The Briefing

We'll explain the meaning of the symbol in the neo-nazi cartoon that cause Pete Evans fall from grace two weeks ago. We’ll find out what this means for Pete Evans future, and find out where the black sun symbol comes from, what it actually means, and how it relates to the cartoon.   Our guests today are Andrew Horney from the Sydney Morning Herald and Andrew Jakubowicz, a professor of s...

Robodebt is the automated process that wrongly calculated millions of dollars of Centrelink debt for Australians. Hundreds of thousands were impacted, and in 2019 they sued the government in a class action.    Last week the case was settled in the largest class action payout in the country, with $1.2 billion given back to victims. But many of those victims are not happy with the settleme...

It’s three weeks since the US Presidential election and Donald Trump is continuing court challenges and still refusing to concede defeat.   His fight against the result started long before the election when he began questioning the legitimacy of mail in ballots, and he continued with these allegations on election night when he appeared to be losing.   On today’s episode we fi...

A four-year investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan by Australian special forces was made public by the Chief of Defence Angus Campbell.   The key revelation from the report include the alleged unlawful killing of 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners by Australian troops between 2009 and 2013.   19 of those soldiers have been referred to the Australian Federal Police for prosec...

Facebook moderators are the 15,000 people around the world whose job it is to decide what content stays, what gets flagged with a warning, and what gets deleted. They are watching the worst stuff on the internet so you don’t have to, and now some of them are fighting back against the tech giant and winning.   In recent years thousands of moderators have come forward saying they now suff...

In this special edition of The Briefing we give you Mary Trump uncut , an extended episode of Tom Tilley’s compelling interview with Donald Trump's niece.   You’ll hear Mary’s fascinating insights into her uncle, who she refers to as ‘the worlds most dangerous man’.   With a PHD in psychology, Mary’s helps us understand more about the man, his mind, an...

There’s a growing awareness about the damage hard core contact sports is doing to our players, and in today's briefing we go deep on what football is doing to player’s brains and what should be done about it.    In Australia five players have been diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). This is a brain disease caused by repeated knocks to the head. It doesn&rsq...

What’s is going through Donald Trump’s head right now? It's more than two weeks since the US Presidential election and Donald Trump has still not publicly conceded. To understand more about the man his mind and what he might do next, we’re joined by his niece, Mary Trump.   In the lead up to the election Mary published a book ‘Too Much and Never Enough - How my family...

Australia’s Trade Minister Simon Birmingham joins this episode of The Briefing as we look at the growing trade tensions between Australia and China, and what Australia is going to do to fix it.   This year after our political leaders called for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 China announced restrictions on some of our key exports including Barley wine, timber, coal,...

Financial and economic abuse is a form of domestic or family violence. It can be really hard to identify and to escape from as money is often used as a powerful tool for control or exploitation.   The Commonwealth Bank and the UNSW’s Gendered Violence Research Network have looked into this in a new report for financial institutions so they can better support people impacted by economic...

Oregon has become the first US state to decriminalize the personal use of all drugs. The "Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act" will allow people arrested with small amounts of hard drugs to avoid going to trial, and possible jail time, by paying a $100 fine and attending an addiction recovery program.   In today's episode we find out how Oregon got here, and how Australia’s drug r...

What could you accomplish if you knew how to improve concentration and overcome distractions? What if you had the power to stay focused and become “indistractable?” In today's Briefing we're going deep on distractions.   Nir Eyal is a behavioural scientist and former marketing lecturer at Stanford University and he’s written a number of books on technology and talks us throu...

After Pfizers exciting announcement this week, the reaction from experts around the world has been positive. We’ve already learnt some important things about the vaccine, and in today’s Briefing we’re going to dig deeper and find out how it might speed up our path back to normal life? How it will be rolled out? Who gets it? And how will it change travel?   Dr Mary-Louise McL...

A vaccine being produced by Pfizer may be 90 per cent effective in stopping the transmission of COVID-19 which has created a lot of excitement about getting the deadly virus under control and getting our lives back to normal. The Pfizer trial is one of four potential vaccines the Australian Government has signed an agreement to purchase if it is successful. Pfizer have announced they could produce...

Last week, four innocent people died in a terror attack in Vienna, Austria. The 20-year-old perpetrator had already been in jail after trying to join ISIS and was made to participate in a deradicalisation program during his sentence time. There were reports he was showing signs of a turn around and was subsequently released early from his 22-month sentence. He’d served less than half of it....

Joe Biden is officially the US President-elect. Biden called for unity and calm in his victory speech in Delaware yesterday, but the challenges facing America will be very divisive. First and foremost, bringing COVID under control and managing the economic recovery from the pandemic. He’s also pledged to re-join the Paris agreement, and then there’s the extreme racial division…...

We bring you the latest on the US Presidential Election as it plays out. With Joe Biden insisting every ballot be counted and Donald Trump launching legal action, American voters are anxious and exhausted. Hugh Riminton joins us from Washington as the US election race continues.   In today's headlines: US election count update “Stop the count”: Armed guards protect American voting...

We cross to David Lipson in Washington during the most divisive election in decades, to find out what’s behind the results so far, and how will this super tight election play out? David has spent the last year living and reporting in the US through COVID, civil unrest and a drama-packed election campaign. How likely is it the election will be called today? Do you think its Joe Biden mostly l...

In contemporary Australian politics the Coalition (Liberal and National) is considered centre-right and the Australian Labor Party is considered centre-left.   So what exactly are the origins of the political terms 'left' and 'right'? and is there something intrinsic in us that means we align with either of these two lablels?   Dr Zareh Ghazarian is a political scientist and leading comm...

Despite two World Wars, the Great Depression, and the Spanish Flu, the Melbourne Cup - the race that stops the nation - has never been stopped. But there was a moment back in March where it looked like Covid-19 would halt the Melbourne Cup for the first time in 160 years.     Today, the race will run with no crowds, no stilettos in the mud, no celebrities shoulder to shoulder in the Bird...

We’re joined by Australia’s most famous lawyer Geoffrey Robertson who shares his thoughts on the future of the Royal Family. Geoffrey Robertson AO QC is a Barrister, author and one-time host of Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals on the ABC.   Geoffrey worked on a case against Princess Diana in the mid 90s, he socialises with members of the Royal Family including Prince Charl...

In this special weekend edition of The Briefing we give you an extended version of our interview with Magda.   She’s one of Australia’s most loved comedians however Magda Szubanski was recently targeted by a coordinated “avalanche of hate” from rightwing extremists and COVID deniers after appearing in a Victorian government ad encouraging mask use.   As you’...

Australia’s much-loved comedian Magda Szubanski was recently targeted by a coordinated “avalanche of hate” from rightwing extremists and COVID deniers after appearing in a Victorian government ad encouraging mask use. Australia’s e-safety commissioner Julie Inman-Grant reported Magda was subjected to ‘volumetric cross-platform online abuse’ which is commonly org...

Today's episode is about the rebellious act of an Aussie Professor. Professor Edward Holmes is the Aussie scientist who defied China and shared the genome sequence for COVID-19 with the world.   When the first signs of the pandemic emerged in January Chinese scientist Professor Yong-Zhen Zhang sequenced the gnome of this coronavirus and shared that information with Eddie. The Chinese governme...

What makes a passport powerful? and has the pandemic had any long-term impacts on where a passport might rank compared to others?   The current global health crisis might have crippled global travel, but what makes a passport truly powerful is showing consistency amid volatile times. On today’s episode we find out which passports have gone up and which have gone down during the pandemic...