Ian Thorpe
“We have to rebuild our muscles for civic life, for encountering difference, for being in pluralism.”
— Jess Scully
Show Notes
29th Prime Minister of Australia
Australia’s 29th Prime Minister (2015–2018) and former leader of the Liberal Party, Turnbull built a career as a barrister, journalist and tech investor before politics. Since leaving office he has written prolifically on climate, media power and the future of liberal democracy.
Five-time Olympic gold medallist · founder, Fountain for Youth
One of Australia’s most decorated Olympians, Thorpe won five Olympic gold medals before retiring at 24 and reinventing himself as an advocate for Indigenous youth literacy and LGBTQ+ rights. His foundation partners with remote Aboriginal communities on early-childhood education.
Writer, civic strategist · former Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney
A writer, curator and former Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney (2017–2021), Scully spent two decades championing creative industries, digital democracy and participatory governance. Her 2020 book Glimpses of Utopia gathered hopeful case studies of communities reinventing politics, work and care from the ground up.