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The latest NAPLAN results show around a third of Australian students are still falling short in literacy and numeracy – results that have barely budged since 2023. At the same time, Australia is settling a decades-long fight over how children should be taught to read. For years, many schools relied on outdated methods that encouraged children to work out words using context, pictures and oth...

Australia has changed in ways our politics is still struggling to understand.  We are now a majority migrant nation. Professional women have overtaken blue-collar men as the largest group in the workforce. And the two countries Australia has relied on most, China and the United States, have become less predictable.  Labor has adapted to parts of this new reality. The Coalition, so far, h...

Over the past two weeks, allegations of sexual assault involving some of the country’s most powerful institutions – the Swans and Sydney’s Scots College – have forced an uncomfortable question about how Australia responds when women say they have been harmed. But behind those cases is an even more troubling shift. New research suggests some young men are becoming more hosti...

As Trump’s war with Iran reaches the six-month mark, the US is increasing its economic pressure – threatening harsher sanctions not just against Iran, but against anyone else who does business with it. That puts China, the country’s most important trading partner, directly in Washington’s sights. But how much of this is just bluster? And has Trump lost the ability to turn t...

Bird flu has reached a new milestone, crossing over to infect and kill a seal in South Australia.  It marks a new phase of the outbreak, and has sparked fears for many endangered wildlife species, which face the possibility of extinction.  So how does the way we farm, eat, and live make us vulnerable to viruses like this? And could humans be at risk with the next mutation?  Today, j...

Last year, the Prime Minister was ambushed in his hotel lobby by far-right figures boasting of being fed “private intel” during the last election campaign.  The incident was one of about a dozen stunts targeting Labor, the Greens and some Independents.  It turns out, this wasn’t just about influencers trying to generate content. It was actually a co-ordinated campaign a...

Donald Trump has found a new way to make money. Trump Media and Technology Group is monetising the president’s social media posts, selling Wall Street firms early access to them for as much as $100,000 a month. And in the world of traders, a few milliseconds can mean millions of dollars. Now, Trump is being sued over the arrangement, amid claims it gives paying customers preferential access...

Almost one year ago, the Supreme Court of Victoria allowed a television camera to broadcast a sentencing for the first time ever – the hearing for convicted triple murderer Erin Patterson. Justice Christopher Beale imposed life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years for murdering three in-laws – and attempting to murder a fourth – by lacing their beef Wellingtons with...

For more than a decade, Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has been talking about gambling addiction. His advocacy means he’s become a lightning rod for people to share their stories. Now, as the government this week passed legislation aimed at reducing gambling harms, Wilkie is among an angry group of dissenters who say the bill is a “national shame”.   If you enjoy 7am , the bes...

In 2022, Masha Alyokhina escaped Russia disguised as a food delivery courier.  She had spent years being arrested, imprisoned and watched by the state for her work with punk rock protest group Pussy Riot and for speaking out against Vladimir Putin. But Alyokhina says the Russia she fled wasn’t transformed by one dramatic moment. Repression came piece by piece, until fear, censorship and...

When news broke this week of an alleged sexual assault involving the Sydney Swans AFL team in Melbourne, old faultlines in the way the sport handles accusations against its players re-ignited.  Everything from the players involved, to the language used by the club, and the way the media reported the allegations, came under the microscope.  So how much has changed when it comes to footy p...

Over six days of public hearings, Australians with a disability told parliament what losing NDIS support would mean for their independence, their families, and their everyday lives. Despite more than 4,000 submissions and calls for reforms to be paused, the government’s overhaul of the scheme passed the senate yesterday, with support from the Coalition. By tightening access and reducing some...

Last week Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for fewer childhood vaccines, sprouting links to autism – which have been definitively disproved by scientists and health organisations around the world. During Trump’s second term, the misinformation from the president and his health secretary, RFK Jr, has been relentless – undermining public trust in vaccines, as outbreak...

For most of Australia’s recent history, preparing for war has meant preparing the military.  Now, the government is turning its attention on the rest of us.  A new parliamentary inquiry will examine Australia's civilian preparedness and whether we could keep fuel flowing, supply chains moving and essential services running through a major conflict.  It comes as the government...

Whistleblower David McBride has been released from prison on parole, after serving 27 months for leaking classified Defence documents to journalists. Those documents helped expose allegations of war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. Years on, he’s still the only person to have been sent to prison over the Afghan Files. Today, as McBride is released, we’re returning to an in...

After years of pressure to tackle gambling harm, the Albanese government is trying to get its long-awaited reforms through parliament, looking to cut a deal with the Opposition, sparking a debate over just how far the government is prepared to go to get its reforms through.  Meanwhile, immigration is becoming one of the defining battles in federal politics, as One Nation’s growing suppo...

For decades, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has helped shape politics and public debate, and in doing so, has often left lasting consequences for some of the people caught in its sights, from politicians, to public figures to everyday people. The consequences can be devastating.  Journalists Matthew Ricketson and Andrew Dodd have a name for what happens when that attention becomes a camp...

Just when you thought world politics couldn’t get any more ridiculous: tonight, far-right British politician Nigel Farage is set to face a by-election of his own making. His main opponent? A joke candidate by the name of Count Binface, who says he’s an alien space warrior, and wears a superhero costume featuring a bin for a head. The contest has turned into a circus, but the five-milli...

The Reserve Bank of Australia yesterday left interest rates on hold at 4.35 per cent: a relief for those with a mortgage.  But as the bank weighs up future interest rate hikes to try and combat inflation, some economists say there’s a fairer way to keep spending under wraps and spread the pain around.  And the alternative could leave us all with bigger retirement nest eggs. Today,...

As One Nation’s political clout rises, so too does its bank balance, courtesy of the very elites Pauline Hanson often rails against. Now an investigation by the Brisbane Times and SMH has detailed some of the places One Nation’s cash is coming from: from exclusive parties hosted at Gina Rinehart’s mansion, to movies, to merch. But perhaps even more pertinent are the contributions...

In the early hours of July 5 last year, a group of masked people allegedly broke into a defence manufacturer in Melbourne’s north-east.  Three cars were set alight. The building was vandalised, and later, a video message appeared online with a masked man claiming responsibility; warning workers involved in the weapons supply chain that they were being watched.  Waleed Aly has a PhD...

This week, Alan Jones went on trial in Sydney, more than 20 months after his arrest. The once-powerful broadcaster is now facing 22 charges of indecent assault and sexual touching involving six complainants. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denies any wrongdoing. When we recorded this episode, Jones had just been charged with 24 offences involving eight complainants. Since then the cas...

In Australian politics, access can be bought, factions can operate beyond public view, and conduct can be deeply troubling without ever meeting the definition of corruption. None of it is especially new, and maybe that’s the problem. Meanwhile, people are becoming more disconnected from the institutions that shape their lives, and less convinced that those institutions are working in their i...

Almost 30 years ago the Howard government shut down Australia’s public employment service and privatised the system that helps unemployed people find work. Since then, repeated inquiries have found the system is failing the people who need it, while the companies paid to run it rake in huge profits. Now, the Albanese government has admitted the system isn’t working and promised its big...

Alan Jones is used to attracting attention. But not like this. At 85, the once-powerful shock jock who for decades acted as judge, jury and executioner in the court of public opinion, is now the one on trial. Jones is accused of historical offences involving the indecent assault and sexual touching of teenagers and young men – claims he’s always denied. Now, a judge will decide, with t...