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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...

For decades it’s shone a light on corruption of the highest order, even toppling premiers: Now NSW ICAC, the state’s corruption watchdog, has set its sights on a secretive right-wing Christian faction of the Liberal Party, “the Reformers”, and its cashed-up group of backers. Already the public inquiry, codenamed Operation Rosny, has heard of shit sheets, sham payments, phon...

What do Jacqui Lambie, Pauline Hanson, Lidia Thorpe and David Pocock all have in common? Usually not much. But they're part of an unlikely group of politicians backing former senator Rex Patrick in a legal fight with the Albanese government over information the government does not want released. At the centre of that fight are documents about potential sites for nuclear waste storage from AUKUS su...

It’s the largest institutional emitter in the world. A bigger polluter than 140 countries. And yet its emissions are hidden from sight. Now a new documentary ‘Earth’s greatest enemy’ is exposing the impact of the US military empire on the planet: the waste, the billion dollar budgets, and the political maneuvering that’s kept it all out of the public eye. Today, Journ...

This week, 7am spoke with former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, as he returned to public life with a memoir defending many of the decisions he made during his final years at the airline. Joyce said the company was fighting for survival during the pandemic and that, while mistakes were made, the difficult decisions taken under his leadership were necessary to keep Qantas from going under. Today...

In America, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has turned anger over rent, groceries and childcare into a powerful movement on the left. One with real momentum.  In Australia, that same anger is increasingly being captured by Pauline Hanson and the populist right, while Labor retreats towards the centre.  So attention is turning to who in Australia could make a Mamdani-style case for eco...

Victoria’s new premier Ben Carroll has announced a royal commission into the state’s building industry. It follows years of reporting exposing alleged corruption, organised crime links and misconduct within the sector, and years of resistance from the government and former premier Jacinta Allan. The commission now has the potential to examine what happened and who knew about it, forcin...

Next election the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will have a new contender for his Sydney seat, with commentator and Cheek Media founder Hannah Ferguson announcing she’s taking a tilt. She says she’s started canvassing locals to find out what they want from their representative, and that she’s already been warned that attempts to build a dirt file on her have begun.  Today,...

After a chaotic 24 hours of backroom plotting and mounting pressure, the Victorian premier resigned. Jacinta Allan’s replacement, and former deputy leader Ben Carroll, now has just four months to turn Labor’s fortunes around in what’s shaping up to be the most unpredictable election the state has ever seen. Polls show an unprecedented three-party contest – with voters split...

Cory Doctorow is the author and tech critic who brought us the term ‘enshittification’ – which refers to the gradual decline in the quality of digital platforms and services over time. Now he’s warning that what we’ve been led to believe is the inevitable march of AI towards world domination isn’t that inevitable after all, and actually what we’re marching...

Alan Joyce was once one of Australia’s most admired business leaders. By the time he left Qantas, he had become one of the country’s most hated men. His final years at the airline were marked by unlawful sackings, cancelled flights, withheld refunds and a collapse in public trust. But in a new memoir,  Riding the Jet Stream , Joyce defends many of the decisions that made him a sym...

When Robert F Kennedy Jr was sworn in as Health and Human Services Secretary, his confirmation came off the back of a fiery questioning from Democrats and Republicans alike about RFK Jr’s record on vaccines. And under oath, RFK Jr denied he was against them. But now, Reuters reports he considered scrapping the entire childhood immunisation schedule, removing polio and MMR vaccines, and spend...

Australia is one of the world’s biggest exporters of liquefied natural gas. Over the past 25 years, the value of those exports has increased more than twentyfold. Yet revenue from the tax designed to capture the extraordinary profits made from petroleum resources has gone backwards. This week, at its national conference, the Labor Party formally acknowledged that Australians deserve a "faire...

In the East Room of the White House, Donald Trump made an extraordinary accusation of election interference: Beijing had illegally obtained the voter files of 220 million Americans. He also accused US intelligence agencies of hiding the extent of China’s activity.  Later, Trump claimed a Homeland Security review had found around 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote. Trump’s mot...