The Leap Year

Clem Baade is a public servant and performer. He has worked for the Department of Human Services for thirty years, and this year, like many others, he moved his work and his art online. For the very last episode of The Leap Year, Clem talks to Sally about working with the DHHS and Rawcus Theatre, and how poetry has helped him through the pandemic.  With narration from Scott Limbrick and Robert Frost.

Ed Caesar is a contributing writer to The New Yorker whose work has taken him on a number of adventures, while covering stories about the mysterious owners of London’s largest private residence, Russian money-laundering scams, and Mount Everest in his latest book, The Moth and Mountain. Speaking to Sally from lockdown in his home in Manchester, the UK, Ed talks about craving fun, feelings of restlessness and his approach to research. 

Ramachandra Guha is an Indian writer and social commentator, whose work traverses environmental, social, economic, historical and political issues. Speaking to Sally from India, he discusses India’s coronavirus response, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s approach to crises and the relationship between cricket and nationalism.

Ahmed Dini is an African youth community leader, who lives in one of the nine Melbourne public-housing towers that underwent hard lockdown in July. In this episode, he speaks with Sally about the shock and the lingering implications for residents detained in their homes without warning, and about the dissonance between Victoria’s progressive self-image and the harsher reality laid bare by Covid-19.

Hana Assafiri is the owner of the Moroccan Soup Bar, a Melbourne dining and community institution, employing vulnerable women workers. In this episode, she talks with Sally about the creative ways she and her colleagues connected, supported and nourished each other during lockdown – and how the pandemic has shifted her understanding of community and hospitality.

The public health response to Covid-19 in remote Indigenous communities has been a remarkable success story of the pandemic in Australia. In this episode, Sally speaks with the former Northern Territory politician Alison Anderson, about how communities, health services and all levels of government worked together to keep Covid-19 out.

When the New South Wales-Victoria border opened up on Monday, Veronica Haccou was among those who felt great relief. Veronica lives in Albury, New South Wales, and works in Wodonga, Victoria. She'd been navigating daily border checkpoints since July, just to go to work. In this episode, she talks with Sally about the stark, surreal contrast between the two border towns during Victoria's second lockdown and about the widespread exhaustion in a community that has lived through devastating bushfires and a pandemic in a single year.

At the start of the year, 23-year-old Will Smith was pursuing his dreams in Boston on a competitive rowing scholarship. When he returned to Australia in March, he was diagnosed with Covid-19. Eight months on, he speaks to Sally about the effects of ‘long Covid’ and how the virus has changed the course of his life. 

Dr Mario D’Cruz is a medical educator and practitioner, whose work is focused on spinal and mobility impairment. Mario himself was injured in a car accident 20 years ago and lives with quadriplegia. He talks to Sally about the challenges and upsides of the pandemic and about the complicated dynamics of care – as a doctor and as a person living with disability. 

Rebecca Marshall is an inspector with Victoria Police. In this episode, she speaks with Sally about the chaotic first weeks of March; the pressures, dangers and heartbreaks of policing during Melbourne’s lockdown and her efforts to protect herself, her family, her workmates and the wider community from the virus.

Rabbi Ralph Genende was shattered when, for the first time in 75 years, he had to close the doors of Melbourne’s Caulfield Shule in March. In this episode, he talks with Sally about leadership during times of hardship, prayer in isolation, preservation of life in Jewish law and how ritual helps us shape time in moments of crisis. 

Kara Baker is a fashion designer, whose business stopped dead on 13 March this year, when a host of major events including Melbourne Fashion Festival were cancelled. In this episode, she talks with Sally about how major historical events influence the evolution of fashion, how the pandemic might change outdated and unsustainable fashion business models and how women might want to burn their leggings after lockdown.

Luke Davies is a poet, novelist and screenwriter, best known for Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction, and the Academy Award-nominated film, Lion. This year, he has found himself alone in Los Angeles with the thing a writer wishes for most: all the time in the world. He speaks to Sally Warhaft about how he is passing these slow days, his feelings of America, and his deep longing for Australia. 

Gabrielle Chan is the author of Rusted Off: Why Country Australia is Fed Up. Speaking to Sally from her farm in Harden, in the South West Slopes of New South Wales, Gabrielle reflects on regional economies, food production and how Covid-19 has shifted routines, priorities and the atmosphere in her small country town.

Glyn Davis is a Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University's Crawford School of Public Policy, and previously served as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne. The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge economic and human toll on Australia’s university sector, with thousands of jobs lost, students forced to study remotely and international students left stranded due to travel restrictions. Glyn Davis reflects on what has been lost, and what can be salvaged.

Earlier this year, Todd Heery was already preparing himself for a year of isolation. Todd is the plumber at Mawson Research Station in Antarctica – the only continent so far untouched by the coronavirus. When he boarded the boat for departure, he never expected that the world he was leaving behind would change the way it has. In this episode, Todd speaks to Sally Warhaft about life in Antarctica, the importance of ritual and surviving isolation. 

Earlier this month, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews appeared for his 100th consecutive press conference. But politicians are not the only ones on this marathon. Rachel Baxendale is the state political reporter for the Australian, and is one of the journalists covering these highly public press conferences. She has also been subjected to online trolling, and has even become a meme – #WhatsTheIssueRachel? In this episode, she describes what it’s really been like for journalists this year. 

Earlier this month, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews appeared for his 100th consecutive press conference. But politicians are not the only ones on this marathon. Rachel Baxendale is the state political reporter for the Australian, and is one of the journalists covering these highly public press conferences. She has also been subjected to online trolling, and has even become a meme – #WhatsTheIssueRachel? In this episode, she describes what it’s really been like for journalists this year. 

Professor Margot Prior was a pioneer in the advancement of autism research in Australia. She was also a multi-talented talented musician, and a loving mother. Her life ended when she contracted the coronavirus in an aged care facility this year. In this episode, Sally Warhaft speaks to Margot’s daughter, Sian Prior – a writer and memoirist – about Margot's wonderful life, and Sian's personal experience of loss during this most difficult year.  Content warning: this episode includes discussions of death and illness. 

Dennis Altman is a writer and academic who first came to attention in 1972 with the publication of his book Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation. While the coronavirus pandemic is most people’s first experience of having their lives affected by a pandemic, Dennis was President of the AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific from 2001-2005, and has been a member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society. In this episode, he shares his insight on the similarities – and differences – between coronavirus and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the upcoming American election, and the ache of distance.