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The night Donald Trump claimed victory, he celebrated with his closest friends.  Among them was Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart. Rinehart, who describes herself as a “long standing member of the Trump support group ‘the Trumpettes’”, is not only cultivating her ties among America’s right-wing political elite. She also remains a highly influential figure in Australian politics.  And with...

The call for Treaty in this country stems as far back as European settlement.  Now, the Victorian government has started negotiations in what will be the first time a state or federal government in Australia has sat down with Aboriginal people on equal footing to reach Treaty. But in the wake of the failed referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the Victorian opposition has withdrawn supp...

Rachel Kushner always seemed destined to become a writer. At just five years old, her unconventional parents had her working in a feminist bookstore. Now, several decades and three award-winning novels later, she is back with a new book that follows a spy-for-hire who infiltrates a commune of eco-activists in rural France. On this episode of Read This , Rachel joins host Michael Williams for a con...

Hundreds of climate activists, aboard rafts and kayaks, have paddled out into the Port of Newcastle for a so-called “protestival”, to disrupt the world’s largest coal port. The activists behind the protest, Rising Tide, are defying a police-sought court order that tried to have the protest stopped due to safety concerns. It means the demonstration will run in the presence of a police force that ha...

There’s a group of people who felt completely abandoned during our most recent public health crisis: those who suffered Covid-19 vaccine injuries.  It is a rare event, but it happens. During the pandemic those who experienced side effects from Covid-19 vaccinations say they felt deserted by their friends, health services and ultimately, the government, which they believe failed to deliver its prom...

Just a few days after the US presidential election, Prospect Park, located in the middle of Brooklyn, burst into flames.  For Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks, who has long called America home, an autumn bushfire in the dense urban heart of Brooklyn was a scary sign of what’s to come under Donald Trump’s second term as US president. Today, Geraldine Brooks on Trump’s America – and...

Alan Jones was at his luxury Circular Quay apartment yesterday morning when Child Abuse Squad detectives arrived to arrest him. For nine months, police had been conducting a top secret investigation. Now, they’ve charged Jones with 24 offences, involving eight victims. Among the charges are 11 of aggravated indecent assault where the victim was under the authority of the offender.  His arrest is t...

In deciding not to probe robodebt, the National Anti-Corruption Commission seemingly failed its first big test. But the NACC has been given a second chance to reconsider an investigation into the unlawful scheme and six people referred for possible corruption by a royal commission. Former solicitor-general Justin Gleeson was approached to review the decision, but the offer was withdrawn over conce...

Santilla Chingaipe has always been a storyteller. The Zambian-born filmmaker, historian and author spent her career exploring settler colonialism, slavery, and contemporary migration in Australia and she has just released her first book of non-fiction. On this episode of Read This , host Michael Williams is joined in the studio by Santilla to discuss Black Convicts , which offers a fresh understan...

Kevin Rudd, Australia’s ambassador to the United States, does not appear to like Donald Trump – and the feeling is mutual. Speculation about Rudd's ability to work with the incoming Trump administration has flared, as Rudd’s historical criticisms of Donald Trump have caught the eye of some in the US president-elect’s inner-circle. This week, speculation peaked when a senior adviser to Trump repost...

When US President-elect Donald Trump claimed victory last week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was among the first to congratulate him. Trump and Netanyahu have a close relationship and Netanyahu’s far-right national security minister has said he’s sure Trump would see “eye-to-eye” with Israel. Meanwhile, president-elect Trump claims he will end the war in the Middle East, but has not...

The Albanese government has been accused of pork-barrelling after an analysis of $1.35 billion in grants found almost 90 per cent of seats that Labor held or gained at the election received a grant. Labor has defended the grants, saying they were campaign commitments that had to be met. Today, independent MP Helen Haines on pork-barrelling by the major parties and how the Albanese government rates...

The re-election of Donald Trump is likely to have alarming consequences for the climate. He was, after all, elected on a promise to “drill, baby, drill”. Trump is already preparing to pull out of the Paris Agreement, again. But this time he could also withdraw from the underlying convention, making it much harder for any successor to change course.  Climate diplomat Thom Woodroofe was there when t...

When Donald Trump took the stage to claim victory in Palm Beach, Florida, he was joined by a football team sized contingent of family and friends, including the chief executive of the Ultimate Fight Championship, Dana White. White, who has admitted to assaulting his wife, took the mic to thank some people he regarded as crucial to delivering his friend Donald Trump the presidency. They included on...

It is more or less impossible to imagine Australian literature of the past half century without Tim Winton. From his debut, An Open Swimmer to his epic Cloudstreet , the four-time Miles Franklin Award winner is beloved by generations of readers. On this special episode of Read This , host Michael Williams sits down with Tim to discuss his latest novel, Juice , a gripping tale of determination, sur...

After the Country Liberal Party came into power in the Northern Territory, they scrapped a number of key portfolios. Among them was the climate change portfolio, with responsibility for the environment now sitting under lands and planning. It indicates the NT government is prioritising the economy, in particular big development projects. And now, according to a leaked consultation paper, the NT go...

As the US election began to rapidly slip away from Kamala Harris, it became clear that the presidential candidate wasn’t going to speak at her election night rally in Washington D.C. That’s when people started slipping out of the event, including Dr Emma Shortis. Donald Trump is projected to win not just the presidency, but also the popular vote. Today, senior researcher at The Australia Institute...

On the eve of the American election, polls say Harris and Trump are neck and neck. Of course, Donald Trump says that’s not true. It’s nothing new for the former president to deny facts. What is new is the way America’s biggest cable news network is handling it: Fox News has started cutting away from rallies when Trump lies. The network’s support of the big lie – that the 2020 election was stolen f...

One of the first things David Crisafulli did when he became premier of Queensland was order the state’s Truth-telling inquiry to stop immediately. The Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry, which launched earlier this year, was examining the impacts of colonisation on First Nations people. Work was underway, with witnesses already having testified about racial discrimination and abuse.  The premier ga...

The prime minister’s relationship with former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, and whether he likes a free upgrade, has been the talk of Canberra, prompted by the publication of a new book called The Chairman’s Lounge . Speculation about what the book would reveal had been swirling for months, and it was widely known in political circles that some of it would be bad for the prime minister. But when the book...

In just three books Robbie Arnott has established himself as a writer to trust. Flames (2018), The Rain Heron (2022) and Limberlost (2022) were all rapturously reviewed and garnered a hefty swag of award nominations and wins. On this episode of Read This , Michael Williams sits down with Robbie to discuss his new novel, Dusk , which explores loss, redemption, and survival in Tasmania’s high countr...

On a street in downtown Beirut there’s a five-storey building – a derelict hotel. It was empty for years, until recently, when hundreds of displaced people started arriving. Their experience of fleeing southern Beirut to find safety in the city’s busy neighbourhoods is being repeated across Lebanon right now as Israel’s bombardments continue. There has been a massive effort to help shelter the one...

When the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme handed down its findings, the commissioner in charge went to great lengths to refer six individuals to the National Anti-Corruption Commission for investigation. What followed outraged many, particularly the victims of the scheme: The NACC announced that it would not act on the referrals. That decision generated so many complaints that it has sinc...

In a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, just over a week from the election, Donald Trump took to the stage with a vision for the first day of his presidency. Trump is promising to deport more than 11 million people if he wins, making it “the largest deportation program in American history”. Immigration has been one of the most pressing and divisive issues of the presidential race, with fe...

When West Australian mining billionaire Chris Ellison was accused of a decade of tax evasion, his lawyers responded by trying to cut a deal with the Australian Taxation Office.  The terms of that deal included an 80 per cent reduction in the penalty payable and an assurance that his conduct wouldn’t be referred to police or the corporate watchdog.  The reason that Ellison, managing director of the...