7am

When Donald Trump was sworn in for a second time, some of the most powerful men in the tech world had the best seats in the room. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg – a display of just how close silicon valley had aligned itself to the administration. But within that world, journalist Gil Durán says, is a smaller, more radical group with a much bigger ambition: get rid of democrac...

Last month, an emotional Jacqui Lambie revealed a private health battle connected to her time in the army – a debilitating prolapse that required surgery. The Tasmanian senator called out gaps in health care services for female veterans, and raged against the government’s plans to introduce a $5,000 cap on allied health services for veterans. This week fellow veterans joined her calls,...

One Nation is copping heat for a proposal that would let Australians take some of the money going into their super as extra pay instead. For up to three years, renters and mortgage holders could choose to take home a quarter of the money that would normally be put into their retirement – worth about $44 a week for someone on the average full-time wage. At the same time, the Coalition has bee...

In imposing scenes in the UK over the weekend, hundreds of masked men belonging to the hard-right group Patriot Platform stopped traffic. Around the same time, political party AfD was making history in Germany – becoming the first far-right party to win in the country since World War two. And on the other side of the world, Australia’s high court will today hear from our most high prof...

On the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Labor has promised a vast new national park to protect more than 12,000 koalas. But there’s a catch. The New South Wales government wants carbon credits to help pay for it. By ending planned logging, it could generate credits that are then sold to companies to offset their emissions. For the Greens, that creates a dilemma at a moment when both major...

For years, Australia has made cigarettes increasingly expensive in an effort to drive down smoking. Now, the Coalition wants to dramatically reverse course. It's promised to slash the tobacco excise by 80 per cent, arguing that soaring cigarette prices have fuelled a violent black market. It also wants to legalise and regulate vapes and nicotine pouches. Labor says there’s no evidence the ta...

Paul Keating has been out of office for thirty years. But he’s never really left the national conversation. Keating wanted Australia to find its security in Asia, not from it, and to stop defining itself through bigger powers in the Anglosphere. That vision now sits uneasily alongside AUKUS, a more powerful China, and an Australia tied ever more closely to the United States. Today, historian...

Speaking at the Press Club this week, consent education advocate Chanel Contos outlined how social media companies are feeding misogynistic content to young men online.  Now, she wants the government to compel social media companies to give people the option to restrict their algorithm.  So can, and should, the algorithm be contained? And would social media companies even comply?  T...

They’ve been dubbed pervert glasses. And with good reason  – women around the world are reporting being sexually harassed, filmed without their consent, often without their knowledge. But this week, the federal government ruled out an import ban on smart glasses – as concerns about the technology rise and examples of their misuse flood the internet. Today, Associate Dean of...

One Nation has declared that “politics has changed” after snatching a formerly safe Labor seat in a surprise by-election victory in WA over the weekend. Until now, it had been the Coalition feeling the effects of the orange wave, but now Labor officially has a Pauline problem of its own. So what does this mean for the government, and the country? Today, WA political reporter for Busine...

A wall of grey, silted water tears through a Himalayan Valley.  People look on in shock, disbelief and fear as buildings are swallowed. Cars are swept away and people run as the flood surges down below.  In its aftermath, more than 800 people are dead and thousands are missing, including 43 Australians. In the search for answers, scientists now believe the disaster began high in the moun...

On day one of his role as communications director for the White House, Anthony Scaramucci sung Donald Trump’s praises.  He would serve in that role for just another ten days, a span of time that has become known as a “mooch”. Since leaving the White House, Scaramucci has become one of the president’s most vocal and scathing critics. Now, he says Trump’s return to...

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...