The Briefing

The State of Environment report is out, and the news isn’t good.   Australia has lost more mammal species than anywhere else on earth, along with hundreds of plant species. The losses are down to a vicious cocktail of climate change, land clearing, pollution and feral pests. We take a deeper look with Dr Ian Cresswell, one of the co-authors of the report.    On today’s Briefing, a deep dive into t...

Around eight million Australians are estimated to have been infected with Covid during the pandemic. Experts believe around 5% of those who catch the virus end up with long Covid, so as many as 400,000 people. So what is long Covid? How do you know you have it, and what can be done to treat it? Jess Davis is a journalist with the ABC, based in Canberra and she has long Covid. Jess describes what i...

The ACT has always had a liberal approach to drug use. Cannabis was decriminalised in 2020. Today it opens a pill-testing facility in Canberra’s CBD.    Gino Vumbaca is president of Harm Reduction Australia. He and his team are behind the trial of the new facility which runs tests on drugs to make sure they’re safe for the user to take. He says trials at music festivals in recent years have undoub...

Tom’s super keen to dust off his Bintang t-shirt and head to Bali. It seems everyone is overseas this winter. So how is the travel industry coping, post-pandemic?  Dean Long, CEO Australian Federation of Travel Agents, joins us to talk about the resurgence of tourism: why ticket prices are so high, why places like Bali might be slower than other places to recover, and the growth in an unexpected t...

Deborah Frances-White is the original guilty feminist.   Deborah is an Australian-born, London-based writer and comedian who is best known for her award-winning podcast, The Guilty Feminist. She is a force to be reckoned with.   In this conversation, Jamila Rizvi and Deborah Frances-White cover everything from Roe V Wade, the age of criminality, being a modern feminist and the need for a refuellin...

Will Elon Musk be forced to buy Twitter? Twitter is suing Tesla CEO Elon Musk –after Musk said he wanted out of a deal to buy the social media platform. Musk says he hasn’t been given enough information on spam accounts, but Twitter executives believe Musk is trying to get out of the acquisition because of the downturn in tech stocks. We’re joined by Meghan Bobrowsky, reporter with the Wall Street...

The latest Census revealed we’re more culturally diverse as a nation than ever before. So, we’re asking the question: ‘should the next census include more questions about ethnicity?' We dive into the pros and cons, which are more complicated than you might think. Historian Dr Amrita Malhi, fellow at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at ANU; and Mohammed Al-Khafaji, CEO of the Federatio...

Housing is the biggest living cost facing Australians. Despite the bluster, major parties aren’t offering anything to help people with the cost of rent.  Anglicare Australia has released its Rental Affordability Snapshot that found less than 2% of rentals are affordable for a full-time worker on the minimum wage. For a person out of work, it’s 0%. Anglicare Australia Head of Government Relations,...

Boris Johnson has resigned as British prime minister after a series of scandals meant his party could no longer support him.       Latika Bourke, the Sydney Morning Herald’s UK correspondent, tells us Johnson will be remembered most for his role in Britain leaving the European Union.  He’s also known for partygate, where Johnson and his staff held parties in Downing Street while the rest of the co...

14 people are in custody following the death of an 8-year-old girl in the Queensland town of Toowoomba back in January. Her parents have been detained since her death, and then last week 12 more people were charged with the child’s murder.   We’re joined by David Chen from the ABC Toowoomba bureau who has been following this story since Day One.  So in this episode of The Briefing, who are these p...

Dr Neela Janakiramanan is a hand surgeon, based in Melbourne. The last two years have been trying for her and her colleagues, there is a significant physical and emotional toll of tending to patients during a once in a generation global pandemic.   Putting patients’ needs ahead of her own is what Neela believes in most, she’s a proud advocate for patient-focused care. She believes it’s an essentia...

Western Sydney and areas in the NSW Illawarra and Hunter have been hammered by yet another round of devastating floods for the fourth time in 18 months.  So, is climate change to blame?  Or are we simply building in the wrong places?  We’re joined by Jason Evans, Professor at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales to explore whether the science is settled.  On this...

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders now have access to a new 24/7 national crisis support telephone service - 13 YARN The service is staffed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.   Suicide accounts for 40% of all deaths of Indigenous children, and the suicide death rate among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is double th...

Everyone knows someone who’s getting Covid for a second time and epidemiologists are warning Covid is back on the agenda.  Why now? And how can you avoid it?  Catherine Bennett, Deakin University chair of epidemiology, joins us to talk about the new Omicron variant BA.5.  It seems to be making people sicker.  So why are we seeing an increase in numbers and should we be rolling up our sleeves for a...

One of the most startling statistics from last year’s census was for the first time, fewer than half of Australians identified as Christian. 90% of Australians identified as Christians back in 1966 - and the number has been in decline ever since. The data shows it’s millennials turning their back on God. Today’s guest is Andrew Singleton, Professor of Sociology and Social Research at Deakin Univer...

Bitcoin made a splash when it was first introduced in 2009. Since then, investors have sunk billions of dollars into cryptocurrencies. Although they were touted as being a hedge against inflation, they’ve been acting as risk assets in the recent downturn – and their value has dived with the sharemarket.  Crypto’s price has fallen 70 percent since November. Paul Vigna, who writes on cryptocurrency...

Miriam Rizvi is one third of the ARIA award nominated children’s band, The Beanies. The Beanies also have a podcast on the LiSTNR app or wherever you get your podcasts.   In this conversation Jamila Rizvi interviews her little sister Mim. They dive into the pressures of growing up in a highly successful family, how imposter syndrome manifests in different ways and the lengths Mim went to supportin...

Aussie music journalist Mawunyo Gbogbo has written a memoir taking us from where she was born in Ghana; to country NSW where she grew up; to how she became a music writer; and eventually to the bright lights of New York, the heart of hip hop. ‘Hip Hop and Hymns’ is about Mawunyo’s two great loves - music and her faith – and how both helped her confront life’s curve balls.  The memoir is about movi...

America has been rocked by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade - the case that has protected the right to abortion in the US for almost 50 years.  Already, states are banning the procedure and it may be just weeks before half of the states across the US ban abortion.    In today’s episode of The Briefing, Nick Sweeney, an Australian born director of a documentary called AKA Jane Ro...

The world watched on as Tesla founder Elon Musk told his staff working from home is over – and if they didn’t want to return to the office, they could look elsewhere for a job.  Atlassian’s Scott Farquhar came straight out and said any Tesla staffers looking for work would be welcome at Atlassian.  So is Musk right?  Is working from home dead?  Dr Libby Sander is Fellow of the Australian Institute...

So, you’ve been elected to Parliament.  What next?  How do you navigate the 75,000 square metres of Parliament House in Canberra?  Where do you get a coffee?  And where’s your office?  Annika Smethurst, the Age newspaper’s Victorian parliamentary correspondent and The Briefing’s Canberra insider, worked in the halls of federal parliament for more than a decade.  She explains what 35 new members of...

More than 3,000 Australians take their lives each year and a further 65,000 attempt suicide. A suicide aftercare service developed by Beyond Blue is helping to restore a sense of hope and belonging for people recovering after a suicidal crisis. Early evaluation findings show that measures of suicidality decreased 63% and psychological distress decreased 30% among those who participated in Beyond B...

The incredible Art Simone, fan favourite on Ru Paul’s Drag Race Down Under, joins us on this week’s episode of The Weekend Briefing.   In this conversation Jamila and Art cover it all! Everything from Art’s early forays into drag, her shock elimination and return from Drag Race Down Under. Plus, they dive into what it is about Aussie drag that sets this country apart. See omnystudio.com/listener f...

Pandemic restrictions have mostly lifted and Australians are gearing up to travel overseas. But many can’t get their passport to allow them to leave the country.  The queues to collect passports are hundreds of metres long, snaking outside passport offices in all capital cities. We’re joined by Amanda, a Briefing listener whose family had to cancel a holiday in Fiji because they couldn’t get passp...

It’s been a big week in international sport with FINA and the International Rugby League announcing bans on transgender athletes. It follows an announcement late last year from the International Olympic Committee that it would leave it up to individual sports to formulate policy on trans competitors. Trans athletes even surfaced as an election issue at the federal poll in May. Caroline Layt, a tra...