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It’s Australia’s loudest, proudest celebration. But two weeks out from Mardi Gras – there are claims a rebel group has hijacked the event from inside the community. We hear from the two groups at war over the future of the parade. Today, Peter Murphy from Protect Mardi Gras, and Charlie Murphy from Pride in Protest on the battle threatening to tear Mardi Gras apart .   If yo...

Jimmy Lai is a media tycoon and hero of Hong Kong’s freedom movement.  A symbol of the city’s fight for democracy and a free press – he has been silenced, handcuffed, and now sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Hong Kong court. Seen as a traitor by Beijing, Lai has been jailed on charges of sedition and collusion with foreign forces – which he says are politically mot...

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has arrived in Sydney for a four-day visit to Australia, invited in the wake of the Bondi Beach terror attack in December. On Monday, Herzog visited Bondi and laid a wreath to honour the 15 people killed in the attack.  At the same time, pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in Sydney’s CBD to oppose the visit – after organisers launched a Supreme Cour...

It’s been just over two weeks since the Liberal and National parties’ dramatic split and now the Coalition is back together. Sussan Ley and David Littleproud insist they’re now solid, guaranteeing that after two Coalition splits in the space of a year - this time, there’ll be no more break ups. Today, press gallery journalist Karen Middleton on how the Coalition got back to...

TikTok is the most influential media platform for Australians under the age of 25. It’s where millions get their news – whether they realise it or not. But TikTok is no longer just a cultural force. A Trump-aligned group of investors has taken over its American operations, aimed at keeping China at arm’s length. Now, users are claiming that content about ICE and its operations in...

This week Australians were hit with another reminder that the cost-of-living crisis isn’t over, and that the government's room to move is narrowing fast.  An interest rate rise has sharpened the pressure on Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers, just as a federal budget looms. The government is now forced to weigh up expectations of economic reform vs political risk.  Meanwhile, the Op...

In the wake of the Bondi terror attack, the Prime Minister invited Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Australia, a move framed as an act of solidarity with the Jewish community.  But that visit, which begins on Sunday, is now sparking criticism, including from within the government, with a series of protests planned across the country. Supporters of the visit say Herzog’s presence will b...

Between them, the US and Russia hold 90 per cent of the world’s nuclear firepower. But today, the New START Treaty, which limits the number of missiles and warheads in their arsenals, expires. President Putin first suspended it two years ago. Now, without a last-minute deal, it looks set to collapse for good amid fears of a new nuclear arms race. Today, a view from the inside as we speak wit...

For years, survivors of some of the worst crimes imaginable have been put through hell. Their perpetrators allowed to use glowing character references in court, in an effort to have their sentences reduced. But today, that’s set to change as New South Wales introduces new laws scrapping character references for all criminal sentencing - in response to years of campaigning from sexual abuse s...

When the US military seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, people in Colombia were left wondering if they were next. Almost immediately, Donald Trump was accusing Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, of being tied to cocaine trafficking – without providing evidence – and publicly entertaining a US “operation” in the country. Monica Villamizar, a Colombian...

Australia likes to present itself as a defender of human rights. But right now, on the world stage, that reputation is being seriously questioned.  Dozens of countries have called on Australia to stop locking up children, some as young as ten, and to confront the fact that Indigenous kids make up the overwhelming majority of those behind bars.  For a nation that claims moral leadership o...

In Anthony Albanese’s political universe, personal relationships are everything. High on the list for Albanese is his bond with Peter V'landys, the Chair of the Australian Rugby League Commission and Chief Executive of Racing NSW. That relationship has been central to the government’s decision to again delay reforms of gambling advertising, which V’Landys strongly opposes. Today,...

The Liberal Party is locked in a very public power struggle. The Coalition has broken apart. One Nation is on the rise.  What’s emerging isn’t just a shift in support, it’s something deeper – a realignment of the conservative side of politics, with broader ramifications that we’re only beginning to understand. Today, political columnist and former Labor adviser S...

At Forrest Place in Boorloo (Perth), on what this country officially calls Australia Day, around 2,500 people gathered to mark Invasion Day. They listened to speakers, held banners and, for a few hours, took up civic space in the way protest is meant to: visibly, peacefully, together. Then, from a balcony above, an object arced through the air and landed near the stage. Police allege it was a home...

Colin Boyce is a Nationals MP from Central Queensland. He represents a huge swathe of land stretching from Bundaberg to Rockhampton – and as he’s travelled around his electorate, he’s been confronted by the looming threat of One Nation. Colin is so dismayed about the split of the Coalition, he’s challenging David Littleproud for the leadership of the Nationals on Monday. He...

Xi Jinping has just sacked his top military general – putting him under investigation and accusing him of “grave violations of discipline and the law”. It’s the latest, and most stunning sacking in a massive purge of the country’s military and political elite. With China’s People's Liberation Army in crisis – there are now questions about what it will mean...

Minneapolis has become the focal point of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, as he tries to round up and deport 10 million people from the country.  As the city’s residents have fought back against ICE’s often violent arrests, protests have intensified. In just three weeks, two American citizens have been killed in Minneapolis by ICE agents, with many more injured. ...

In 2019, a new venture in the Australian outback looked set to export our solar power to the world – upending our neighbours’ reliance on fossil fuels. Backed by the billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest – Sun Cable was supposed to be Australia’s largest ever renewable energy project, transporting electricity to Singapore via 4,300 kilometres of sea cable. It...

Family violence in Aboriginal communities is a national crisis – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 33 times more likely to be victims of domestic violence, and eight times more likely to be killed by their partner. The trauma First Nations women experience is often made worse by the systems they seek help from and people within those systems that often misidentify the victim as...

In the 1970s, eight children in Perth were sent to a psychiatric hospital to be ‘treated’ for being transgender. Their experiences became the basis of a medical study that claimed kids could be cured of their identity. Now, nearly forty years after it was released, that same study is being cited in arguments against trans healthcare and being used to shape policy and law. Today, Walkle...

It’s the on-again, off-again political drama that has turned Australian politics into something resembling a soap opera.  For the second time in a year, the Liberal and National parties have split, rendering the coalition dead – again.  The break-up has once again thrown Sussan Ley’s leadership under the bus, shattered the opposition’s ability to challenge the gov...

Donald Trump has invited Australia to join his new “Board of Peace” – a Trump-led body he says will help bring peace to Gaza. But the invitation comes with a warning. Some leaders say the board could undermine the United Nations – and Trump himself has suggested it might even replace it. Trump has spent years attacking the United Nations as ineffective – and this term...

This week, Labor’s watered-down hate speech laws passed the Senate. The following day, the bigger story wasn’t the bill. Three senior Nationals – Bridget McKenzie, Susan McDonald and Ross Cadell – were forced off the opposition frontbench after defying shadow cabinet and voting against the legislation. Then, after a late night emergency meeting, the rest of the Nationals fr...

When Elon Musk first launched his AI tool Grok, he called it “rebellious” and anti-woke. But over the summer, what that meant took a disturbing turn. The chatbot, which is embedded in Musk's social media platform X, started creating sexualised images of women and children without their consent. Anthony Albanese has staked his legacy on keeping children safe online, so what is he doing...

In the aftermath of the 1996 massacre at Port Arthur, Prime Minister John Howard donned a bullet proof vest and argued the case for gun control, to crowds of angry protestors.  His reforms, including a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and a national buyback scheme, changed the country by getting rid of more than half a million guns. But in the years since, the number of guns in Au...