7am

Who should hold the power to decide how AI is used on our battlefields? That’s the question being debated after a face-off between the Pentagon and one of the world’s biggest AI companies. Anthropic ultimately lost its contract with the US military after refusing to let its Claude program be used for mass surveillance of American citizens, or for fully automated weapons capable of kill...

It’s been revealed this week that Monash IVF has paid millions of dollars in secret settlements, after two nightmare mixups saw women implanted with the wrong embryos – one of them giving birth to a stranger’s baby. At least three families have now received compensation for the bungle, which was caused by human error. But these mistakes – at one of the oldest and most reput...

When the United States launched strikes on Iran, Australia was quick to back the move.  Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says it’s about defending global security. But critics say that argument sounds familiar. More than two decades ago, another Australian prime minister used almost identical arguments to justify joining America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Back then, Albanese h...

An effort by Congress to rein in President Trump’s war in Iran has failed. Democrats and a few Republicans tried to use the War Powers Resolution to force Trump to get approval from Congress to keep fighting – but it didn’t pass. Now the war is dragging in more countries, fuelling a global crisis and dividing nations. Today Jasmine El-Gamal, former Pentagon adviser and founder of...

When the High Court handed down its Mabo decision, it cracked open the legal fiction at the heart of the nation. Terra Nullius was gone. For John Howard, then in opposition, it provided  an opportunity. He framed the moment not as correction, but as a threat. A story was spun to suburban and regional Australia: your backyard, your lease, your livelihood were suddenly, all under threat. For Jo...

It’s just over two years into his first term and John Howard is taking the country to another election. In that short time he has seized the mantle of economic credibility away from Labor and rewritten the argument about who could be trusted to manage the economy.  The memory of Labor's reforms while in government were suddenly distant, and the constant reminder of the devastating reces...

It was the second of March 1996. After 13 years of Labor in power, Paul Keating’s government had been defeated in a landslide, closing the door on the Hawke-Keating era and opening another on a new political age. John Howard’s victory marked the beginning of a prime ministership that would run for eleven years – redefining the Liberal Party, reshaping the economy, hardening the c...

The United States has entered a new war in the Middle East – alongside Israel – launching strikes inside Iran. Iranian authorities say civilians have been targeted, including in a strike on a girls’ primary school in Minab – killing more than a hundred children. Israel says it’s targeting the regime’s military and nuclear infrastructure. And across the region, I...

Immigration is back at the centre of federal politics – again. The Coalition’s new leadership is arguing Australia needs lower numbers, tougher rules, and a clearer cap on how many people we bring in each year. It’s a familiar conversation. In the lead up to the 2024 election, Peter Dutton tried to put a hard number on it – promising to cut migration by 100,000 a year, sayi...

In Canberra, a fight both major parties have tried to avoid is back. The Senate is examining the capital gains tax discount – the Howard-era change that slashed tax on asset profits and helped turn housing into a national obsession. It’s long been considered untouchable, especially after Labor’s bruising 2019 election defeat. But with house prices entrenched, inequality rising an...

Whistleblowers have exposed some of Australia’s biggest scandals – from Robodebt and misconduct in the banking sector, to alleged war crimes in Afghanistan – stories that often only come to light because someone inside decides to speak up. But for the people who do, the personal cost can be devastating: retaliation at work, legal threats, even prosecution. And that fear keeps oth...

Full of hubris and bravado, the State of the Union Address was classic Trump – the showman who knows how to work a crowd.  In the chamber there was plenty of love, but on the streets of America the President’s popularity has been falling. Today, US journalist Steve Clemons, editor at large of The National Interest- on the speech and the spectacle – how did Trump’s stat...

When Russia struck Ukraine four years ago it kicked off the first full scale war in Europe since World War II. Now, as Russia knocks out Ukraine’s power grid, and people freeze at temperatures of below minus 20 – is it time for President Zelensky to cut a deal? Today, Kateryna Argyrou Chair of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations on travelling through a war torn country...

By the time a wide-eyed Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was slumped in the back of a Range Rover on his way to the police station last week, the reality had hit home. The man who was once a prince, watching his life crumble before his eyes. Now, as the world reels from Andrew’s arrest, and the royals scramble to protect themselves from one of the biggest crises the palace has ever faced – a...

Elon Musk and his SpaceX team want to launch up to one million satellites as part of a proposal to power massive data centres in space. They pitch it as a clean, green alternative to regular data centres. But as Earth’s orbit becomes increasingly crowded, what will Elon’s mega constellation do to our night sky? And could a crash between satellites set off a catastrophic chain reaction?...

Coles and Woolworths are now in court. The case, brought by the consumer watchdog, came on the back of hundreds of angry posts on X, TikTok and Reddit from shoppers archiving the supermarkets giants’ prices – and accusing them of gaming their “Down Down” and “Prices Dropped” promotions. The ACCC alleges some of those promotions were misleading –  with...

This week Pauline Hanson declared there are “no good Muslims” and renewed her call for a ban on people from Gaza and other so-called “terror hotspots”. After a backlash from across the community she has since walked back her comments on Muslim Australians, but her track record for stoking racial division remains intact.  It’s language that was once politically to...

Sue-Anne Hunter has had a long career which started as a social worker and reached the heights of Commissioner for Victoria’s Truth Telling Commission - The Yoorook Justice Commission. Now she’s been appointed as Australia’s first National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People, and the weight of the responsibility is very real. Her appoi...

They’re known as the ISIS brides. 11 women and 23 kids who, for nearly a decade, have languished in a dusty desert detention camp in Northern Syria. Some of the children have known no other home.  But the PM insists the group, who are all Australian citizens, aren’t welcome here. Thwarted at the last minute, as they tried to make their way back home this week. The group is now in...

It was 2019 when journalist Emily Maitlis sat down for that car crash interview with then-Prince Andrew.  It was the beginning of the end for the prince. Now, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has again hit the headlines, this time for allegedly sharing secret trade documents with Jeffrey Epstein. And as the fallout from the Epstein files threatens to take down everyone from ambassadors to prime min...

The CFMEU construction union has been under a cloud since investigative journalist Nick McKenzie started digging into allegations of corruption in 2024. Bikie figures, organised crime, intimidation. All taking place on major government-funded projects. Now, a report has laid out all those stories in one place. And even Nick says he was stunned by the scale of it. The report's author, barrister Geo...

More than 30,000 people from Pacific Island nations and Timor-Leste are on a working visa in Australia as part of the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme – or PALM. The government sells it as a ‘triple win’: workers earn Australian wages, Australian employers fill jobs they say they can’t fill locally, and money flows back to families and economies across the region. B...

On Monday, about 6,000 people attended a protest against Israeli President Isaac Herzog's visit to Sydney. The event began peacefully – but videos later emerged, showing protesters being pepper-sprayed, beaten, and arrested by police. Police say some demonstrators wanted to march to NSW Parliament despite a restriction making it unlawful – and that when orders to disperse were ignored,...

It took just nine months for the Liberal Party to turn on its first female leader. After months of internal agitation and sliding polls, a spill motion was called and, by the end, Ley was out – replaced by a man many conservatives had wanted all along, Angus Taylor. Taylor, a former energy minister and standard-bearer for the party’s right, has promised discipline, economic clarity and...

The knives are out. The spill is on! Liberal MP Angus Taylor is set to challenge Sussan Ley for the leadership in a party room showdown at 9am. Their colleagues are now scrambling to pick sides as the face off looms. So, who will emerge triumphant? And how will the chaos play with voters? Today, contributing editor at The New Daily, Amy Remeikis on Taylor’s chances, the gender question, and...