Turkish-born, Paris-based writer Ayşegül Savaş’s third novel opens with a young, ex-pat couple who are apartment hunting. Both foreigners in the city they live in and unburdened from the usual familial obligations, their days are marked by small pleasures: shopping at a local flea market, drinking coffee together before work, and taking long walks in the park. Like so much of Ayşegül’s writing, The Anthropologists is interested not just in foreignness, but what it means to establish traditions and rituals when you are starting anew. On this episode of Read This, Michael chats with Ayşegül about this latest novel and why she is trying to make foreignness the status quo.

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Peter Dutton says he’ll cut migrant numbers by 100,000 people a year as soon as he gets into office. He says it’s part of his plan to free up housing for Australians, but it could also impact the workforce needed to build new homes.

Dutton is putting a number to his plans just days after immigration dominated the first leaders’ debate.

Abul Rizvi was a senior official in the Department of Immigration from the early 90s to 2007, until he left while serving as deputy secretary. He says our current discourse ignores the need for a long-term population plan, addressing how big our country should be – and why.

Today, Abul Rizvi on the politics of population growth and the real impact of immigration on the housing crisis.

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Guest: Former deputy secretary of the department of immigration, Abul Rizvi.

Background Reading: If I was immigration minister, I would develop a population plan

Photo: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

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Elon Musk is pressing NASA to abandon its planned journeys to the moon – projects that have been decades in the making, with billions already spent and contracts already signed.

Despite backlash from NASA insiders and politicians on both sides of Congress – who view his plans as costly, disruptive and politically toxic – Musk remains resolute.

Today, Wall Street Journal reporter Emily Glazer, on whether the SpaceX CEO can really upend NASA’s return to the moon.

This is part two of a two-part series.

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Guest: Wall Street Journal reporter, Emily Glazer.

Background Reading: Elon Musk’s Mission to Take Over NASA—and Mars

Photo: Yichuan Cao/Sipa USA

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