The ABC radio host talks about copping abuse, being driven, and the rise of political violence around the world

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

On a blustery late Tuesday morning, former foreign correspondent Hamish Macdonald is proving he has got to know the terrain of Parramatta well since the ABC moved offices here from its old home in the inner city. “It’s a thriving part of Sydney now, and it’s been an easy transition,” he says, wearing a blue cloth hat and sunglasses protecting his pale skin against the burning western sun pushing through cloud over this vast riverside parkland.

Macdonald has hung up his headphones as Mornings presenter on ABC Sydney radio for the day, and as we pass Australia’s oldest surviving public building, the Georgian-style Old Government House, built by convicts between 1799 and 1818 here on Burramatta Dharug Country, an older woman approaches him, proffering a map on her mobile phone, seeking directions.