Podcasts about bunnings

SunFest 2026 is on its way, same location as last year at 25 Peachester Rd Beerwah on Saturday September 19th at the Beerwah Community Hall. Here is your chance to grab a bargain, catch-up with folks you haven't seen for a while for an off air rag chew, or just enjoy the atmosphere. Tickets this year are the same cost as last year at just $5 for general entry and $10 for a traders ticket that includes 1 general admission. We are also having some technical information sessions. There will be raffles and door prizes with some great items on offer. We will have a printed program of the day events so you will know when things are happening. There will be bacon and egg rolls, beef and gravy rolls, tea, coffee and soft drinks for sale as well. There are nearby shops and it's only a short 500m walk from Beerwah train station. You could even make it a full day by bringing the family and spending the afternoon at Australia Zoo. Open for trader entry from 8AM, while doors for general admission open strictly at 9:30AM. As we confirm traders we will list them on our webpage and have links to their webpages. In other news the club had a POTA and picnic day on a Saturday a couple of weeks ago. It was a great day in the sun with about 20 members turning up and over 30 contacts were made. Well that's all for now, this has been Gordon VK4VP. Coming to you for Sunday 14th of June 2024 is this week's instalment of travels with the Darling Downs Radio Club. I'm John VK4JPM, and I'll be your driver for the next section of track. And what a week. We started last Sunday with a spectacular outing at Bunnings, followed by Monday with our club meeting in what we hope might become a permanent location. We had some great discussions about the club itself. The big question is: where should we be in one, two, five and ten years. And if you have a suggestion - a polite one, anyway - please drop us a line via Secretary@ddrci.org.au. The new location gave us the chance to show off some of the gear that the club has accumulated, much of which is going to be for sale to members at good prices. Over the next few weeks we'll develop a catalogue and a pricing policy, so watch this space. A major decision by members is that we're going to put CTCSS on the club 2m repeater, VK4RDD. Work has started, and both WIA and Repeaterbook now show that a 91.5Hz tone will be required, and that will be effective from 7 July - and we'll keep reminding you of that requirement over the next three weeks. We've also determined that this year's annual general meeting will be held on Thursday 30 July. Pop that date in your diary and we'll be announcing details in due course. 2026 is an even numbered year, so the Vice President and Treasurer positions are due for election, along with two of the committee positions. In other news, congratulations to club member Ray VK4NH, whose 23 hours of activity in the 48 hour CQ World Wide WPX contest earned him number 2 place in Australia as a Single Op Lo, and 38 out of 400 in Oceania in the same category. He was up against 4000 other participants across the world, and came 108th in Oceania against some pretty heavy multi-multi highs and multi-op distributed, some of whom clocked 48.0 hours of operation. Well done Ray! Until next week, thanks for listening. I'm John VK4JPM for the Darling Downs Radio Club. dah-dah-di-di-dit di-di-di-dah-dah. ADSB Support: https://adsbsupport.com/ for information or applications to host a receiver, which is free if you're approved! And you'll get free access to some really interesting online stuff as a result. VK4RDD is located southeast of Toowoomba on a high spot. Output frequency 146.750 with -600kHz transmit offset and no tone (although CTCSS won't hurt).

Artificial intelligence, productivity, Bunnings, Kmart and the future of Australia's economy: Sean Aylmer has a wide-ranging conversation with Wesfarmers CEO Rob Scott following the conglomerate's investor day.Scott explains how AI is being rolled out across businesses including Bunnings and Kmart, why Bunnings still has significant room to grow beyond hardware, and how the Anko brand is expanding into new markets and new retail formats.He also discusses the challenge of rising costs, the importance of productivity, opportunities in healthcare and international expansion, and the policy settings he believes could determine Australia's future competitiveness.Find out more: https://fearandgreed.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode #260 features Maxine Minter — Founder and General Partner of the Pre-Seed Venture Capital Fund, Co Ventures. Maxine reflects on growing up between Australia, Japan and Europe, speaking Japanese before English, and raised by a fiercely entrepreneurial single mother. Vidit and Maxine explore her childhood, the influence of her grandparents, executive coaching, the idea of “generative ambition”, and the lessons learned from building companies, backing founders and how and why she started her own VC fund, Co Ventures. They also discuss the specifics of how the best Aussie founders go global, the realities of venture capital, AI, partnership, importance of play, and why the biggest opportunities often come from stepping outside the boxes others expect you to fit into. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________ Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital, City of Sydney and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world's most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths), Michael Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), Elena Verna (Head of Growth, Lovable), David Haber (a16z Partner), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Limieux (CTO, Shopify and Atlassian), Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Mark Suster (Partner, Upfront Ventures), Niki Scevak (Partner, Blackbird), Craig Tiley (CEO, USA Tennis), Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel), Paul Bassat (Partner, Square Peg), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Sam Sicilia (CIO, Hostplus), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Tim Doyle (CEO, Eucalyptus), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Xero), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica), Philip Green (Australia's Ambassador/High Commissioner to India), Vivek Bhatia (CEO, MUFG), Cristina Cordova (COO, Linear) and more.

If you are worried about China taking over due to having better robots than the yanks, I got mixed messages for ya here. This was created using DeepSeek v4 Pro. Remember when DeepSeek could do the same thing as chatGPT but on shitty processors and not much RAM? All those stocks shit themselves? Oh what memories. Would have been a great time to buy NVIDIA stocks. I didn't, if you're asking....It's pretty good but it really didn't follow the instruction in the prompt that Joel Hill is Jack the Insider on the transcript. So that's a minus point. But also, this took fucking ages to generate. It's better than lots of the yankee slop but damn son this took MINUTES. So they might take over if we are patient or whatever. Enjoy the episode. ----------------------------------------------Joel Hill (Jack the Insider) and Hong Kong Jack return for a sprawling episode that tackles two of the biggest stories shaping politics in 2026. The pair open with the jaw-dropping Redbridge poll putting One Nation at 31% of the primary vote — a number that would all but wipe the National Party off the federal map and potentially deliver Anthony Albanese a strengthened majority government by splintering the right. Joel and Jack clash over whether culture-war grievances or material concerns are driving the surge, while drawing historical parallels to Joh for Canberra and the DLP split of the 1950s.The conversation then crosses hemispheres for a tour through UK chaos: Peter Mandelson's leaked dossier exposing a rudderless No. 10 under Keir Starmer, Nicola Sturgeon's estranged husband pleading guilty to embezzling SNP donations on a surreal shopping spree of Lalique salt shakers, seven Dysons, and a motorhome with four miles on the clock, and a deeply troubling police body-cam incident that has reignited the two-tier policing debate ahead of three critical by-elections.The centrepiece of the episode is a sober, hour-long deep dive into the COVID-19 pandemic and what Australia has refused to learn. The Two Jacks lay out the true death toll (perhaps 22 to 69 million globally), the devastating scale of long COVID, the vaccine rollout failures, the absurdities of hotel quarantine with rubbish bags over heads, and why governments and public health officials are desperate to avoid a Royal Commission. They close by asking whether the next pandemic will meet a population that has permanently lost trust in its leaders — and whether we'll simply repeat the mistakes of both COVID and the Spanish flu.Sport provides a lighter coda: the Carlton revival under an interim coach, James Hird's awkward candidacy at Essendon, the expanded 48-team World Cup that nobody seems excited about, and a formidable New Zealand Test side taking on England at Lord's.00:00:25 — Introduction Joel welcomes listeners to Episode 159, recorded 4 June. Today: Australian political news, a check-in on the UK, and a deep dive into the COVID-19 pandemic.00:01:21 — The Redbridge Poll: One Nation at 31% The AFR's Redbridge poll: One Nation 31%, Labor 28%, LNP 20%, Greens 12%. The two-party preferred is now being calculated as One Nation versus Labor — a seismic shift in how Australian politics is measured.00:03:12 — Not Just a Protest Vote Jack argues this is real, not a re-run of Hanson's 1990s flash-in-the-pan. The South Australian state election and the Farrah by-election suggest One Nation support is durable. Joel counters that protest votes can be expressed at the ballot box and that Australians are tiring of pluralism.00:04:09 — If One Nation Succeeds, Labor Wins The cruel irony: One Nation's rise probably delivers Labor government. The National Party could simply disappear. The DLP kept the Coalition in power for decades as an anti-Labor party; One Nation may do the reverse.00:05:46 — Scrutiny and Splintering Joel notes One Nation's policies are "two-sentence fragments" and motherhood statements. When proper scrutiny arrives, the contradictions will surface. Hanson's parliamentary attendance is as poor as imaginable.00:08:22 — The Third Rail Jack argues populists succeed because they discuss what polite society won't: immigration, culture wars, welcome to country rituals. The major parties must engage these topics or cede the ground entirely.00:11:34 — Feeling Unheard The core driver, Jack contends: voters feel sneered at and silenced by mainstream politics. It's not about flag counts, it's about being listened to.00:13:50 — What Actually Drives Votes Joel pushes back: voting determinants are the household economy, migration, climate change — not culture war trivia. Culture wars "don't amount to a hill of beans" at the ballot box.00:14:51 — The DLP Parallel Both agree the One Nation phenomenon most closely resembles the DLP split of the 1950s and 60s — a right-wing fracture that delivered Labor government after Labor government.00:17:18 — The Republic Referendum Lesson Jack recalls the 1999 republic referendum: pro-republicans split between models rather than uniting, scuppering the whole project. Voters will vote their preference even knowing it helps their enemy.00:19:32 — UK Parallels: Accommodate or Fight? Significant figures in the UK Tory party are debating whether to fight Reform or reach an accommodation. Tony Abbott recently said the Liberal Party won't criticise Pauline Hanson.00:21:48 — Joh for Canberra Redux Imre Salusinszky's comparison: this is "Joh for Canberra" all over again. But Joel notes Joh's moment lasted months; One Nation's has already lasted years.00:24:08 — State Election Previews Joel predicts the Victorian state election will be chaotic and peculiar — a government that's been in power too long, an opposition that may not be up to the task, and One Nation peeling votes from safe Labor seats. NSW will give a clearer reading.00:25:44 — Hanson "Ready to Govern" — from the Senate? Pauline Hanson announced she's ready to govern. Joel asks: shouldn't she contest a lower-house seat first? Jack recalls the only precedent: John Gorton became PM while still a senator, but had to be eased into Kooyong.00:28:20 — The Mandelson Dossier: Starmer's Empty Suit Jack's read of the leaked Mandelson documents: ministers don't know what the PM wants, there's zero respect or fear of his authority. Starmer comes across as an empty chair. One minister's text: "Every meeting with Labour MPs — it's all about who can we tax to pay benefits to other people."00:30:50 — Mandelson's Legal Peril Mandelson is under police investigation for misconduct in public office. Could face charges — the seriousness depends on whether it's mere misconduct or genuine bribery for foreign interests.00:31:49 — The Nicola Sturgeon Saga Her estranged husband has pleaded guilty to embezzling roughly £400,000 in SNP donations. The shopping list: six high-end coffee machines, seven Dyson vacuums, Lalique salt and pepper shakers, Montblanc pens, Swiss watches, an iJag, part of a Volkswagen, and a motorhome with four miles on the clock parked at his 92-year-old mother's house. Nicola claims she "didn't go in the kitchen much."00:34:20 — The BBC Interview Laura Kuenssberg's forensic interview with Sturgeon — "not quite Prince Andrew, but not much better." Sturgeon has been cleared by Police Scotland, but her reputation, already damaged by the Alex Salmond trial, is now in tatters.00:35:05 — Will He Go to Prison? £400,000 is a substantial sum. With another £600,000 unaccounted for, a custodial sentence seems likely. The money was ring-fenced for a second independence referendum push.00:36:50 — Money Laundering or Conspicuous Consumption? Joel wonders if the bizarre purchases — multiple watches on the same day — were an amateur money-laundering attempt: buy goods with SNP funds, sell them quietly for cash.00:38:23 — UK By-elections: Makerfield Looms Three by-elections on 18 June, including the critical Makerfield contest. Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester's high-profile mayor, is the tepid favourite. Low turnout could help him return to Westminster.00:39:30 — The Body-Cam Incident A white teenager accused of racially vilifying a Sikh man was stabbed — and police arrested the bleeding victim, not the attacker. Body-cam footage shows the victim saying "I can't breathe, I've been stabbed" while officers dismiss him. Joel calls the footage "just awful."00:41:22 — Two-Tier Policing Jack traces UK policing's overcorrection: after the Macpherson/Lawrence report, guidelines were rewritten so aggressively that they've produced a pattern of questionable enforcement that devastates community trust — and plays directly into Tommy Robinson's hands.00:42:08 — NSW Police on Four Corners Joel recommends the harrowing Four Corners investigation: bashings in custody, false arrests, an officer who threw body-cam footage into Sydney Harbour, and two undercover officers jailed for a savage assault. The problem today is general duties policing, not the specialist squads of the 1980s. Some command areas are far worse than others — a leadership failure.00:44:55 — Victoria Police: Under-Resourced, Not Corrupt Joel shares an anecdote: two divisional vans for 80,000 people in outer-east Melbourne. Tough work being a police officer; even tougher being a good one.The COVID-19 Reckoning00:45:09 — Why This Matters Joel sets the frame: we parked COVID in 2023 with a hangover but never understood what we'd been through. Today's episode aims to crack that problem.00:45:51 — The True Death Toll Officially: 7 million dead. But most countries stopped testing and stopped reporting cause-of-death data to the WHO. Using excess mortality, the real toll is between 22 and 69 million — at the high end, exceeding the Spanish flu.00:47:02 — Long COVID's Shadow Roughly 400 million people globally (6% of the population) have experienced long COVID. In Australia alone, between 200,000 and 500,000 people are living with or have lived with the condition. Second infections can be worse. Emerging links to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and accelerated dementia.00:49:43 — The Collective Amnesia Governments worldwide have "a collective embarrassment" about how they handled the pandemic, Jack says. They want it in the history books and forgotten. Joel says this is a grave mistake for public trust — and for public health, given COVID is now a permanent fixture alongside flu season.00:50:50 — Why Excess Deaths Are the Only Honest Metric All other figures are "kind of made up" because attribution methods vary wildly between countries. Excess deaths remain elevated in Australia and most nations.00:51:25 — Children and COVID Bobby Kennedy Jr. removed under-18s from government-supported vaccines in the US. Joel argues this is a disastrous move given mounting evidence that childhood COVID infection leads to higher rates of long-term chronic illness.00:52:47 — Why No Royal Commission? Not just politicians protecting themselves — public health officials and much of the media wanted to avoid scrutiny of their judgments and actions during the pandemic.00:53:32 — The Media's Abdication Jack watched "a lot" of Daniel Andrews's daily press conferences. Only two journalists ever asked pertinent questions: Rachel Baxendale and Leigh Sales. Nobody asked why curfews, why beach arrests, why the disparate impact on tradies and cafe owners while the "laptop class" actually made money working from home.00:56:14 — Andrews's Immense Popularity Joel adds context: Andrews was wildly popular at the time, which partly explains the media's deference — though Jack insists that shouldn't have mattered.00:57:34 — The Curfew Nonsense Curfews were about giving law enforcement the easiest possible environment, Joel says — and should have been acknowledged as such and wound back sooner. Meanwhile, Bondi's wealthy swam en masse while Western Sydney's working-class communities were treated harshly.00:57:59 — The Vaccine Rollout Failure The Morrison government bet everything on AstraZeneca — the non-mRNA, first-available vaccine. Then rare blood-clotting issues emerged (seven deaths, mainly men aged 40–49). Meanwhile, Australia was left waiting for Pfizer and other mRNA vaccines because no other supply deals had been secured.00:59:37 — Omicron Breaks the Pandemic's Back The Omicron variant emerged from South Africa: more infectious but far less lethal. Combined with 95%+ vaccination rates among Australians over 18, it effectively ended the acute phase — though at the cost of entrenched mistrust.01:00:38 — Government Overreach and Broken Trust Jack's core criticism: governments outsourced decision-making to public health officials rather than making political judgments that balanced competing interests. Joel counters that it would have been a "bold move" for politicians with no scientific background to contradict public health advice.01:02:19 — "Just Let It Rip" Was Never an Option The three countries with the highest COVID mortality — Brazil (highest), United States (second), India (third) — were all led by populist governments that largely refused mandates. Letting it rip was devastating.01:03:27 — The ADF Quarantine Scandal Scott Morrison refused to allow ADF quarantine facilities to be used for returning travellers. Instead, people were crammed into hotels with gaps under the doors. Joel recalls the "rubbish bags over heads" episode in Victoria — dark green plastic bags as infection control.01:05:00 — The Inquiry's Recommendations Create a proper Australian CDC. Release expert advice publicly. Better national planning with clear political accountability. And critically: politicians must own the big decisions on freedoms and spending instead of hiding behind experts.01:06:01 — The Next Pandemic There will be another one. If it's a respiratory, airborne pathogen like COVID, similar circumstances will return. Are we ready? Probably not. Will we close the country again? The economic damage — unemployment hitting 7.5% in 2020 — was enormous, even if it recovered to 3.5% by pandemic's end.01:08:06 — Who Was Left Behind? The arts community was inexplicably excluded from JobSeeker and JobKeeper. Meanwhile, the "laptop class" working from home effectively got a 15% pay rise by eliminating commuting costs. Bunnings did very well; so did companies that kept JobKeeper without passing it to employees.01:11:14 — The Human Cost of Lockdowns Public housing towers in Flemington were locked down. Joel recalls one family: an African-Australian single mother with nine children in a two-bedroom commission flat, trapped. Jack calls what happened with schools "disgraceful." But Joel notes the evidence now shows childhood COVID infection has serious long-term health consequences, complicating the retrospective judgment.01:13:59 — Will We Learn Anything? Jack's bleak prediction: the next pandemic is probably far enough away that we'll take no notice of COVID's lessons and make the same mistakes. Joel agrees — we didn't learn from the Spanish flu a century ago either.01:15:51 — Malcolm Roberts and Vaccine Misinformation The One Nation senator claims 70,000 Australians died from COVID vaccines — a figure with no evidentiary support, built by misattributing excess deaths. In reality, mRNA technology is now being deployed as a cancer treatment, showing promise against bowel and pancreatic cancers.01:17:36 — Trust Destroyed If the next pandemic arrives within this generation, governments will face a population that has lost faith. If it takes 50 years, the damage may have faded. Western Australia, meanwhile, locked itself down with negligible deaths and actually loved the isolation — provided the iron ore and LNG ships kept moving.01:20:37 — The Spanish Flu Echo Joel's closing historical note: Australia's response to the Spanish flu in 1919–1921 was nearly identical to COVID — lockdown disputes, police arresting people for not wearing masks, states fighting the newly created federal Department of Health. The whole thing collapsed into acrimony the moment state rivalries flared. A century later, nothing had changed.01:21:48 — Federation as Fatal Flaw Jack adds: the three high-mortality COVID countries (US, Brazil, India) share a feature beyond populist leaders — they're all federations where central government power is limited. When "the emperor is far away and the mountains are high," coordinated pandemic response is nearly impossible.01:23:40 — No Appetite for Truth Jack's final word: nobody wants a proper inquiry. Not politicians, not public health officials, not much of the media. Joel disagrees on the importance — the pandemic's legacy still shapes how Australians think, vote, and trust.Sport01:27:40 — AFL Coaching Carousel Essendon and Carlton both need permanent coaches. Joel asks: is James Hird the right man for Essendon? Jack: 17 other clubs wouldn't give him an interview, but the Bombers may have backed themselves into a corner where appointing him is the only way out.01:28:53 — Merit vs Member Sentiment Rowan Connolly's question: would you take James Hird or John Longmire (five grand finals, one premiership, 60%+ win rate)? The answer is obvious on merit — but members and fans want the fairy tale.01:29:47 — Carlton's Astonishing Revival Three straight wins. Ranked 16th in forward-50 entries a month ago; now second. The game style is unrecognisable — no more bombing the ball to non-existent power forwards. Mitch McGovern's low, flat kick to Patrick Cripps for the match-winner against Geelong was emblematic of the transformation. Seven players aged 21 or younger are now getting games and bringing energy.01:33:18 — FIFA World Cup 2026: Nobody's Excited Expanded to 48 teams, Scotland are going — and a Scot in his 30s told Jack that neither he nor any of his mates (all doing well financially, normally first on the plane) have any interest. Ticket prices are "extraordinary." The final is at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey — which Jack describes as "Waverley on steroids, but even more bleak."01:36:08 — Australia's Draw Socceroos face Turkey first up, then the United States. Jack suggests marketing it as "Gallipoli Round Two." Spain are favourites; England, Brazil, and Germany are in the chasing pack.01:37:06 — Cricket: England v New Zealand, First Test at Lord's Joel runs through New Zealand's likely top seven — Latham, Conway, Williamson, Ravindra, Mitchell, Blundell — noting the first four have all made Test double-centuries. "Just about the best first six in Test cricket." With O'Rourke's express pace and Henry's quality, this is a formidable Black Caps side.01:38:40 — Stump Speech & Next Week Listener mail (including an "exposé of who Jack is") held over for next episode. For the record: Hong Kong Jack's CV includes HSC at Assumption College Kilmore, a stint as a carpenter, a law degree from Melbourne University, stints at Holding Redlich and Slater & Gordon, work as a litigation and immigration lawyer, and an appointment to the Refugee Review Tribunal as a federal cabinet appointee.01:40:39 — Outro Joel thanks listeners for hanging in for an extra ten minutes. Back next week.The Two Jacks is recorded weekly. Send your questions and feedback to the show.

From downtown uptown intown Toowoomba, the epicentre for the Darling Downs Radio Club. Right off the bat comes the important action item. If your watch tells you that today is Sunday 7 June, then hot-foot down to Bunnings Toowoomba North in Ruthven Street and help us make our BBQ fundraiser a brilliant success. We're there from now until 1530, and our sausage sangers are way more edible than RG8. Hi - I'm John VK4JPM Secretary of the Club, and I'm here to invite you to COME ON DOWN because THE PRICE IS RIGHT! Seriously, your warm body at Bunnings can help us in at least three different ways: we might still need a person or two to help with the roster. Hard to tell right now because QNEWS is filed days ago. But look, a bit of extra help never hurt. we definitely want you to buy a sausage sanger or two, and the price IS right! * when you turn up, you can smile and help tell everyone what a great club the Darling Downs Radio Club is. There's nothing like a personal recommendation. Sunday 7 June from 0800-1530 local time, which is most likely today if you're listening to the morning live broadcast. Tomorrow night is our club meeting, and we're doing something both important and special. Firstly, we're meeting at the Guide Hut in Harristown. Hut makes it sound way smaller than it really is. This is a bit of a test and we'd like your input. Three important items on the agenda for the meeting 1. we're bringing some of the stuff that has been gathered, and we'll be selling it on the night. There will be a couple of pretty good ICOM transceivers, some mixed electronics, cables, and whatever else we pull out of the storage space. Plus you can bring your own gear to add to the sales effort. 2. it's time we had a discussion about future plans for the club. All good, but your committee thinks it would be helpful to have a one, two, five and ten year outlook so that we can make strategic decisions on your behalf. What do you think the club should look like in five years? What activities would we regularly be doing? Is the monthly meeting format the right way to go? What education and training should the club deliver, and how often? What would your ideal meeting topic be? These and more questions need answers, and it's your club so we can go in any direction that you can support. and 3. bring along your latest toys for show-and-tell. Always fun. We'll have tea, coffee, timtams, and lots of good cheer. It's at the Guide Hut at 18A Memory Street in Harristown, with tons of parking. And if your street memory isn't so good, check out all the details at the website: ddrci.org.au and click through the calendar entry for the meeting. VK4RDD is located southeast of Toowoomba on a high spot. Output frequency 146.750 with -600kHz transmit offset and no tone (although CTCSS won't hurt). This is Kevin VK4UH. With Glenn VK4GMI I am the manager for the Harry Angel Memorial 80m Sprint. The “Harry Angel” is an annual 80m contest event, first established in 1999, to commemorate the life of Harry VK4HA who at the time of his becoming a Silent Key, at the age of 106, was the oldest licensed amateur in Australia. The contest has three sections, Phone, CW and Mixed. Certificates are awarded to the three top-scoring entries in each section. Place winners are also eligible to claim points towards the WIA Peter Brown Contest Champion Trophy. This year 36 logs were received which represents a consistent participation rate over recent years. This is particularly gratifying as this year's contest clashed with the WIA AGM and Conference in Albury and a number of other significant sporting events on the same weekend..

Episode #259 features Ryan Neelam, CEO of the Australian Government's Centre for Australia–India Relations (CAIR). A career diplomat, Ryan has represented Australia at the United Nations, negotiated global development goals, led through the Hong Kong protests and COVID-19, and spent his career helping Australia navigate an increasingly complex world. Ryan shares his journey from migrating to Australia as a child from Malaysia, growing up with Indian and Malaysian Chinese heritage, and accidentally finding his way into diplomacy. He reflects on representing Australia at the UN, negotiating alongside countries with vastly different worldviews, leading through the Hong Kong protests and COVID-19, and why luck plays a bigger role in successful careers than most people admit. Vidit and Ryan explore diplomacy as the art of persuasion, how trust is built across cultures, and why understanding different perspectives has never been more important. They also discuss the rise of India, Australia's biggest opportunities with its fastest-growing diaspora, clean energy, innovation, and the future of one of the world's most consequential relationships. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________ Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital, City of Sydney and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world's most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Anil Sabharwal (Global VP, Product at Google), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Stevie Case (Chief Revenue Officer, Vanta), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths),  David Haber (GP, a16z), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Lemieux (CTO, Shopify + Atlassian), Sweta Mehra (EGM, NAB; ex CMO, ANZ), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Sam Sicilia (Chief Investment Officer, Hostplus), Craig Tiley (CEO, US Tennis), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Niki Scevak (Co-Founder, Blackbird Ventures), Mike Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), Trent Cotchin (3x Premiership Winning Captain, Richmond FC), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Matteo Franceschetti (CEO, Eight Sleep), Vivek Bhatia (CEO, MUFG), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica) and more.  Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital, City of Sydney and more. ________ Welcome to the tenth episode in our special series with the Australian Government and their Centre for Australia–India Relations, spotlighting the growing Australia–India relationship across technology, business, media, culture and sport. Previous guests include Renowned Music Composer Tushar Apte, Australia's High Commissioner to India Philip Green, MUFG's CEO Vivek Bhatia, Ex Secretary of Foreign Affairs Peter Varghese, NAB's EGM Sweta Mehra, Deputy Secretary of Australia's Home Affairs Brendan Dowling, Sports Journalist Bharat Sundaresan, Cricket Legend Lisa Sthalekar and Orica's CEO Sanjeev Gandhi, reflecting the breadth of Indian-Australian leaders at the most senior levels.

What's happening in property investing news this week in Australia?   It's time to find out!   We remove all the fluff to bring a neatly packaged news show, designed to keep you on the ball as an Australian Property Investor.     Let's see what's making property news headlines this week in Australia.      

Send us Fan MailMay was a month of contradictions. Surgery recovery, grief and a rainbow unicorn birthday party. Life kept moving and I was somewhere in the middle of it, trying to keep up. This episode is about what it looked like when something finally started to shift.It started with an incident at Bunnings, a stranger's throwaway comment that hit a nerve I didn't know was still live. I talk about tamas, the yogic concept of inertia, and what it actually took to break through months of it. Spoiler: it wasn't a peaceful meditation. It was anger, and it worked.From there the episode gets into the small, unglamorous steps that followed. Bath time squats. Daily breathwork. The slow realisation that physical and emotional recovery move at completely different speeds. There's also Mother's Day, Ruby turning four, and what it felt like when the darkness started to lift. Not dramatically, but just quietly, and enough.LINKS:Work with Monica: https://cultivatecalmyoga.com.au/energy-alchemy/ Curious about Yoga Alchemy?: https://cultivatecalmyoga.com.au/yoga-alchemy/Website:https://cultivatecalmyoga.com.au/Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/cultivatecalmyogabrisbane/

IKEA is using its space for wedding ceremonies. And they are providing food and a gift too! What retail outlet would you get married in? Wippa thinks Bunnings needs to start doing this!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode #258 features Cristina Cordova — employee number 28 at Stripe, an early hire at Notion, former Partner at First Round Capital, and now COO of Linear. This conversation is less about startup tactics and more about ambition, identity and operating inside some of Silicon Valley's most respected companies before they became obvious to everyone else. Cristina reflects on growing up in Los Angeles with a single mother, becoming fiercely independent from a young age, and navigating worlds that initially felt completely foreign to her own. She shares the emotional complexity of spending more than a decade inside elite tech environments, from joining Stripe in its earliest days to helping scale Notion during its breakout years. Vidit and Cristina explore what separates companies that become deeply loved from those that simply grow fast, why some people thrive in ambiguity while others struggle as organisations scale, and how her “run through walls” mentality became both a superpower and a source of tension as companies matured from dozens to thousands of employees. They also discuss partnerships and developer ecosystems at Stripe, community-led growth at Notion, building products with taste and quality, AI and modern software companies, founder psychology, career reinvention, and the challenge of building a meaningful life when work becomes such a large part of who you are. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________ Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital, City of Sydney and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world's most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Anil Sabharwal (Global VP, Product at Google), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Stevie Case (Chief Revenue Officer, Vanta), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths),  David Haber (GP, a16z), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Lemieux (CTO, Shopify + Atlassian), Sweta Mehra (EGM, NAB; ex CMO, ANZ), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Sam Sicilia (Chief Investment Officer, Hostplus), Craig Tiley (CEO, US Tennis), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Niki Scevak (Co-Founder, Blackbird Ventures), Mike Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), Trent Cotchin (3x Premiership Winning Captain, Richmond FC), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Matteo Franceschetti (CEO, Eight Sleep), Vivek Bhatia (CEO, MUFG), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica) and more. 

Welcome to this classic episode. Classics are our favorite episodes from our back catalogue, published as frequently as possible. These are N of 1 conversations with N of 1 people. This is a replay of Episode 217, originally released in July 2025— one of our most loved classics. Elena Verna is one of Silicon Valley's most respected growth operators, whose career has spanned companies including Lovable, SurveyMonkey, Miro and Dropbox. In conversation with Vidit Agarwal, Elena reflects on growing up in post-Soviet Russia during the collapse of communism, immigrating to the United States at 14 without speaking English, learning the language through SpongeBob, and going from rejected university applicant to one of tech's most influential voices in growth. She shares the story of obsessively chasing a role at SurveyMonkey that changed her life, lessons from legendary CEO Dave Goldberg, why “not respecting roles and responsibilities” became both her superpower and weakness, and how navigating corporate politics shaped her leadership style. The conversation also explores AI-native companies, the future of growth, why experienced operators may carry “historical baggage”, how Lovable operates with extreme velocity, and what separates companies that scale from those that stall. Elena also dives into hiring, creativity, accountability, solo entrepreneurship, and why she believes victim mentality is one of the most dangerous traits in modern work culture. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________ Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital, City of Sydney and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world's most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Anil Sabharwal (Global VP, Product at Google), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Stevie Case (Chief Revenue Officer, Vanta), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths),  David Haber (GP, a16z), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Lemieux (CTO, Shopify + Atlassian), Sweta Mehra (EGM, NAB; ex CMO, ANZ), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Sam Sicilia (Chief Investment Officer, Hostplus), Elena Verna (Head of Growth, Lovable), Craig Tiley (CEO, US Tennis), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Niki Scevak (Co-Founder, Blackbird Ventures), Mike Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), Trent Cotchin (3x Premiership Winning Captain, Richmond FC), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Matteo Franceschetti (CEO, Eight Sleep), Vivek Bhatia (CEO, MUFG), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica) and more. 

Mark Jones shares the moment his life changed in Aisle 10 at Bunnings. What started as a routine weekend errand quickly became a frightening wake-up call. A panic attack brought on by years of pressure, stress, exhaustion, and a belief that he simply had to keep going. But this conversation is about much more than burnout. Mark opens up about the signs he ignored, the internal pressure so many leaders carry, and the dangerous stories we tell ourselves when we are under stress. Stories like “I can’t stop,” “I have to hold it together,” and “people are relying on me.” Together, we explore why high-performing leaders often miss the warning signs until their body forces them to pay attention. We also unpack the practical side of recovery and resilience. From sleep, exercise, and discipline through to the power of self-talk, identity, and rewriting the inner narrative that shapes how we lead and live. Mark also shares insights from his book The Story Code for Leaders, including his “mirror moment” exercise and the four-step framework he developed after his own breakdown. This is an honest and deeply human conversation about leadership, mental health, pressure, self-awareness, and what it really takes to sustain yourself in demanding roles. If you have ever felt overwhelmed, stretched too thin, or trapped in the cycle of “just keep going,” this conversation will resonate. https://www.markjones.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello and welcome to a special AX edition of the DDRCI contribution to QNEWS. I'm John VK4JPM, Secretary of the Darling Downs Radio Club, and it's my job to spread good tidings. Ho Ho Ho. So as you listen live, it's most likely Sunday 17 May, and you've probably heard that today is World Telecommunications Day. Under a long-standing agreement between the ACMA and the WIA, all VK licenced amateur radio operators may use the special AX prefix today, running up to 2359 tonight. Why not come up on the callback as AX? If it's Sunday morning, then why not also join us at 1000 for the club net on VK4RDD, and we're activating today as AX4WID. We love hearing from DX stations and members of other clubs. If you can hear this you already have the gear, so you just need to be in range of Toowoomba. If you missed the club meeting last Monday, you missed something rather special. Guy Martin from ADSBSupport in Denmark explained a bit how ADS-B works; how to get global coverage to track planes; and what interesting information can be gleaned and displayed. A number of club members have applied to support ground stations, and I know of at least two club members who have been accepted as ADSBSupport builds its network. If you're interested in supporting a ground station, and if you missed the meeting, drop me a line to Secretary at DDRCI.org.au and we'll tell you how to get in touch. Coming up, the diary dates for a very busy June: Next club activity: we're at Bunnings Toowoomba North on Sunday 7 June. You can help support the club in a really meaningful way: we need Sausage Twirlers, bread-stackers, drink-stockers, ice-blockers, onion-whackers, and money-takers. No experience needed; just a few hours of your time between 0800 and 1600 would help massively. Send your immediate acceptance to secretary@ddrci.org.au so that we can put you on the roster. Next club meeting will be the day after Bunnings on Monday 8 June, and watch for some special news. The following weekend on Saturday 13 June we're running a BBQ lunch up at the wonderfully named Peacehaven Park on Kuhls Road, Highfields. And following the lunch, there's a definite threat of a foxhunt to take you through the afternoon. Facilities at Peacehaven are brilliant. Details of all these dates, and quite a bit more will be found on the website at ddrci.org.au. It's always a source of truth. Coming into Week 21 of the year we've been handed another bonza opportunity in the 52 Week Ham Challenge. And get this: the deal of the week is: "Read your transceiver's manual and use a feature you've never used before". Clearly this was written by someone who owns a Baofeng handheld... I'm still looking for the repeater reverse button; maybe it's in there. If only I could get the scanner to find active planes. So much fun. Read all about that and all the challenges at hamchallenge.org, or find it from our website. Finally an offer to other clubs. Getting on QNEWS is easy and helpful to the community. If you'd like to know how it's done, or if you'd like some help getting there, drop me a line. secretary@ddrci.org.au will do it, and our operator is standing by to take your call. And your club's call. And your words for QNEWS. As we've found out many times, people all over the state are interested in what your club is doing, and if your club meetings are being held online there's an audience waiting to be told what and how. Secretary@ddrci.org.au and let's talk about how to get going. Until next week, I'm John AX4JPM for the Darling Downs Radio Club. 73.

Dean and Sophie on 4BC Breakfast investigate a pungent mystery smell on Cavendish Road, revealed to be the native Green Kamala tree. This sparked a broader discussion about what the official "smell of Queensland" should be, ranging from Bunnings sausage sizzles to low-tide mudflats.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dean & Sofie's $50,000 Rumour File - Do you have a rumour? Call 133 882 or email breakfast@4bc.com.auSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode #256 features Shernaz Daver, one of Silicon Valley's most respected executive advisors and communications strategists, who has worked alongside leaders including Steve Jobs, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla and Waymo/Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun. In conversation with Vidit Agarwal, Shernaz reflects on a remarkable journey shaped across India, Japan and the United States — from growing up between cultures as part of the small Zoroastrian community to navigating the inner circles of Silicon Valley's most influential founders and companies. She shares stories from Motorola, Electronic Arts and Sun Microsystems, the rejection that changed her trajectory, the unforgettable moment Steve Jobs told her she had done a “terrible job” marketing a product, and the lessons she learned working alongside elite founders and operators. The conversation also explores insecurity, ambition, storytelling, AI, burnout, hype versus reality in Silicon Valley, and what separates visionary leaders from merely successful ones. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________ Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital, City of Sydney and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world's most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Anil Sabharwal (Global VP, Product at Google), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Stevie Case (Chief Revenue Officer, Vanta), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths),  David Haber (GP, a16z), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Lemieux (CTO, Shopify + Atlassian), Sweta Mehra (EGM, NAB; ex CMO, ANZ), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Sam Sicilia (Chief Investment Officer, Hostplus), Craig Tiley (CEO, US Tennis), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Niki Scevak (Co-Founder, Blackbird Ventures), Mike Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), Trent Cotchin (3x Premiership Winning Captain, Richmond FC), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Matteo Franceschetti (CEO, Eight Sleep), Vivek Bhatia (CEO, MUFG), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica) and more. 

With Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday imminent, Spida asks what the world will be like when the team turns 100? Flying cars, augmented reality, space travel? With Mother’s Day on Sunday we hear from the listeners about mum’s important lessons. Attenborough also famously doesn’t have a driver’s licence & the team want to hear from other older non-drivers. Liam picks Mack, against all odds, as his Child of the Week due to his tuckshop order! + Leisel got filthy while turfing her yard and was visiting Bunnings an absolute mess, when an employee offered to hose her down in Bunnings. A service they offer or just an act of charity for someone who obviously needed it…See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is Allan VK4HIT with news from Ipswich and District Radio Club. The club is currently seeking expressions of interest from Foundation amateurs or those who don't yet have a license but might just want to jump straight into it; for an upcoming Standard license training course in the Ipswich and West Moreton region. The course will be held at the Ipswich & District Radio Club with a tentative start date of Wednesday 20th May, with the course running over about five Wednesday nights with a sixth night focused mainly on Standard & Advanced regulations. If you or anyone you know is interested, please contact our training officer Greg via email VK4GJW@gmail.com or you can find out more via our website ipswichradioclub.org.au Club member Robert VK4KHW has reminded me about two big horse endurance events which Brisbane Area Wicen Group is providing safety communications. Details are:- This event is held at the Kilkivan Showgrounds and Equestrian Centre. Dates are Saturday 16th May 2026 and Sunday 17th May 2026. The other big event is called the Tom Quilty Gold Cup, being run out of the Stirlings Crossing Equestrian Complex, Imbil. Dates are 4th & 5th July 2026. The event runs for 24 hours. Robert will be asking for volunteers for Imbil after the Kilkivan event. Contact Robert via email rwilling65@gmail.com It's Sunday 10 May, and only a week away from the last chance this year to use the AX Prefix with your call. Hi, I'm John VK4JPM, Secretary of the Darling Downs Radio Club, and here's our bit of QNEWS for the coming week. And starting with our meeting to be held tomorrow night, on Monday 11 May. Last weekend in Albury we made contact with an ADSB Support, an organisation that is creating a network of receivers to map plane movements in a different way. They are also doing some work that is directly of interest to ham radio operators. We thought that was too good an opportunity to leave hanging, and they have agreed to be our special guests at the meeting. Their global tech support manager, Guy Martin will be joining us from Denmark to explain how the network operates, what it does, and how maybe you could be involved as host of a receive point. Check the website for details. If you're not in town, or simply out of town, then you can attend remotely via Zoom and we'd love to have you. You don't need to be a member to join us. But if you do come to the Scout Hall in person, rest assured that we'll have tea, coffee and timtams ready to greet you. A couple of dates for the future: * lock in 7 June, which is just a month away, when we will be doing some much needed fundraising at Bunnings. If you can spare some time on the day - a couple of hours would do it - then could you let me know via the email address secretary@ddrci.org.au. * it's way into the future, but lock it in now: on the weekend of 7/8 November, the Radio and Electronics Association of Southern Tasmania will be running Ham-E-Con. This will be a similar but different event to QTECH that you might have attended last year in Brisbane. It's in Hobart, so already it's different! You can link details from our website at ddrci.org.au, and even though it's a while off maybe you want to book the travel this week while there are some specials on? This week's entry in the 52 week ham challenge: Build the cheapest antenna you can and make a QSO with it. We're not sure what counts as cheap. You have to buy metal coat-hangers these days, but an old 2m mobile base screwed into a tin can would be pretty and cheap, so pretty cheap. The website is at hamchallenge.org and right now nobody has logged a toot. I'm John VK4JPM, Secretary of the Darling Downs Radio Club.

Damian Zahra started work early, grew up around family businesses, and came into HR with one obsession: what happens when you bring the discipline of high performance sport into the world of business? Nearly seven years into his role as Chief People Officer at Bunnings, one of Australia's most iconic and complex organisations, he's still asking the same question. In this conversation, Damian talks about what it really means to be an interpreter of strategy, why equal portions of support and challenge create the healthy tension where growth actually lives, and why the one thing most organisations could learn from elite sport is the gift of feedback. Damian Zahra is Chief People Officer at Bunnings Group, leading people and safety strategy across nearly 60,000 team members in Australia and New Zealand. He is also a board member of the Corporate Mental Health Alliance Australia.   ----------------------- Craving inspiration? I send an email each Sunday about leadership reflection, top tips to build an intentional & sustainable life and other things that have captured my attention and are too good not to share! Sign up here: https://www.bravefeminineleadership.com/leadershipinspiration Loving the podcast? Leave us a short review. It takes less than 60 seconds & will inspire like-minded leaders to join the conversation! Access Your Free Clarity Tool Between the endless to-do lists, competing priorities, and decisions piling up, it's easy to lose sight of what matters most. But here's the truth: you can't give more if you're running on empty. That's why we created Balance Your Brave—a free 15-minute diagnostic tool to help you regain control and clarity. In just 15 minutes, you will: ✅ Pinpoint energy drains holding you back. ✅ Identify where to focus for the biggest impact. ✅ Walk away feeling calmer and more confident in your next steps. Think of it as your personal roadmap to balance and alignment. ⬇️ Click here to access your free Balance Your Brave diagnostic tool. https://www.bravefeminineleadership.com/Balance-Your-Brave   Are we friends? Connect with Us. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bravefeminineleadership Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brave-feminine-leadership

In this episode of DARE: The Time of Your Life, we are looking at Breaking New Ground. At an age when many people are beginning to look for the off switch, some over 50s are inspiring us by dreaming bigger than ever. Like our guest Jamie Durie. The landscape designer and TV host isn’t just 'not winding down', he’s completely upskilling and re-tooling. Join his conversation with host Jean Kittson alongside clinical psychologist and men’s mental health expert Dr Zac Seidler. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors, in partnership with RSPCA. Join Jean Kittson for the seventh season of DARE: The time of your life (formerly Life’s Booming), called Better With Age. Too often ageing is painted as decline. In reality, Australians are living longer, healthier lives and reshaping what “older” looks like. This series flips the script and shows how ageing is not a dirty word but rather a time to be embraced, featuring interviews with extraordinary over 50s refusing to slip quietly into the background. Award-winning landscape designer and sustainability advocate Jamie Durie was once a performer with all-male revue group Manpower, before he realised his passion for horticulture and garden design. Now Jamie is navigating the beautiful chaos of a young family in his 50s, while revolutionising the way we build our homes in TV’s Jamie Durie’s Future House. Dr Zac Seidler is a clinical psychologist, researcher and leading men’s mental health expert. He currently holds dual roles as Global Director of Research at Movember and Associate Professor with Orygen at the University of Melbourne. Watch DARE: The Time of Your Life on YouTube Listen to DARE: The Time of Your Life on Apple Podcasts Listen to DARE: The Time of Your Life on Spotify For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency -- TRANSCRIPT: Jean Kittson: Welcome back to the podcast, DARE: the Time of Your Life, formerly Life's Booming, brought to you by Australian seniors in partnership with RSPCA. For more episodes, visit seniors.com au/podcast. Hi, I'm Jean Kittson, and this season is called Better With Age, where we are flipping the script and showing you how ageing is not a dirty word, rather it's a time to be embraced. In this episode, we are looking at Breaking New Ground. At an age when many people are beginning to look for the off switch, some over 50s are inspiring us by dreaming bigger than ever. Take our guest, Jamie Durie, the landscape designer and TV host isn't just not winding down, he's completely upskilling and retooling. From navigating the beautiful chaos of a young family in his fifties to revolutionising the way we build our homes with high tech prefab design, Jamie is living proof getting older doesn't automatically mean it's time to start downsizing. Also with us is Dr. Zac Seidler, a clinical psychologist and leading men's mental health expert. Zac is also global Director of Men's Health Research at Movember. Jamie and Zac, I'm so happy to welcome you both to the studio. Welcome. Jamie Durie: Thank you. Yeah, great to be here. Good to meet you, Zac. Zac Seidler: You too, Jamie. Can’t wait to chat. Jean Kittson: I know. Well, it's so exciting to hear what you're doing, Jamie, and you know when people are usually in their fifties, I suppose they start thinking about maybe slowing down or… never crossed your mind? Jamie Durie: Well, I think we, as men, and I'm hoping I'm not alone here, Zac. We only really start working it out in our 40s, and by the time you then reach 50, you go, Hmm, okay, now I know exactly where I wanna land and exactly what I wanna focus on. And I've got the experience behind me where I've made a few mistakes, learnt along the way, and I can apply with accuracy and shoot with a rifle – not a shotgun at your goals, if you like. Because the idea of, kind of, focusing in on the things that I think you’re most passionate about and that are most relevant in your place is, I think, distilling everything you've learned throughout your career. Jean Kittson: Yeah. It's something you come to with experience. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Jean Kittson: And as you say, making maybe some mistakes, but then refining, fine tuning where your passion is, is this, like what you are doing now with this prefab. Is it the Prefab housing where you are also doing something called the Infinity Garden? Jamie Durie: Yeah. Jean Kittson: What's… tell us about this project? Jamie Durie: Well this, you know, Future House is the name of the show, and we're now at Channel Nine, which is brilliant, and we've had an amazing season. Basically it's an exploration of modern methods of construction and if we are sitting in the building crisis right now, the housing crisis, and we've got, you know, 1.2 million homes to build over the next five years – how on earth are we gonna achieve that target when we're 87,000 trades short of achieving that target with our conservative ways of building houses? Our houses need to be more energy efficient. They need to be more cost effective. They need to be more structurally sound. They need to be more resilient with increased weather attacks, you know, over the last five, 10 years, we've all seen the floods, the fires, the storms all increasing. And then how do we make it more affordable for everyday Australians so that we can all, you know, get off this renting bus and actually start to own a piece of Australia and be proud of it, but make it more affordable. So that’s what it’s really about. Prefab has come a long way. We're no longer talking about those archaic old ‘kit homes’, they're now beautifully designed, sophisticated homes, some of them, which you can buy at a hardware store at Bunnings these days. Jean Kittson: Wow. Jamie Durie: I don't know whether you've seen that or not, but it's amazing what's happening in this space and we're playing catch up and we wanted to develop a format to talk about those where we could, you know, pass on some of these learnings and create intelligent DIY design where Australians could learn from what we are learning from and help progress the solutions around solving the building crisis. Jean Kittson: Well, I can hear that you are using all your background in, you know, gardens and landscaping and building, but also a maturity that, you know, and in experience and knowledge that comes with age as you personally. And then you taking this knowledge and experience and then putting it into the community for a really important community benefit. How does that… does that make you feel good about your work? Is that what you mean by focusing more, in your 50s? Jamie Durie: Oh, for sure. This is the show I've always wanted to make. Having worked on 56 primetime shows throughout my career, which is a lot, when you only started at kind of 28. It feels like everything's come full circle because, you know, we're not just inspiring people to take up new ideas, but we're instilling them with education and awareness around how to create more sustainable homes, how to tread more lightly on the planet, how to reduce our energy costs, how to tackle the cost of living crisis and how to get more Australian families into more homes faster. Jean Kittson: That's amazing. I mean, from a person… personally, that's a lot of work, Jamie. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Jean Kittson:You don't feel like you should be slowing down, spending more time, you know… Jamie Durie: …weirdly Jean Kittson: …pottering around. Jamie Durie: No, weirdly, the more I dive into this, the more passionate I become and passion creates energy. You know, it just comes from somewhere. You would know this, Zac. You know, I mean, what you guys have created is astonishing and the people's lives that you've touched through the funds raised throughout Movember is absolutely mind blowing. Zac Seidler: Thanks Jamie, I appreciate that. It's been a community effort in a very similar vein, and I think Australians can really get around that type of… Jamie Durie: …Yeah… Zac Seidler: …of grassroots community building when you provide them with the right resources to do so. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: But I love the idea that, you know, I don't, I think that slowing down, that idea of becoming 50 or 60 and starting to slow down, especially because life expectancy is increasing – thank God. Jamie Durie: …Yeah… Zac Seidler: …We're moving, you know, into longer lives, hopefully healthier lives as well. The data is pretty clear that when men start to slow down, bad things happen, to be honest. Retirement is not a good vibe for lots of guys because they have not built the scaffolding around them. They often haven't spent a lot of time with their friends or family over the years because they've been in this provider protector mode for so long, that when it slows down, they go, okay, I'm gonna play golf, I guess, or something and I've never played it before. And how does this work? And who are the guys I'm gonna call? And so, I really like the idea of seeing eras of your life and the fact that as you are maturing and ageing, you are becoming more dynamic in ways and kind of getting rid of the stuff that was a waste of energy, the stress, the anxiety, the trying to do a thousand things at once that I'm probably still doing and hopefully we'll get rid of at some point. But that ability to work out where you want to spend your time and energy for, you know, the next era and then there'll be another one after. That's so important. And I think, you know, Movember has been around for over 20 years and we're now moving into the next stage. We were just this young kid on the block, you know, kind of breaking stuff and trying to work out what's the best way to show up in the charity space and really change men's lives, and it started with a practical joke. It starts with, with something that everyone… Jean Kittson: …A pun, yeah. Zac Seidler: A pun. Exactly. And it moves from that conversation starter really into thousands of programs and a billion dollars plus that we've fundraised over the years. And so many people say that men don't wanna get around this stuff. You know, it's like, oh… Typically it is women leading charity dinners and doing fundraising events and we kind of broke that mould and suggested that if you provide the right framework, something that is about banter and community and mateship and the things that matters to guys and their health. You know, health by stealth is always what we say… Jean Kittson: Yeah, health by stealth… Zac Seidler: Go around, don't hit them on the head with the thing. Jean Kittson: No, Jamie Durie: …that's right. Jean Kittson: Start in a light way with a light, you know, an idea that's fun. And then dig a bit deeper. Jamie Durie: And it's the path of least resistance, isn't it? Because I grew up watching Magnum PI. And there's a Tom Selleck in all of us, where we desperately wanted to grow that mustache, but just didn't feel like there was enough reason to, and this gives us the excuse. Jen Kittson: Yeah. Jamie Durie: To go, oh, I'm doing something good. And I'm also exploring this mustache, which could look terrible on me, but it also could look fantastic. And my Mrs might love it! Zac Seidler: I love the wives and the girlfriends who are just like, ‘make this stop!’ every year. But that is the joy of this thing. And some people find that they can grow a beautiful mustache. We had a whole campaign called Shit Mo’s Save Lives. You've got this wispy thing. It doesn't matter. Jean Kittson: It doesn't matter! Jamie Durie: Growing a mustache doesn't happen overnight. No. And so there's this constant reminder of the cause. And bringing people back, bringing people's minds back every time you look in the mirror, oh, that's why I'm doing this because I'm raising money for this cause. Zac Seidler: And we also want to get around the idea that, you know, November is one month of the year. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: We're lucky to have the pun to stand behind. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: But this is an all-year situation. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: You know, there are guys, whether it's prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and, and suicide prevention, lots of the things that we work in, they don't come and go, you know? They are a part of men's health. They're a part of our families. Our wives deal with them, our children manage this stuff. And so we wanna make this an all year round conversation, and it just gets supercharged in November. Jean Kittson: So what would you say to men who perhaps think they can just stop everything or they've had to stop everything because of health or their age or their jobs finished because of their age and they think they can go out to play golf. But then as you say, they may not have the friends around because they haven't stayed in touch with them, or that. So how do men find a new purpose? Because I think what you are doing, Jamie, is really a progression, a development of everything you've been doing in your past. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Jean Kittson: But some men have just spent their whole lives doing one thing. And then suddenly that stops. So how do they find a new sort of purpose, or how can they build on the skills, the knowledge they have? Zac Seidler: Yeah. Jean Kittson: What, what do you say to them? Zac Seidler: I'm very keen for Jamie's thoughts, but the way that I see it, because I see a lot of men in their 50s, 60s… It's funny because lots of guys now are having their midlife crisis in their 30s, which is kind of good because they still have the time to pivot accordingly. But what happens is that, when we get into the 60s, 70s, even, even 80s –– my grandpa's 96 and still kicking; he’s around. He goes into his office every day. I have no idea what he does, but he goes to work, right? So there's a part of that purpose that comes from that, but it's about an expansion really, which is that if you are myopic and you have this singular vision of who you are, and this is all that you can do, when that thing ends, whether you are fired, made redundant, you know, you retire, whatever might take place, you know we're in shifting times at the moment, and without that foresight and without the vulnerability to go, who am I? Taking pause going, who am I? What matters to me? What are my values and how can I go about, you know, picking and choosing lots of different things to spend my time doing, whether that's family, friends, hobbies… You know, it shouldn't just come when you click pause and you go, who am I now? What am I supposed to do? Because that is going to breed catastrophe. It's terrifying for all of us. You need to work your way up to it and realise, there is, each day, a chance to kind of do a little bit more in different fields of your life, water the ground in different areas, and realise that if you are, you know, you can be a one track, you can be a one corporation man your entire life. There's nothing wrong with that. But if it comes at the cost of you never prioritising your kids or your friends or your hobbies, that's just not really what we're here for. We're here to do many different things and to expand and grow. And I always find it very interesting. There's this trope that men don't talk, they don't want to go to therapy, they don't want to discuss what's happening in their lives. And I always, whenever a guy comes in and he is a bit, you know, doesn't have all the words, he grunts a bit. He's silent most of the time. I'm like, why are we here if not to understand ourselves? Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And I think that lots of guys, when they get into those later years, they start to do that work, but it'd be lovely if they could do it a bit earlier. Jamie Durie: I didn't start my career in, you know, finding our future version of our house, you know, like what is the modern method of construction? I'd started in a very different space, where I was in Las Vegas dancing with an all male group called Manpower. You know? Jean Kittson: Dancing very well! Zac Seidler: Well, various people said, you need to talk to Jamie about this. You brought it up, not me! Jamie Durie: No, no. And, but listen, they were the greatest years of my life and, you know, I started when I was 16. I was lucky enough to meet, along my travels, and we toured 14 different countries and played to, you know, sometimes 8,000 women a night at various Zac Seidler: …and that one guy that was forced to be there! Jamie Durie: …entertainment centers… Yeah, in Sun City, in South Africa and Hong Kong and all over the place. And, I got to see a lot of the world, many, many times. Circumnavigated the globe many times before I was even 21. And I think, travel's been, you know, my greatest teacher. They say it's the university of life. And so by the time I got to sort of 23, I was like, okay, what do I really wanna do with my life? And weirdly, I met a garden designer, by the name of Paul Bengay and we got talking. Jean Kittson: Yeah. Jamie Durie: And he took me to his garden design studio and he said, ‘this is what I do,’ and I said, you design gardens for a living. This is amazing. So not only could I help heal the planet by planting more trees. But I can also do it in a creative way that would stimulate the creative side of myself. Right? So before I left Manpower, I enrolled into a horticultural course for four years, and there was that overlap effect where I was still doing shows. Still producing calendars. Jean Kittson: Yeah. Jamie Durie: …and my teachers had copies of my calendar. My horticultural teachers had copies of my calendar in their, in their staff room. And they were laughing at the fact that I was, you know, turning up to school every week, learning the names of plants – three and a half thousand of them – and, and throughout that period, you know, I didn't really graduate until I'd sort of reached, I think 30, but those last few years of my life where I was still doing shows at the Crown Casino in Melbourne and, and Las Vegas in the summer in in America… but I was going to school and studying. That's the pivot. That is… there's that overlap effect. Jean Kittson: Yeah. Overlap, yeah. Jamie Durie: Find what you are passionate about. Start seeding that idea, pushing your way into what is it that I next wanna do and move. And I think my love for the environment started way back then. And then morphed into what I'm doing today. And there's been that overlap into, okay, how are we gonna repair the planet as well? So, you know, I've overlapped the next section of my career out of horticulture and then into environmental work, you know, so I'm… Zac Seidler: It’s so, so values driven. And that's the thing, you know, you see young guys now who all want to be entrepreneurs and I end up seeing them because they're struggling to kind of reach this status that they believe they should reach in order to be successful. But it's get rich quick. And what you're describing is time, it's time, it's effort. Jamie Durie: Yeah Zac Seidler: It requires an understanding of what matters to you. And trial and error and failure and all of that stuff. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: Which eventually. That all is the making of a man, you know? Yeah, yeah. Over time and you, you did two things at once, because you've gotta make a living. You've gotta try to work out what matters to you, where you're gonna go next, and you just keep following those open doors rather than going, this has to happen now. Jamie Durie: Oh yeah. Yeah. I remember. I remember doing a Samsung campaign. I was naked. And I was, I was, I finished that campaign and then I'd, I'd literally the next, that afternoon was at Ryde horticultural college studying plants. But, you know, something had to pay the rent, right? Jean Kittson: Yeah that's right… Jamie Durie: …you kind of... Jean Kittson: … it looks like a world, world apart, but you were able to do that. Jamie Durie: …Yeah. Jean Kittson: …follow both. Do this thing you had to do… Jamie Durie: But Zac, you've pointed out something there, which I think is quite important. And I think it sits in all of us as genuine human beings and it's cause-related drive. And the advertising industry call is called this CRM: cause related marketing. But cause-related drive sits in all of us. And when we suddenly tap into something that we feel like… is supporting community, supporting the planet, supporting your fellow human being. There's a different drive inside you that kicks in. You've got it. That's what's driven you with, with your group, over the years. I've got it there. There's, so if you can tap into what is your cause-related drive, you don't really have to find the energy. Zac Seidler: Mm-hmm. Jamie Durie: It finds you… Zac Seidler: That, that is exactly how I feel. Like, lots of people roll their eyes when they ask me, are you, you know, what's your job like, what's a dream job? And I'm like, I'm in it. I'm living it. Jamie Durie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Zac Seidler: And no one wants to hear this positivity for some reason. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: I'm like, everyone wants to complain all the time. And I'm like. No, I've, I'm having a good time. It's con–– it's nimble, it's constantly dynamic. It changes every day. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: The lives of men, the, the man that shows up in, in front of me, he changes every moment. Let alone all of the other guys around him in the same way that nature constantly adapts over time. Jamie Durie: Yeah. You know, Zac, you're underselling yourself a little bit because Movember started here in Australia. Zac Seidler: Mm-hmm. In 2003. Jamie Durie: Yeah. But now how many countries does it here? Zac Seidler: Over 20. Jamie Durie: And you've raised how much? Zac Seidler: Over a billion Australian. Jamie Durie: That is a huge impact, and those funds get distributed. How… and are you part of the decision making process around that? Zac Seidler: Yeah. Jamie Durie: Tell me, tell me about that. Zac Seidler: So, I, so I lead our research team. So we've got, you know, 20 PhDs across the globe who are asking questions around what's going on for men, what's happening when they engage with health systems; you know, what's happening for new dads? You know, how, how is the GP gonna ask questions about it? To a dad who might be experiencing postnatal depression… Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: …but isn't aware of it. We're looking at the manosphere in social media to make, you know, men's lives a bit easier so they don't get tricked into some of this stuff, which is… Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: …which is harming them. So I get to do the research. Then we've got an entire program’s team where we're going to the community, grassroots, and creating programs in local footy clubs for coaches, parents, and young guys… Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: …to understand the signs, spot the signs, be able to talk with one another when they're struggling. Upskill community, fundamentally, around what to look for. Because I'm sure back in your days, that idea of, like, guys getting around one another at the pub and talking about what is bothering them… Jean Kittson: Yeah, no… Zac Seidler: …what they're feeling, what matters to them, how they wanna show up in their families with their mates. It's a new conversation and we're trying to provide the language for lots of these guys to be able to have those chats. So, we build all of these different programs with community partners. You know, we are not doing this alone. We stand on the shoulders of giants, definitely. But it's just this, this humility, this Australian way kind of where we just find our way into, into grassroots organisations, in York, in the UK, we're in California, in the States, we're in Toronto. We just work out what's working there and we try and ramp it up with them, with the funds that we've raised. Jamie Durie: Yeah. So good. Jean Kittson: Mm-hmm. It is so good. Imagine that it's very regenerative too, because it sounds like there… that at any age you can sort of discover yourself. Zac Seidler: Yeah. Jean Kittson: And find your passion and find the cause that drives you. And this would, so when, when men would reach a certain age, some of them haven't had any relationships – you know, the sort of intimate relationship with their families that a mother might have and their kids. Zac Seidler: Yeah. Jean Kittson: So then they're suddenly in a grandparent role. Then they've, then they've, they've gotta relearn how to connect emotionally, I suppose. Zac Seidler: But you see that, you see, it's beautiful. And I think the, the grandparents, the grandfather's situation in this generation is really unique. Where you see a lot of kids get a bit angry because they're like, I never got this attention. But the way in which grandfathers are going, oh, I was a career man and I spent all day, every day, I missed out on bath time. I didn't get to go and, and watch, you know, him play soccer. I didn't get to do any of these things. And now they're trying to re-parent themselves in a way. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And take back those opportunities that was, you know, taken from them because they weren't purposeful, they weren't able to go, what is actually possible here, and that's also what Movember is trying to do, is open those doors and say, being a man does not mean living within these constraints that you have been sold. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: Because they are harming you. Jean Kittson: Yeah. Zac Seidler: They're fundamentally harming you. There's a reason that men die four years younger than women in Australia. That's a big gap, and it largely comes down to preventable reasons. Jamie Durie: …Yeah.. Jean Kittson: …yeah… Zac Seidler: …yeah. Jamie Durie: I'm father to three children. My first child, I had in my early 20s, and I'm a much better father now in my 50s than I was when I was 20, right. And I find very, very early on in my career, I was looking into a great speaker by the name of Anthony Robbins. We've all, we all know who Anthony, but he, there was one little nugget of wisdom that he shared with some of some of his followers, and that was the ‘wheel of life’. And within that wheel of life, you would have community, spirituality, friendship, family, career all that stuff helps the wheel go around. And if one of those pieces of pie was not, kind of, out to its extremity, the wheel doesn't roll. And so I've mentally kind of always tried to keep that check in my life. But more so these days because, it's funny, the more time you put into your kids, the more worthwhile your life feels. It's incredible what they teach you. Zac Seidler: Yeah. Jamie Durie: And I just feel like now I'm, I'm going to battle for my family every day rather than just myself. So it's a much less selfish way of life. But also we've got an enormous responsibility to raise these kids in the very best way that we possibly can and to keep bettering ourselves as parents and humans on a day-to-day basis so that that stuff spills over to them and they become great custodians of the planet and great, great movers and shakers and whatever, whatever it is they want to do. Jean Kittson: Whatever, yes. Jamie Durie: You know, and you've gotta instill that stuff to them, I think. Zac Seidler: So many people ask me to define, like, healthy manhood or masculinity. Because we're talking, we, we so often talk about toxicity and what is broken and what is wrong, and men doing bad things, which takes place. But we don't really have an aspiration. We don't have a message around what is possible. And I think that idea of being in constant sync around this notion of growth that comes in multiple ways within your life, there are all of these quadrants, there are all of these parts of yourself that it doesn't, it's not a day-to-day thing, necessarily. You know, sometimes you're gonna be working really hard and you're not gonna be able to, to be there at dinner, but what do you do to recalibrate the next day? Jean Kittson: Yeah. Zac Seidler: How do you find ways to make sure that that thing is in sync? Jamie Durie: Yeah, Zac Seidler: …because that's what drives distress in guys, and that's what they're not necessarily aware of that when some of those quadrants are falling away. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: … They are feeling less like themselves. Jamie Durie: Yes. Zac Seidler: And it drives them potentially to do some things that are, that are not in their best interest. Like if you're feeling like you're not being the best dad, lots of men start drinking more. Lots of men start pulling themselves away more because their kids start to, you know, rebel. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: When instead what is actually required is a leaning in, and that is that vulnerability that is required rather than this guilt pulling back and saying. This is not for me. Jean Kittson: …Defensiveness… Zac Seidler: Exactly. And you see that in, in a lot of guys. You see it a lot, a lot of women as well, which is this: You're feeling challenged. You're feeling like you're not living the life that you thought you were supposed to, and so you keep repelling further in the opposite direction rather than saying, maybe I'm a bit off kilter here and I should, I should recalibrate and work out what, what matters and have the conversations. And I want guys… lots of guys do this with their wives. It ends up being so much emotional burden on the women because the guys don't have deep male friendships where they can go and have these chats with other guys without feeling like a failure. Have you got guys in your life where you feel like you can, really… Jamie Durie: Oh, totally… Zac Seidler: …get into it? Jamie Durie: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. My best mate and I, ironically, we danced together back in the Vegas days. So we've been mates since, you know, I was 20 and we talk probably three times a week. He's a dental technician. Zac Seidler: How far you've both come! Jamie Durie: Yeah. Yeah. He's there making the most extraordinary little pieces of technical equipment that, you know, dentures and things for people that gives them self-esteem and pride and function and health and stuff, which is quite amazing. He's such a talented dexterous man, but he's constantly sitting in his laboratory, in his studio, you know, tinkering away. So he'll just call me in the middle of him making that stuff and I can hear that he's in the studio and I might be in a very different studio with TV, cameras rolling or whatever. But we always find ways to communicate and lean on each other when we need it most. And, and we have over the years, it's been great. Yeah. Jean Kittson: So you can be very vulnerable with him. Jamie Durie: Oh God, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, he's got skeletons in that, we will take to the vault! Zac Seidler: Right. And that's what it's built, it's built on time. And energy and… Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: …realising that you need to invest in this stuff. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And you see that, you know, you, you get 15-, 16-year-olds whose, whose friends are everything to them. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And then they go into university. Slowly but surely they get into the workforce, they move into parenthood and it just starts to drop away. And you often see the wife is the one who is leading the social calendar. Jean Kittson: Yes, always. Zac Seidler: They're the ones who are looking after everything. They're making all of the calls. And you know, they start to believe, these men, that they actually are not capable of this stuff when, you know, they're a CEO… they're doing really complex things during the day and suddenly they can't call their friends to like arrange a beer on a Saturday night? What is that? And so I think it is, it's a muscle that needs working out… Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: …over time. And it needs to be prioritised. Because consistently, you look at the Harvard Longitudinal Study, which is an incredible study, started in the 30s, still going. Jamie Durie: Mm-hmm. Zac Seidler: The guys who are still alive, they're in their 90s. They had quality friendships. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: It didn't matter if they smoked, how they exercised, what their jobs were, all that stuff… Jean Kittson: Really? Zac Seidler: …it washes away. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: We are human beings who require socialising. We require to be with one another, and that's why the loneliness crisis that happens for lots of older guys, older women as well, feeling so isolated, feeling like you don't have any purpose anymore. You know, Men's Sheds, it's a group that we work really closely with. Jean Kittson: Yeah, they're great. Zac Seidler: Incredible. Jean Kittson: Yeah. Zac Seidler: Yeah. And they have, they have women coming in now. You're tinkering, you're doing something. You've got mates there. Jamie Durie: Yeah. It's great. Zac Seidler: It gives you something. We need more of that. I feel like those third spaces, those, those sheds, those community halls, they're just like evaporating. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: It's a real problem. Jean Kittson: Yeah. Well, we used to see a lot more community gardens. I don't see them so much anymore. We often talk about work-life balance, but when you were talking about the wheel or… Zac Seidler: mm-hmm. Jean Kittson: …and with all these different segments, I mean, because that's what life is. It's more complicated. It's not just life over there and work there and you try and balance it out. You've gotta feed all these different elements of your life. Jamie Durie: Yes. Zac Seidler: Because work life balance makes it seem like life is 50% and work is 50%. Jean Kittson: Yeah, it does. Zac Seidler: When in fact it's actually work should be 20, and 20 and 20. You've got all of these little things. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Yes. It is about creating balance within your life and if you, you know, anyone can do a quick equation of the various facets in your life and go, Ooh, I need to put a little bit more family time in here. Or, when was the last time I called my mum or my dad? Or, you know, when was the last time I took my kids to the park and, and played with them and, and gave them a good time? And, and so you, you gotta constantly keep a check of yourself, but also you gotta look after your own mental health so that you can be a better father for them, right? I surf every Sunday with a group of guys that age between oh, 50, 52 through to 74. Zac Seidler: Wow. Jamie Durie: In fact. Probably one of the best surfers in our group. He's had a double hip replacement. Jean Kittson: Oh I love that… Jamie Durie: …And he's a better… he's a better surfer than I am, he's awesome. Jean Kittson: …That's so great. Jamie Durie: …Oh yeah, if you can hear me now, Tones, this is a big plug for you, bro. Jean Kittson:Yeah. Jamie Durie: But I went and bought a new longboard yesterday and I was–– I couldn't wait to get out there at 7.30am with the boys just to kind of share this new longboard with them. And we had a great old time. We caught plenty of waves and then we go to breakfast together and that's what my partner Ameka calls ‘church’ for us, right. So she's like, go and have some boy time. See you at lunch. Zac Seidler: Because it's ritualised. Jamie Durie: It is, yeah. And I've been doing it, you know, 12, 15 years now and I really crave it. Zac Seidler: Yeah, because you don't have to pick up the phone and go, are we doing it this week? It's on, it's on. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Right. Oh yeah. And, and, and there's probably 30 of us altogether. Usually only 10 or 12 or even sometimes six turn up, you know? Jean Kittson:That's wonderful. Jamie Durie: But every so often they all, you know, one or two of them pop in and some of them are doctors, some of them come from the oil industry, some come from the textiles. Others are property valuers and all sorts of people. It's amazing. How many extraordinary high achieving blokes still require this – we all need church, I think. Jean Kittson: That ritual, that going, being able to gather when you want to without making an appointment… Jamie Durie: That's right. Jean Kittson: …And being together. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Jean Kittson: I think one thing about your work, Jamie, I would say is that when we were talking before about men retiring and then going home, and then the wife taking over. Your work has always been around creating spaces around people's homes. Your own homes. Your garden and everything. So that's your domain. But for many men, they would leave work and the home is not their domain. Jamie Durie: Mm. Jean Kittson: It's like they're an alien in that environment because that's been the woman's domain and she's taking care of it. But you are, you are lucky because that's so familiar to you. And you have so much input in it. Jamie Durie: Mm. Jean Kittson: In fact, you're probably, it's probably your domain more than anything. Jamie Durie: I have a little too much input! And, so much so that, you know, we have to remind each other because Ameka loves interior design and so I've had to kinda let go a little bit and let her, you know, play with the interiors and all that, and she's done a great job. And, you know we have found a good niche in each other's careers because of that. I think you gotta, you know, make everyone feel like they're part of the end equation, you know? Jean Kittson: Yeah, Jamie Durie: yeah. Jean Kittson: Well, well, growing up, my dad was a DIY so he had a big –– he, you know, he basically built our house. You know. Nothing ever worked, but, you know, we had seven doors opening onto the loungeroom, I think. But he was as much part of the domestic life… Jamie Durie: yeah. Jean Kittson: …as, as my mother was. Zac Seidler: I just don't, I don't buy it that these rules and regulations that have been passed down by someone that we're not really aware of around what women should do and what men should do. You know, Venus and Mars, it just doesn't benefit anybody. Jean Kittson: No… Zac Seidler: …and this is the thing. There are some people who are just gonna be better at certain things. And, you know, my wife is much better with a drill than I am. Jean Kittson: That's right! Zac Seidler: Give up. Yep. Like I've, I've worked it out… Jamie Durie: Good on ya’ mate! I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna attempt it in the way that she does. I'm lefthanded. I'm probably gonna cut off a finger. I'm gonna let her have her day. Jamie Durie: Yeah. With a drill. He's gonna cut off a finger! Yeah. I like that. Jean Kittson: Okay. Hello. Jamie Durie: He really doesn't use tools. Jean Kittson: Well picked up. Zac Seidler: You got it. You got it. Live and learn! Jamie Durie: I gotta ask, Zac, you know, we, mental health of course is a huge part of our, elongating our lives, right. And I have to ask, what role does stress have in that? And also what role does the foods that we eat play into the health of our minds and our bodies? Zac Seidler: Well, I think that we went through a period, you know, early on in the 20th century where we started to split the mind and the body, and that was not a smart move. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And we are very much ricocheting back away from that and realising that everything needs to be calibrated, and they all affect one another in a cause-and-effect kind of way. That's why everyone, any psychologist worth their salt will bang on first and foremost about sleep and diet… Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: …and exercise. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: …really. And it's funny because they're like, oh no, I just wanna talk about my feelings. And I'm like, no, if you don't get this stuff in order, there is no point in getting into the deeper stuff because this is going to create the foundations of wellbeing for you. Jamie Durie: That's right. Zac Seidler: Fundamentally, the fuel that you are putting in – and fuel comes through sleep, through exercise, through diet, and nutrition. And I think that we are at a point because of cost of living stuff, especially… Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: …where everyone is, is trying to make their way and, and survive as best they can. And because of time and work and families, food just kind of drops off. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And so it becomes easier to do, you know, quickfire meals that are probably much worse for you. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: Whether it's sodium or sugar or whatever it is. And that has a fundamental effect on your sleep. It has a fundamental effect on your mood. And really the more stressed you are, the more calorie rich food you kind of end up wanting. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: Whenever you've had a tough day, you're gonna go for the chocolate because you’re like trying to manage… Jamie Durie: Yeah. Yeah. Zac Seidler: …and so trying to get ahead of that stuff. By building in… You know, I'm a very ritualised person because if I… you know, Obama and Steve Jobs, all these people, they always talk about trying to get rid of the grey in your day, which is like, Steve Jobs wore the same thing every day because he wanted to think about something else… Jean Kittson: right? Zac Seidler: …I've eaten the same breakfast and lunch pretty much every day for 20 years because I have other things to deal with and it's the best way that I'm gonna go to the shops and I'm gonna ensure that I have a nutritious meal. Because I'm doing the same thing and everyone goes, don't you get bored? Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And I go, well, I'm still alive, so no, I'm alright. Jamie Durie: Steve, I heard a Steve Jobs statement the other day and you don't often hear him, speak in this way, but he said, make food your medicine or medicine will be your food. Jean Kittson: Oh… Jamie Durie: …isn't that an awesome statement? Jean Kittson: …Clever. Jamie Durie: Yeah. And I've not heard that before. And then I started looking into some of his interviews in more detail. Do you know that none of his kids had devices? Zac Seidler: None. None. No one who owns a tech company, their kids never touch devices. Full stop. Jamie Durie: That's, that says it right there, right? Zac Seidler: Yeah. Jamie Durie: I mean, I wrote a book years ago, and it was called Outdoor Kids and it was about getting kids off TV games and devices and back out into the garden again, where I grew up. Zac Seidler: Mm-hmm. Jamie Durie: And I find that when I'm, I'm suffering stress or anxiety. I put my hands into the earth and I start weeding or planting or whatever, and suddenly within an hour or two, I'm back. I'm, I feel earthed, I feel… . Jean Kittson: …Grounded? Jamie Durie: I feel grounded and I've let go of all that stress into the earth. And there's a theory now about forest bathing. Zac Seidler: Mm-hmm. Jamie Durie: Which I'm sure you've heard about where, you know, you can go on a trip to Japan and walk through the forest for a minimum of four hours per day for two weeks, and it improves your immune system and helps fight tumors and infections and things and adds so much to your mental health that, and I think we're now just discovering the benefits that nature has, that plays within our health. Zac Seidler: Well, we're trying to create science around something that is obvious. Which is, which is the thing, we've created all of this infrastructure that is actually ruining our lives, and now we're trying to peel it back and go back to basics, which is, you know, the, back in my day, we used to play on the street and would hang around with different generations of kids and do all that stuff. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And now you know, the fog is really what you're… it descends from the phones. That's the iPads and the television. It's this notion of… Jamie Durie: yeah. Zac Seidler: …detachment from who you are and who you want to be. And we see this with young kids, the longer they spend on social media, the more they are unable to actually access their own wants and needs. Because… Jamie Durie: …they're the less functional they are when they get out into the real workplace as well. Zac Seidler: Fundamentally. It takes, so it takes so much time to relearn these things. Jamie Durie: There was a professor that wrote a book called ‘The last child in the woods’. You know, I developed this theory called the outdoor room, where you would convert your kitchen into an outdoor space, your living room, into an outdoor space, your bathroom, your bedroom, so that everything was connected to nature and you would spend more time out outdoors, being reconnected with nature through your everyday functions. Jean Kittson: Beautiful. Jamie Durie: And I used to talk about this, like, let's take the roof off our house, and then instill plants into our everyday lives. Think of your backyard like that. And that was what I used to model the outdoor room theory on. Now I want to take this to another level where we talk about, you know, health and wellbeing and fitness and how do we take exercise into the outdoors? How do we, how do we then start to, you know, control the food that goes into our children's mouths and our family's mouths, reduce pesticides and herbicides, get rid of glyphosates. What role does that play into keeping our bodies healthy enough, to be able to withstand stressful times and so forth, you know? Zac Seidler: Mm-hmm. Jamie Durie: … there been any studies within your funding groups…? Zac Seidler: …yeah… Jamie Durie: …in the past where, you've seen a direct correlation between stress and the increase of disease and poor health? Zac Seidler: Oh, yeah. It's the strongest causation you can possibly find, right. It drives cancer, it drives heart disease, it drives stroke. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: You know, fundamentally the more stressful your life is, the more cortisol you've got running through your veins. The lower your life expectancy is. Jamie Durie: Yeah. And, and I used to live off stress, like… Jean Kittson: …the adrenaline. Yeah. Jamie Durie: ... that adrenaline rush… I loved it. I loved, you know, and the, and oh, we may not get this garden done on time or, you know, or I may not get this project finished in time. Like, and so, the older I get, the more I realised, wow, this is not the goal. The goal is to minimise stress down to zero. And that's the only way we're gonna maintain strong health. Zac Seidler: And how we respond to stress…. Jamie Durie: Yes. Zac Seidler: …Like the more stress you have, the worse you are at responding to it. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And that's why you see lots of guys who are just like exploding because they just don't how to regulate that stuff because they don't have the energy. They don't have the coping mechanisms, they don't have the people to call on. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: But the more you realise what it is… There's so many guys I talk to and I, I go, do you get stressed about things? And they're like, no, I, I've never felt anxiety before. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And they're sitting there and their leg is shaking. Jean Kittson: Yeah, yeah. Zac Seidler: I'm like, they're… Jean Kittson: …can’t articulate it… Zac Seidler: They’re so detached from their own reality. Jean Kittson: …can’t articulate it… Oh, they're, detached… Zac Seidler: …exactly…Yeah. And so being able to get to the point where we realise and we're not afraid of stress because there is a certain amount of it that actually leads to better performance. You know, this effect of going into an exam, if you don't have a bit of butterflies… you know they're useful sometimes. Jean Kittson: Of course it focuses you… Zac Seidler: before a performance, it's good. But then it's called the ‘yerkes-dodson curve’, which is, it goes up, and your performance goes up, you’ve got a bit of nerves, it's pretty good for you. You hit this precipice, and the second you go past that. You suddenly can't see. You're in an exam. You can't think straight. You're in front of camera and you lose your words. Jamie Durie: Mm-hmm. Zac Seidler: That's when stress is tipped over and that's when… A little bit is good at getting you out of bed, getting you going. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: Because you're excited. You know, excitement and anxiety can go hand in hand. But there's just a little bit that is good, and then too much that really has long-term effects on you. Jamie Durie: Mm-hmm. Zac Seidler: Yeah. Jamie Durie: Mm-hmm. Jean Kittson: What do you say to men who, maybe you have lived on adrenaline and have had all this pressure and all this stress, and then suddenly it stops, and then that withdrawal from the adrenaline. How do you manage that suddenly, do people find another stress to fill it, fill up that adrenaline? What do they do when they're suddenly taken away? Is it like a void or a vacuum? Or…? Zac Seidler: It can be, it can be very difficult. You know, no doubt, Jamie, when you moved past that and you had a moment of pause and were like looking back at those years and realising how overwhelmed you probably were, and constantly going and churning your… everything kind of just becomes this, this muscle that is moving towards survival. And when you realise that you're actually not enjoying anything, that you're not in the moment at all, lots of those guys – and that often happens much later on in life because they keep going until they run out of steam. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And then there's this vacuum, there's this, this hole underneath them, and they don't have the skills to be able to pick up new things and fill that. Jamie Durie: Yep. Zac Seidler: You know, in some ways… So we want to get to the point where guys are realising, are connecting with that feeling within themselves that maybe the past 2, 3, 4 weeks have been really full on… Jamie Durie: Mm-hmm. Zac Seidler: …And having the language to be able to say to someone, I need to pause here. I need to realise, I need to recalibrate. I need to work out what's happening. Jamie Durie: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I wish someone had told me at 21 that stress was so destructive. Because I think that's something, you know, I've learned over, over time and I've watched some of my friends go into poor health, through, you know, their lack of dealing with stress. Zac Seidler: Yeah…. Jamie Durie: But Zac Seidler: We need the skills. We need the skills. At school, you should be teaching stress reduction, you know? Jamie Durie: Yeah, Jean Kittson: exactly. I have a friend who does mindfulness, part of her lessons, so she senses – she's a drama teacher of course – and you know my age, so we have the experience and we can look back and go, this stress we put on our children is just way too much. So she senses a class is really stressed. She won't do a normal lesson, she'll just relax them. Zac Seidler: Nice. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Jean Kittson: Which is a really, you know, but that she's rare, but this is what we should be doing and… Jamie Durie: …yeah… Jean Kittson: …And I think we've got, we are at our age, we've got this… Not our age, I'm older than you, Jamie! But you know, as you get older, we've got the skills. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Jean Kittson: We've got the experience to be able to say how, what's important in life. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Jean Kittson: And you talking about in… in my day, we'd hug trees and it was sort of like a bit of a joke, but it was. A really beautiful thing to do. Jamie Durie: Yes. Jean Kittson: I do it outside the studio before I come in. There's some really old paper barks, you know, there, they, they must be a hundred years old. Did you notice them coming in? Jamie Durie: I know they're, they're all through this area. Yeah. Jean Kittson: They're incredible. And they're growing out of asphalt and I always give them a bit of a hug, and go, Good on you… Jamie Durie: Yeah. Jean Kittson: …I don't know how you've survived! And it just, that moment of connection with nature and you just have to value that and recognise it and thank nature for what it does, because as you say, all this technology, if you are going straight from an office back home to the telly or something… Jamie Durie: …It's incredible how well they survive, by the way, these paperbacks in these streets. Jean Kittson: …Aren’t they amazing. Jamie Durie: You're right, the pathways go right up to them, and you would think that the soils would become anaerobic, but Melaleuca quinquenervia – our paper bark tree is – is probably one of the most stoic trees in our system and our indigenous use the bark to wrap their fish and their food up and they would cook their food wrapped in the paper bark. Right? And it's got so many brilliant uses, but they've also got nitrogen fixing nodules and a whole range of survival techniques that other non-native trees don't have. So, you know, one of my pet hates is why did we, why are we planting London Plane trees, platanus hybrida, are all through our streets, which, which are, you know… Zac Seidler: …Causes us asthma… Jamie Durie: So, yeah. Causes asthma, gives us all hay fever – I get hay fever from them – when we could be planting these native trees that require zero care and they still thrive their heads off, you know. Zac Seidler: Finally, the paperback chat we all needed. Jean Kittson: Yeah. That's what we needed. Jamie Durie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jean Kittson: If only we, you know, treated ourselves like a paper bark, if we had nitrogen nodules, you know? Jamie Durie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jean Kittson: I mean, if we understood ourselves, when you talk about trees and plants like this and your knowledge of them and how they, how they exist and how they, you know, how they grow. We need that knowledge about ourselves. From a very early age. Jamie Durie: That's right. Jean Kittson: So we can recognise what we need to do… Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: So that we can enjoy. And this is the thing, it's, you are not going to gain that knowledge from a standing start in your 60s. Jamie Durie: No, that's right. Zac Seidler: You need to, it needs to be a lifelong lesson of what matters to me. How am I moving through the world? How do I grow? How am I going to understand how I tick? And those things cannot come when you retire. Jamie Durie: That's right. That's right. Zac Seidler: They need, they need to come much earlier on and they need to be instilled so that we're not just churning our way, you know, to the end. Jamie Durie: You're right, it's that evolution. It's those, it's the teaching, it's the experience. It's falling down, picking yourself up again. It's making all those mistakes and then coming full circle into where we are today and, and then passing down some of those learnings, to as many people as you can. That's what it's all about. Jean Kittson: Yeah, definitely. That's our responsibility, isn't it, as we get older, is to share what we've learned. Jamie Durie: Yep. Jean Kittson: And hope that our children or grandchildren don't make the same mistakes. Jamie Durie: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Jean Kittson: So, Jamie, what would you say to someone who was maybe hitting their 50s and feeling like they're winding down or they're stuck or something, or, I mean, you just took that huge leap in your 20s to do horticulture… Jamie Durie: Yes. Jean Kittson: … While you were doing something completely different, the dancing. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Yeah. Jean Kittson: So what, what would you say to, have you got any friends who you feel are stuck or… Jamie Durie: I, yeah, I have and I say the same thing to all of them. Find something that you are passionate about. Dive into it. Learn, feed your brain. You know, make yourself get engaged in it because it will provide you with the fuel that you need to push you well into your retirement and way past that. And I don't like to use the word retirement because I'm never gonna retire. I've decided I'm just gonna keep working because I love my work. But find what it is you're passionate about and learn more and feed your brain. And it's funny, if it's benefiting other people, you will also find another way to keep energy within yourself. So don't just feed yourself. Find something that feeds other people in other communities and there's a sense of worthiness around what it is that you are doing that makes you feel good about your day and what you've learned and how you've passed it on. Jean Kittson: Just to wrap up, what would your tip be to people over 50 who feel perhaps a bit, a bit stuck? What's one habit, do you think, they could in… because we're talking about you have to do it regularly and, and institute it as a part of your everyday routines. What, is there one habit? Zac Seidler: It is funny that I very much, hopefully, look like I’m not in my 50s, but I spend a lot of time with men in their 50s and and 60s and do clinical work with them and research with them because they are hungry, and they're looking for ways to improve the rest of their lives and seek understanding about themselves. And I kind of say the same thing, which I've been talking to Jamie about, which is pick up the phone and call someone. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Zac Seidler: Reach out. Lean out. And it doesn't need to be a mental health conversation. It doesn't need to be something that's weird and awkward. It's just like, let's go for coffee, let's go for a walk. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: Let's do this thing called life together. And when you're finding that passion, that comes through other people… I went to a dinner party when I was 18 and someone started to talk to me about masculinity. And I was like, what? What are we talking about here? And then they connected me with someone else and slowly but surely doors opened. And your life opens, and there is no end point to learning. There is no end point to interest, to passion to drive. So, yeah, I think that realising, firstly, that you are stuck does not mean failure. Understanding that you're at an inflection point and there is now heaps of opportunity and potential for doing something different. Jamie Durie: Yeah. Zac Seidler: And that is a beautiful thing that we have, which is that there is always this splay of choices in front of us. And so start choosing. Jean Kittson: Just be curious. Start choosing. Jamie Durie: Yep. Jean Kittson: Can't go wrong. You can't make a mistake. Thank you both so much. That was such a great conversation. Thank you, Jamie Durie. Jamie Durie: My pleasure. Yeah, my pleasure. Jean Kittson: Thank you, Dr Zac Seidler. Thank you very much. Zac Seidler: Thanks for having me. Jean Kittson: That was really great. Thanks for being so open. Jamie Durie: Great fun. Jean Kittson: Thank you to Jamie Durie and Dr Zac Seidler. You've been listening to DARE: The time of your life, brought to you by Australian seniors. Please leave a review and share this show with someone you know or plenty of people you know, even better. Visit seniors.com au/podcast for more episodes. I'm Jean Kittson. Thanks for listening, and remember, it's your time, so dare to make it count. Go for it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sam Jones and Nadia Budihardjo discuss WA diving-turned-robotics company Dredge Robotics. Plus: State moves toend no-grounds evictions; $40m Bunnings for Dalyellup; and Red Gully flag Gingin battery system.

Jimmy Smith and special guest Adam Blair are live from McDonald Jones Stadium, wrapping up all the latest NRL headlines before a big Sunday of footy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Today's Big Pod, 00.00: Intro 03.45 :Bunnings get your onions up to code 09.10: How to calm yourself before a date 13.25 :Top 6 - Ways to make your school ball cheaper 19.35: Vaughan's a rugby VIP 24.25: SLP - Do you put toilet paper down first before using? 30.44: Everything is chips 34.50: Suzy Cato Interview 44.37: Have you been scammed overseas? 52.50: Friday Flashback 57.00: Hayley has a problem with her show 1.01.50: Devil Wears Prada Review 1.08.00:Fact of the day 1.13.00: Have you cheated death 1.26.00: AnonyBox - What is your number 1.35.00: What was the rouge parenting move? 1.41.50 Traits that make you the perfect travel partner See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the iconic sausage sizzle to its team of red shirts and partnerships with Vegemite and Bluey, Bunnings isn't just a brand...it's a staple of Australian culture. Recently named Australia's most trusted brand by Roy Morgan, the warehouse giant is supported by a seriously deliberate marketing machine focused on community engagement. Recorded live on the shop floor, this episode of The CMO Show sits down with Justine Mills, General Manager of Marketing at Bunnings, to unpack how a hardware store has become part of Australia's cultural fabric.  This isn't about glossy campaigns or influencer deals. It's about why the person in the red shirt knows more than any brand ambassador ever could and how Bunnings has built systems to let real frontline expertise lead the marketing. Justine dives into the Red Shirt Content Creator program, how everyday team members have become trusted creators, and why its inhouse content engine, Hammer Media, works not just as a retail media network, but as a credibility generator.  You'll hear how Bunnings captures real in‑store moments and resists polishing them into something unrecognisable. No hype. No hard sell. Just useful help, delivered in the same tone Australians have trusted for decades. For CMOs navigating growth and authenticity in an era of performance metrics and attribution, this episode breaks it down: how do you scale without losing soul? How do you drive a sector without feeling corporate? And how do you make marketing feel less like marketing and more like part of the community you serve?  It's rare look at how one of Australia's most iconic brands earns trust, keeps it, and proves that the most powerful marketing strategy still starts on the shop floor… preferably near the snag stand.    This episode is brought to you by impact advisory, communications and events agency, ImpactInstitute in partnership with Adobe.  www.impactinstitute.com.au | https://business.adobe.com/au

Episode #255 features Andrew Fraser, Chair of Bank of Queensland, Chancellor of Griffith University, President of Motorsport Australia, and former Deputy Premier and Treasurer of the state of Queensland. In conversation with Vidit Agarwal, Andrew shares his journey — from entering politics young and rising rapidly to the top of Queensland Government, to the very bitter public loss that ended his political career, becoming a stay-at-home dad in the aftermath, and the reinvention that led him to some of Australia's most significant boardrooms. He breaks down what that period of collapse taught him about ego, judgment and sustainable leadership, how he now thinks through complex strategic decisions, why he uses sport constantly as a metaphor for teams and performance, the importance of “keeping up the chat” as a leader, and the revealing question he asks every new hire to test for self-awareness and honesty. Andrew also unpacks the realities of chairing major institutions, transitioning from operator to governance, and how Australia should think about leadership, sovereignty and long-term competitiveness. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________ Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital, City of Sydney and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world's most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Anil Sabharwal (Global VP, Product at Google), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Stevie Case (Chief Revenue Officer, Vanta), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths),  David Haber (GP, a16z), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Lemieux (CTO, Shopify + Atlassian), Sweta Mehra (EGM, NAB; ex CMO, ANZ), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Sam Sicilia (Chief Investment Officer, Hostplus), Craig Tiley (CEO, US Tennis), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Niki Scevak (Co-Founder, Blackbird Ventures), Mike Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), Trent Cotchin (3x Premiership Winning Captain, Richmond FC), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Matteo Franceschetti (CEO, Eight Sleep), Vivek Bhatia (CEO, MUFG), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica) and more

Elisha Newell speaks to Nadia Budihardjo about ATOM Group, a business described as the Bunnings of the mining industry. Plus: Government fees waived for lithium producers; Ritz Carlton half stake sold for $88 million; and Karratha camp in $45m deal.

⁠PRE ORDER NEW MERCH HERE⁠ ⁠JOIN OUR PATREON FOR HEAPS OF BONUS STUFF⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ROT: Harry pulls of a heist to rob his local pub of every last drop of beer. The Today Show dug up some embarassing footage of Josh. Schemes: Free Bunnings voucher & dollars of your groceries. Did a listener just break the Spread Eagle Sprint record? Sketch Tank: Adelaide beer sizes are NOT safe. IF YOU SUBSCRIBE TO PATREON Apple adds $3 USD when buying through the Patreon app. So please if you do want to sign up buy on your browser OR on your desktop computer/laptop. That's $3 USD straight to Apple for nothing. It should be $5 USD//8.50 AUD at checkout. Apple and IOS are complete dogs. Feel free to cancel and restart if they got you already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you shopped at a Waikato Bunnings store today, you probably had your face scanned. The hardware giant switched on its new technology at its Hamilton South and Te Rapa stores this week. The AI technology is targeting repeat shoplifters and offenders and is is due to be implemented at all Bunnings stores around New Zealand in a phased rollout. Bunnings New Zealand general manager Melissa Haines spoke to Lisa Owen.

Repeat offenders are the target of the recent Bunnings facial recognition technology rollout. It's turning on scanners in Te Rapa and Hamilton South today, before later rolling them out countrywide. Threats have more than doubled in the hardware retailer's stores in the past four years, 34 percent from repeat offenders. Bunnings New Zealand general manager Melissa Haines says data on regular shoppers won't be kept. "If someone comes into our stores, there's a very quick scan of the face - if there's any match to a person that's previously committed serious harm in our stores, then that's where we're using it." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you haven't watched the Bunnings video yet showing its staff being attacked, I recommend you go and watch it - especially if you feel uneasy about the company using CCTV for facial recognition. It's a compilation of incidents that have occurred in its stores. The first incident shows a man pulling a knife on a staff member and threatening them so he can walk out the door with two trolleys' worth of stolen goods. That happened at the Porirua store. The next incident shows a man holding a box who runs at and knocks over a staff member, while another man behind him tries to steal a second box. That happened at the Takanini store. The incident I found hardest to watch is a man approaching a staff member at their car in a mostly empty car park. He sidles up to them, then smacks them in the head when they're not expecting it. He then chases the staff member as they run away and trip because they are so frightened. Now, let's be clear about what's going on here - Bunnings is releasing this video as part of a PR campaign. It's trying to convince us that it needs to use facial recognition technology in two of its Hamilton stores. What blows my mind is that it has to go to these lengths. It's been trialling facial recognition since 2018. It's fought its way through a tribunal process in Australia. It's had the Privacy Commissioner here, and the equivalent over the ditch, watching them. It's engaged a Māori digital sovereignty expert. It's released at least two of these video compilations. And all of this, so far in New Zealand, is just for permission to operate in two stores. Not all stores - just two. Two Hamilton stores. That's because there are still enough people worried that Bunnings will take our biometric data and sell it, lose it or wrongly deny entry to some innocent person. I would have thought this was a slam dunk. I would have thought the answer would be: yes, absolutely - go ahead and use facial recognition if that's what you need to do to keep your staff safe. Because sure, something might go wrong one day with the CCTV. But go and watch those videos. Things are going wrong right now. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight on The Huddle, Auckland councillor Maurice Williamson and former Green MP Gareth Hughes joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more! Bunnings is set to begin rolling out facial recognition technology in some stores in order to combat retail crime. Do we think this is the way to go? Will other big stores follow suit? Has the Government made the right call with the four-stage national fuel plan? Are we worried they're not taking things seriously? Moana Pasifika is likely to shut down at the end of the 2026 Super Rugby season - what do we make of this? What do we think went wrong here? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Monique Bowley, Stacey Hicks and Amelia Lester unpack the 'max 3-hour mum' theory. That’s how long Skims co-founder and Kardashian-adjacent CEO Emma Grede thinks women should spend with their kids each day on weekends. We discuss whetther the mother of four's ‘quality over quantity’ approach is genius - or missing the point. Also, is kids’ sport officially broken? From private strength sessions for 8-year-olds to parents getting red-carded on the sidelines, we ask when sport stopped being about 'having a go' and started being a ‘gateway to success’. Plus, what exactly is the 'Jessica' hack? We discuss the viral TikTok trick that could snap your child out of a spiral. And, in our modern screen age, is there any merit to the old-school rule that children should be ‘seen and not heard’? RECCOMMENDATIONS: Monz recommends: The Art Gallery (it’s free!), beach patrol (also free!) and the ultimate school holiday hack - a trip to Bunnings. Amelia recommends: The Brinkley Yearbooks Series by Sarah Sax Stacey recommends: Age of Attraction on Netflix and Harry Styles’ YouTube cover of ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’. Support independent women's media What To Listen To Next: Don't miss an episode of Parenting Out Loud Golden Retriever Dads & The ‘You Come Last’ Rule The Celebrity Who Loves Bad Kids & The Sibling Effect The Bad Habit That's Back & The Politics Of ‘Bagsing’ New Twin Dad Luca Enters The Chat & Divorce Just Got A Rebrand Empty Weekend Parenting & The Viral Rocking Chair Test Wait, Did We Just Witness The Ultimate Co-Parenting Sin? The Problem With Being The 'Easy Kid' FFS, Just Invite People Over To Your Messy House Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts What to read: 'I'm the breadwinner, and my husband stays home. Stop asking this one question.' 'I thought training for a marathon meant weeks of mum guilt. This one moment changed everything.' 'I thought I was raising my son right. Then he made one comment.' GET IN TOUCH: Share your feedback! Send us a voice message or email us at podcast@mamamia.com.au Join our Facebook group Mamamia Family to talk about the show. Follow us on Instagram @mamamia_family CREDITS: Hosts: Stacey Hicks, Amelia Lester & Monique Bowley Group Executive Producer: Ruth Devine Content Manager: Talissa Bazaz Executive Producer: Sasha Tannock Audio Producer: Jacob Round Junior Content Producer: Tessa Kotowicz Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land on which we have recorded this podcast.Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A major shake up is coming to Bunnings Warehouse and it could impact weekend warriors across the country. From store changes to new policies and customer perks, we break down what this bombshell announcement means for tradies, DIY lovers and anyone who’s ever lined up for a sausage sizzle. Is it a game changer or a step too far? Also, at what age are you your happiest? We have the answer for you according to the experts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

JOIN OUR PATREON FOR HEAPS OF BONUS STUFF⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ROT... Harry self reflects are doing the weirdest plane bit yet. What's the most famous hog reveal you've ever seen? Schemes: testing the Bunnings price beat guarantee. Harry actual saw a hot air balloon crash. Project Hail Mary's big problem (no spoilers) IF YOU SUBSCRIBE TO PATREON Apple adds $3 USD when buying through the Patreon app. So please if you do want to sign up buy on your browser OR on your desktop computer/laptop. That's $3 USD straight to Apple for nothing. It should be $5 USD//8.50 AUD at checkout. Apple and IOS are complete dogs. Feel free to cancel and restart if they got you already. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PLANE & BEER HATS HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when your brand doesn't own the transaction, but still needs to influence the path to purchase and build a direct customer relationship? Ryobi is sold exclusively through Bunnings, which means the retailer owns the checkout. Vera Skocic, Head of Customer and Strategy (Consumer & Commercial) at Techtronic Industries, shares how Ryobi has built the right to play across the full customer lifecycle, from pre-purchase consideration to post-purchase onboarding and maintenance. We unpack how extended warranty became a powerful value exchange to grow first-party data, how lifecycle journeys and maintenance nudges extend the experience beyond the PDP, and how intent signals like wishlists, product comparison tools and add-to-cart integration help qualify demand and drive higher-converting traffic into Bunnings. Vera also walks through the foundational stack underpinning this work and explains why she's taking a cautious approach to CDPs in an increasingly composable, AI-shaped landscape. If you're a brand operating in a retailer-led ecosystem and looking to use data to strengthen customer experience and drive commercial outcomes, this episode is packed with practical insights.

Third-Party Marketplaces on Woolworths, Big W, Kmart & Bunnings: What Australian Shoppers Need to KnowIn this Friends With Money Podcast episode, Money Magazine managing editor Vanessa Walker speaks with journalist Ryan Johnson about the rise of third-party marketplaces and why Australians are often confused when trusted retailers like Woolworths, BigW, Bunnings, Kmart and others sell items supplied by third-party sellers.They discuss how widespread online shopping is in Australia, how marketplaces benefit retailers through rapid range expansion without holding inventory, and what consumers gain—and risk—through wider product choice.Ryan shares an example of a BigW marketplace return dispute and outlines common issues such as inconsistent delivery, extra fees, and return complications, plus concerns about lower-quality or unsafe products.They also explain that Australian Consumer Law guarantees still apply, but shoppers should check who the seller is and escalate unresolved disputes to fair trading agencies or the ACCC.01:20 How many Australians shop online02:01 Why shoppers get confused04:34 Why retailers love it05:31 Consumer upsides and tradeoffs06:17 Hidden traps and returns08:01 Safety and trust risks09:00 Your rights under ACL10:04 How to protect yourselfPodcast Links:Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyMoney WebsiteYouTube Podcast PlaylistEmail Us: podcast@moneymag.com.auGet stories like this in our newsletter: bit.ly/3GDirbR

Micky Ahuja catapulted his company MA Services from nothing to the big time to become the security provider of choice to the federal government retail giants like Coles and Bunnings, and a major sponsor of AFL clubs.But his empire was a house of cards. Today Nick McKenzie on one of the more spectacular and disturbing corporate unravellings in recent memory. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Micky Ahuja catapulted his company MA Services from nothing to the big time to become the security provider of choice to the federal government retail giants like Coles and Bunnings, and a major sponsor of AFL clubs.But his empire was a house of cards. Today Nick McKenzie on one of the more spectacular and disturbing corporate unravellings in recent memory. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ON TODAY SHOW: The birds and the bees, where did you tell your kids they came from? Bunning seed section or a ball of light? The craze on putting protein in everything. Plus, its Wednesday which means Charlies Burning Question. For more, follow our socials: Instagram Facebook TikTokSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today marks the third major Gender Pay Gap report and for the first time ever, the data includes both the private sector and the Commonwealth public sector. While the gap is slowly shrinking—men are still more likely to hold top-paying roles. We sit down with Minister for Finance and Women Katy Gallagher to discuss the silent killers of pay equity and how we get to gender pay parity. And in headlines today, The US-Israeli war against Iran has expanded with Israel also launching strikes against Lebanon; The federal government’s travel advice service Smart Traveler has told Australian's stuck overseas due to the US/Israel operation in Iran, to sign up to a registration portal to receive updates; One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been censured by the Senate following her inflammatory remarks against Muslims; A young freshwater crocodile spotted hanging out in a creek behind a Bunnings in Newcastle has been rescued and relocated The DFAT Crisis registration page for Aussies stuck overseas crisis.dfat.gov.au For urgent consular assistance: If calling from overseas +61 2 6261 3305, In Australia 1300 555 135 THE END BITS Support independent women's media Check out The Quicky Instagram here GET IN TOUCHShare your story, feedback, or dilemma! Send us a voice note or email us at thequicky@mamamia.com.au CREDITS Hosts: Claire Murphy Guest: Katy Gallagher, Minister for Women, Finance & Public Service Group Executive Producer: Ilaria BrophyBecome a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here is what you might have missed this week: A New Weightloss Solution Hit the Market this week and the guys were quick to talk about it along with Bunnings changes, an unexpected medical side effect, Kates parking challenge and much more - including everyones favourite segment "Out of Context Kate"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A major shake up is coming to Bunnings Warehouse and it could impact weekend warriors across the country. From store changes to new policies and customer perks, we break down what this bombshell announcement means for tradies, DIY lovers and anyone who’s ever lined up for a sausage sizzle. Is it a game changer or a step too far? Every Aussie will have an opinion on this one. Just one question… can you use this new service for a sausage sanger?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are the lullabies we grew up on due for a rewrite? The team dives headfirst into the debate over whether classic nursery rhymes are too dark, outdated or downright offensive for 2026. From questionable lyrics to themes that wouldn’t fly today, we unpack the push to modernise childhood favourites and ask the big question, are we protecting kids or erasing tradition? We talk Punch, the monkey that has gone viral over the weekend, the HUGE change coming to your favourite Bunnings store and so much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A battle for front door delivery as Bunnings joins Uber Eats in Australia and New Zealand. More than 30 thousand tools, garden, and household items will be available on the delivery service sometime this year, claiming to be at your door within 60 minutes. Takeaways, groceries, and pharmacy items are among the products currently available Gorilla Technology Chief Executive Paul Spain told Mike Hosking it's a move to compete with Amazon. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wesfarmers posts a $1.6 billion profit jump as Bunnings and lithium carry the load… but Officeworks runs low on black ink. Zip Co, the buy now pay later, saw its shares crash more than 33% yesterday in one of the biggest selloffs this reporting season. Telstra has seen its profits jump 8% as it hikes prices on its mobile plans…and sees the financial benefits of its major staff cutting. _ Download the free app (App Store): http://bit.ly/FluxAppStore Download the free app (Google Play): http://bit.ly/FluxappGooglePlay Daily newsletter: https://bit.ly/fluxnewsletter Flux on Instagram: http://bit.ly/fluxinsta Flux on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@flux.finance —- The content in this podcast reflects the views and opinions of the hosts, and is intended for personal and not commercial use. We do not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, statement or other information provided or distributed in these episodes.__See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Friday Headlines: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested, first meeting of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, Greg Lynn applies for bail, Aussies drop $17bn at Bunnings and Kmart, and YouTube’s first-ever video deemed museum-worthy. Deep DIve: Dinosaur bones and fossils are a highly sought-after market - snapped up by private investors, celebrities, researchers, museums, and increasingly, sold online to the highest bidder. Just before Christmas, an Australian family made a remarkable discovery: a fossilised vertebra believed to be more than 20 million years old. But their findings sparked a much bigger conversation over the debate of science vs status. In this episode of The Briefing, Helen Smith is joined by leading paleontologist Michael Archer to unpack the ethics, economics and how everyday Aussies are helping make ancient discoveries.Further listening from the headlines: The Trump 'vanity project' on Albo's desk Follow The Briefing: TikTok: @thebriefingpodInstagram: @thebriefingpodcast YouTube: @TheBriefingPodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The hosts take open a sweeping look at the week's most consequential retail developments before heading live to the Narvar Podcast Studio at the NRF Big Show for a deep dive into AI, agentic commerce, and the evolving post-purchase customer journey.The news segment explores Saks Global's decision to close nine full-line stores, underscoring ongoing consolidation in the luxury industry and challenges in multi-line retail. The hosts examine luxury's continued bifurcation, with Kering struggling while Hermès thrives, reinforcing that luxe positioning alone isn't enough — execution matters.In specialty retail, the “collapse of the unremarkable middle” continues as Toys “R” Us Canada, Francesca's, and Eddie Bauer face significant retrenchment if not extinction, while Tractor Supply and Aritzia aggressively expand. Kroger appoints its first external CEO, Greg Boren, signaling operational rigor ahead, while Costco once again posts remarkable sales growth  Meanwhile, Target begins meaningful leadership restructuring — a foundational step in what is likely a multi-year turnaround. On the radar: AI-powered retail crime prevention at Bunnings and the imminent opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, a major infrastructure development for North American trade.The featured interview brings Henry Spear, SVP Digital North America, JD Sports, and David Morin, VP Customer Strategy for Narvar, to the mic for a timely discussion on agentic commerce and how leveraging product returns can create competitive differentiation. About UsSteve Dennis is a strategic advisor and keynote speaker focused on growth and innovation, who has also been named one of the world's top retail influencers. He is the bestselling author of two books: Leaders Leap: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption and Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a Forbes senior retail contributor and on social media.Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the NRF as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2025 and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

Taking a trip down memory lane with the Fitzy, Wippa and Kate Ritchie show means revisiting one of our greatest-ever parodies made even better by the fact we roped in the real music artist. And yes, Kate’s infamous Bunnings story that still haunts us gets another run.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.