LIVE: Professor Ian Plimer & Dr John Bruni: Pauline Hanson's Rise, Gina Rinehart & The Global Populist Wave | Jeremy Cordeaux

Geologist, author and mining-company director Professor Ian Plimer joins Jeremy Cordeaux — with Dr John Bruni also at the table — for a wide-ranging panel on the shifting ground of Australian politics. Plimer argues Pauline Hanson has become a serious political force as high-profile figures like Gina Rinehart publicly back One Nation, while a divided Liberal Party, hamstrung by its "wets," keeps sliding. He makes the case for reward and incentive over "fear and forced," skewers bracket creep and a "fourth-generation Canberra" elite disconnected from struggling families, and shares his first-hand read on Nigel Farage, whom he first met in 1981. Bruni weighs in on the global populist wave — Giorgia Meloni's surprising pragmatism, Farage, and the lessons of Whitlam's catastrophic overreach. Sharp, contrarian and rich with insider anecdotes, recorded live from the dining room table for The Court of Public Opinion. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.