Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

As Constitutions go, America’s is the most famous and revered document. By contrast, the Australian constitution doesn’t inspire as much interest. Two lawyers have taken upon themselves the task of promoting awareness about the Australian constitution and the constitutional system that surrounds it with a new book that former Chief Justice and Sunday Extra guest Robert French says is a “comprehens...

Fiume o Morte! Has been praised as “the funniest and most unorthodox history lesson of the year”. In January, it was awarded Best Documentary at the European Film Awards. 

It wasn’t very long ago that LGBTQIA+ relationships were criminalised in Australia. This creates challenges when it comes to uncovering pieces of queer history, but institutions like the State Library of NSW are dedicated to collecting and preserving huge catalogues of LGBTQIA+ manuscripts, photographs and ephemera that are free and accessible to the community. Guest: Sam Cooling, Librarian ("Quee...

When Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney gave his rousing speech on middle powers at Davos, he quoted Václav Havel - the Czech dissident, and later president - from his 1978 essay The Power of the Powerless. Carney’s references to Havel’s essay prompted Australian Catholic University Professor of History Darius Von Guttner to write about The Power of the Powerless in The Conversation, where he des...

Forty years ago this week, events in the Philippines were underway that would lead to the fall of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who had served as President for 21 years.

In November 2025 a bill was introduced to Israel's Knesset by the Jewish Power Party that would re-establish the use of capital punishment in the country's military courts.

The world is coming to grips with the joint American and Israeli strikes across Iran, and Iran retaliatory missile and drone strikes in Israel and in multiple countries across the Middle East. Guest: Bilal Saab, former Pentagon official in the first Trump administration overseeing US security cooperation in the Middle East, now the senior managing director of consulting firm TRENDS US and an assoc...

Last October, we covered the story of Australian writer and resident of Thailand Murray Hunter, who was arrested in Thailand for articles he had written on Substack that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission deemed to be false and defamatory. We have an update on that case - a settlement agreement has been reached and the charges against Murray have been formally withdrawn. Guest:...

Last week we spoke with Christopher Gunness from the Myanmar Accountability Project about the universal jurisdiction legal case that Timor-Leste has opened against the Myanmar military regime for crimes against humanity.  This week there has been a fresh development - Myanmar has responded by withdrawing their diplomatic representative from Timor-Leste. Guest: Salai Za Uk, executive director of th...

The e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant on growing up in a single parent household, her connection to Ted Bundy, rejecting an offer from the CIA and implementing the world’s first social media band for children.

In August 2024, astrophysicists from Swinburne University sent vials full of the mycelium of edible mushrooms to the International Space Station.  They made it there on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and lived in space - where no mushroom has lived before - for a month, before returning to Earth, and finally to a frying pan in Melbourne, where they were cooked in a cheesy sauce. Guest: Doctor Sar...

A fascinating new study observing the effects of the psychedelic drug DMT - or dimethyltryptamine - on people who have already tried two other forms of treatment for depression has recorded “ significant and lasting reductions ” in depressive symptoms after a single dose. This study, led by David Erritzoe from the Imperial College in London, shows the potential DMT could bring to the burgeoning ps...

The legendary publisher and one half of McPhee Gribble has re-published her memoir Other People's Words with a new afterword.

The testing that identified the poison that killed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was carried out at Porton Down, a British government chemical defence laboratory with a long and secretive history.

Geopolitical analyst and president of the Eurasia group, Ian Bremmer has a new avenue for explaining the big news in international politics: Muppets-style satirical YouTube videos.

A political debate has erupted in New Zealand over whether or not to retain special Maori electorates in the New Zealand parliament. 

Steven Scherer has written about his unexpected journey from career high to just trying to make ends meet and provide for his family in a touching essay in which he reflects on the nature of fragility and desperation. 

This week's tweeter has a soft, high-pitched call, and can be found around dense undergrowth in forest, scrub, heath and along creeklines. It's the  Red-browed Finch , known to some as the Red-browed Firetail.

Dr Marianne Jauncey works with people many in society dismiss as “lost causes” — drug users in Kings Cross, in inner-city Sydney. But far from acting the martyr, she approaches her work and her clients with optimism, passion and genuine respect. She is the first to admit how much she has learned from the people who come through the doors of the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre each day. Guest...

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that the following program contains names of people who have died. “It seems certain some human voices can work magic, and I don’t know whether it’s their timbre, their range, or the way they harmonise and surprise… It’s a gift they’re given and, if all goes for the best and we are lucky, pass on to the rest of us.” These are the words of...

In what is perhaps the biggest news in TV comedy of the year - maybe in forty years - earlier this month, a brand new episode of The Muppet Show was released.  The Muppet Show was Jim Henson’s star-studded vaudeville variety TV show that ran for 5 seasons over 120 episodes from 1976 to 1981.  Now, forty years later, The Muppet Show is back, streaming on Disney Plus, with Seth Rogan as Executive Pr...

In this episode of Household Names we delve into the history of Breville, a company that many of us are familiar with because of their iconic jaffle makers. The company started out in radios and even produced mine detectors during the Second World War because moving into home goods.

A scientific breakthrough by Colossal Bioscience has seen the 'resurrection' of the dire wolf, a megafauna-hunting wolf species that died out around 10,000 years ago.  But is the science being used really the same as 'de-extinction'?  And does the very concept of 'de-extinction' undermine efforts to prevent species extinction in the first place? Guest: Dr Christopher Lean , Research Fellow with th...

Queensland software developer Fraser Tweedale made a Freedom of Information request for the MyGov Code Generator app's code so he could review it, but the government refused.  Services Australia said that releasing the code would leave it open to attack. Fraser argues that cybersecurity requires transparency.  Having exhausted other avenues, Fraser has crowdfunded legal fees to take Services Austr...

Timor Leste has appointed prosecutors to investigate crimes against humanity committed by the Myanmar military junta against members of the Chin ethnic group, in a test for Timor Leste's commitment to universal jurisdiction.