Conversations

Peter Stojanovic was working in a Melbourne meatworks when a spiritual epiphany led him to a new life, working with violent men to help change their thinkingPeter Stojanovic's family fled their tiny town in the former Yugoslavia because of religious persecution.Under the community regime, life was a struggle and after Peter's father became a Christian it became dangerous.Borders were closed to the outside world, but the family hatched a daring plan to escape.After they came to Australia, Peter soon joined the rest of his family working in the meatworks at Altona in Melbourne.But life was pulling him in other directions.After he got the 'spiritual bug' himself, he became a pastor in the Seventh Day Adventist Church, then a marriage counsellor.Now he helps men convicted of Domestic Violence offences by the court to work on changing their behaviour and their thinking.To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, singers, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

During Australia's worst bushfires Cate Tregellas and her family were forced to evacuate their home in Mallacoota and retreat to the local wharf as fire closed in. That long, terrifying night was a New Year's Eve they'll never forget. This is an episode of Days Like These, a new ABC podcast

Lach McClymont mustered hundreds of wild cattle, untouched for decades, from a remote area of the Northern Territory (R)

Cathy McGowan never imagined a future for herself as a politician. So when she became Federal Member for Indi she began doing politics very differently

Ajay is an obstetrician and urogynecologist who grew up in rural India. His father, born to one of India’s lowest classes, was also a surgeon — an improbable career that was the brainchild of Ajay’s grandmother, and funded by a whole village

When Lamorna Ash began to explore her Cornish ancestry she started work on a rusty yellow fishing trawler called the Filadelfia, scaling fish, gutting them and hauling in the nets 

John Baker on hunting down a cache of rare and impossibly valuable French wine which had been hidden away by Josef Stalin, deep in the Republic of Georgia

From painkiller addiction to parliament, Jacqui's life has been a rollercoaster (R)

Epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws on life during COVID-19, the virus she classifies as both vulnerable and ruthless

Robert built a whole life out of things which sparked his curiosity, whether they were languages, people or places. But when he met his birth mother in middle age, she didn't approve of his choices