Life Matters - Separate stories podcast

In just a few short years, AI has gone from being a novelty to becoming embedded in our lives. According to a 2026 report from Stanford University, Australians are among the heaviest intentional users of AI in the world — and yet, many of us don't trust AI. It's a complicated relationship. So how are you feeling about the way AI is showing up in your relationships, your work, your daily life?

Is it OK to fib about your faith to get your child into a good school?  This week the Aunties share advice with a listener who's weighing up whether or not they should tell a little white lie to help their kid's chances at the local Catholic school. 

When you look at the things in your life, what really makes you happy?  Recent ABS data reveals that people are less happy now than they were in 2020. When did we start to consider our happiness and how has life satisfaction changed over time?

According to a Play Australia survey from 2025, more than 70 per cent of children play in their homes — or at their friends' houses  — and a quarter of kids said they needed better opportunities to play outside.  Today is the UNICEF International Day of Play, recognising the United Nations-backed right of every child to play. Which is all well and good — but are we actually building communities wh...

After hanging up the Olympic swimming goggles, growing and birthing five beautiful children, Libby Trickett was ready to make her 40s the decade of health and fitness.  But last June she had what she thought was a bad panic attack. Eight months later, she found out it was actually a spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) heart attack. SCAD mostly affects otherwise healthy women in their 40s...

For many book lovers, the local store is their happy place. Even if you're not an avid reader, bookstores can carry cultural significance, giving people the opportunity to gather and be a part of their community. Research reveals that in a decade, nearly half of Australia's bookstores have shut down. So what is the future of bookstores and what does it mean for the book industry?

When you've got a difficult choice to make, what's your go-to system to reach an answer? Do you pull out the magic eight ball, or do you reach for a mathematical formula? The late physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman encountered this dilemma in the 1970s, struggling to decide if he and his friend should try something new off the menu at their favourite Thai restaurant. Feynman came up with...

When you think about the critical infrastructure that makes up a city, what comes to mind? Roads, bridges, power lines, public hospitals — what about trees? The gentle giants that shelter our footpaths, filter our air and cool our cities provide a lot for the communities where they grow. And in many places, people have a deep attachment to those trees. So when one gets cut down, sometimes the peop...

As many as one in five Australians have dyslexia. The condition makes the basics of literacy, reading and writing, a huge hurdle, and if not managed properly can have major snowball effects on confidence and self esteem — especially if it goes undetected. But plenty of high profile people with successful careers have learned to live with dyslexia, like British actor Tom Holland, who last week reve...

How many loyalty programs are you a part of? There are many different programs out there each with their own set of incentives which get you to take part. But are you getting any real benefits from them in exchange for your purchasing data?

Australia uses 1.3 million tonnes of plastic packaging every year. And while most of us do our best to recycle, the majority of that packaging still ends up in landfill. Exemptions that allow some companies to export certain types of plastic waste are being wound back, but trust in our recycling system has taken a real hit in recent years.  So is Australia equipped to deal with our own plastic?

Bringing a pet into your family is supposed to be a love-at-first-sight moment signalling a life ahead with your new best friend, but often the day-to-day reality can be a lot harder. So what happens when that initial excitement wears off, and the stress of pet ownership sets in? How do you build a relationship with your four-legged friend, and make it through the hard days?

Every parent wants their child to grow into a kind, capable adult. But many who are raising young boys right now are worried about their future.  Childhood development expert Billy Garvey has worked with thousands of families over the last two decades, helping anxious, angry, withdrawn boys and supporting the parents who don't know where to begin.  He joins Life Matters to talk about his new book,...

Richard Scolyer, the leading melanoma pathologist and former Australian of the Year who revolutionised cancer research, has died at age 59. He leaves behind an incredible legacy, having volunteered himself as "patient zero" in a radical approach to treat an aggressive brain tumour. In an open letter published after his death, Scolyer described his life as one "filled with happiness, optimism, oppo...

In an era where we have access to the technology, surgery and drugs to modify every aspect of our appearance, how can we build a relationship with our selves based on compassion and acceptance?

After years of training and patience, listener Simone's reactive dog and excitable toddler are living happily together, but the stress of constant supervision — and an extremely restricted social life — has taken its toll. So how do you know when loyalty to a beloved pet is no longer enough? And what do you do when every option feels heartbreaking?

When something happens that you think crosses a moral line, do you call it out? And if you have, what was the moral cost?  The bravery of whistleblowers has touched every corridor of power  — politics, the military, banking, policing — whistleblowers are behind some of the most significant moments in history. But what are the ethical considerations?

According to Beyond Blue, 1 in 2 Australian are facing burnout in the workplace. Burnout almost seems like an inevitable condition of the modern age. And we're so used to it, we kind of just accept this as a natural state of feeling awful all the time, feeling like there's never enough time to rest. But what if you could change that, without totally changing your life? 

Ten years ago, Facebook updated its platform to introduce new ways to interact with posts you were seeing in your feed.  Alongside the humble thumbs-up, a range of smiley face emojis offered a one-click shortcut to express love, surprise, sadness, and the most powerful emotion of all: anger.  In the years since, it seems our online appetite for anger has only grown, with algorithms amplifying 60-s...

From pop culture milestones to forgotten parts of the city you love — there's a Facebook page for that. Whether it's a page sharing memories of music and art from a beloved decade, or old buildings from a town you used to live in, the internet loves a bit of nostalgia because we love it too.  These pages are little pockets of nice in an online world that can get pretty ugly, but they're also perfo...

You can probably think of at least five things at work that are kind of related to your job, but in reality become distractions that keep you from achieving what you need to do.  As constant emails, notifications and all the other tasks of your workday build up, this accumulation has been given a new name: "thoughtload".How do we recognise our "thoughtload" and process it so we can get the most ou...

We share a lot of life's milestones with our friends. Remember the year of 21st birthdays? Then the season of weddings, babies, mortgages. Most of us make friends with people around our own age, and we bond over the things we're all navigating at the same stage of life. But there's something valuable in friendships that span generations, too. Friends who are decades older or younger than you bring...

Last year Australians lost more than $2 billion to scams, and while the number of victims has fallen, the total combined losses has risen. The federal government has announced its plans to claw back some of that money, introducing an automatic reimbursement scheme for scam victims with verified losses up to $3,000. So could this help stop cyber criminals from taking off with your hard-earned cash?

Earlier this year, lawyer, educator and advocate Adair Donaldson was confronted with unimaginable loss. His son Oliver, the youngest of four boys, died suddenly. He was 19. As Adair navigates the grief that has followed, he's found himself reflecting on fatherhood. These reflections have taken the form of a series of letters — deeply personal, generous letters — to the fathers of boys.

Part of being a good friend is providing a sympathetic ear, but what do you do if you think they need professional help? It can be hard to be there for a friend when they keep circling the same issues and aren't tracking well. What are the signs you need to look for and how do you start the conversation without crossing a line?