What happens when you put politicians in a room and ask them to talk honestly about who really influences their decisions?

This bonus episode is a live recording from a one-of-a-kind gala in Canberra dreamed up by social-media firebrand (and friend of the show) Punters Politics. Instead of corporations buying access to ministers, everyday Australians bought the tables, and the proceeds went toward hiring a lobbyist to represent the public for a change.

Josh hosted the flagship conversation of the night, joined by Senator Bridget McKenzie, Senator David Pocock, MP Allegra Spender and later MP Helen Haines, to tackle the taboo topic at the heart of Australian politics: how money, access and cosy fundraising circuits shape the worldviews of the people writing our laws.

Zohran Mamdani has just been elected mayor of New York, parachuting onto a political terrain more polarised and energised than it's been since the 1960s. How do you maintain an independent satirical voice in such vitriolic times?

Joining Josh from NYC on a Substack Livestream the day after the mayoral election is Jason Chatfield, one of the world’s most successful cartoonists. Jason was implausibly young when he was tapped to run Australia’s longest-running and most iconic comic strip, Ginger Meggs. After moving to the States, he won acclaim for iconic cartoons in The New Yorker, Esquire, Variety and Mad Magazine, and he served as the president of the National Cartoonists Society. Now, he's independent, on Substack.

In an age of algorithms, outrage and censorship, how far can creative people go? Politically, financially, and personal fulfillmentilly, it's a conundrum for anyone pursuing an independent creative life. Jason joined Josh from his home in Manhattan to talk Mamdani, Trump, satire, authenticity, perfectionism... and the future of free expression.

The conversation around climate change is so predictable. It's either depressing doom, science denialism, or ambitious summits that don't achieve much. Can't anyone think outside the box?

Quico Toro does. He's the Director of Climate Repair at the Anthropocene Institute, a former journalist who's written for the New York Times, Washington Post and The Atlantic, and a Venezuelan-born thinker shaped by his homeland's slide into authoritarianism.

He is deeply worried about climate chaos but believes the comfortable consensus about carbon must be shattered. There has always been a fringe of geo-engineers and techno-tinkerers with wild schemes to hack the sky or scrub the atmosphere. While most of those ideas deserve the scepticism they get, Toro's plan could, he hopes, literally save the world.