The Briefing

It was the weekend we didn’t think would happen: grand final weekend. Earlier in the year, coronavirus threatened to cancel the 2020 seasons of AFL and NRL, but luckily for sports fans, the games went ahead – a remarkable feat for the footy codes. This weekend saw historic grand final matches being played in Brisbane following a season of fake crowd noises, travel bubbles, completely r...

The appointment of US Supreme Court judges is one of the most intense election issues, and as early as tomorrow US congress will vote to approve a new supreme court judge Amy Coney Barrett.    If she’s sworn in she’ll take the place of the late Ruth Bader Ginsberg who died in September 2020.   Michael Macagnone is a US Politics reporter and joins us to explain why suprem...

The Gladys Berejiklian secret relationship scandal has made national headlines, and on todays episode we explain what happened. There’s been a huge debate about whether or not the NSW Premier should resign. So far she’s toughed it out but as you’re about to hear, it’s not over yet.    Telegraph reporter Linda Silmalis who’s been covering the story joins us t...

We take you on a road trip through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa and Illinois, and find out the one thing that locals say when asked why they vote for Trump. When we watch America through our own media we get a perspective on the US through New York, Washington and California, but these others states up in the Mid North East offer a different view all together. Almost all of them v...

Almost 1 in 9 Australians smoke, and the government have set a goal to bring down our smoking rate to 1 in 10 by 2025. In a new plan to wipe out smoking in Australia, smokers could be made to buy cigarettes with a prescription or at a pharmacy. But is this fair?   Cigarettes already cost $40 a packet, so if people really want to spend that amount of their own money should they be free to do t...

Unlike a lot of other western countries, Australia has a forced saving system called superannuation. When the system was introduced back in 1992, 3% of your income went to your super, which is only accessible at the age of 66. Nowadays, that percentage is 9.5%, but there are plans to increase it so that by 2025, 12% of your pay will be put into your super.   Should more of our money be put in...

Conspiritualism is a blend of two words: Conspiracy and spiritualism and it describes a strange phenomena that you might have noticed on your social media feeds. It describes the wellness bloggers and influencers who’ve taken up the same causes as conspiracy theorists.   This wellness community and QAnon conspiracy theorists have previously seemed worlds apart but according to Sarah Wil...

What’s in a name when you’re applying for a job? Does your name impact your hire ability?   In 2012 researchers conducted an experiment sending out fictional applications for real jobs. On some they used English-sounding names and on others they used names that sounded stereotypically Indigenous, Italian, Chinese and Middle Eastern. They found that these applicants were less likel...

Will COVID-19 be the ‘great accelerator’ in the death of the shopping mall? The mall has gone from the height of the social scene to struggle street in only a couple of decades, and the closing of shops amid the pandemic is leading to fears the “dead mall” phenomenon seen in the US could be in store for Australia.   More than a third of all shopping is expected to be o...

It’s easy to feel like we’re the first ones to go through a pandemic like this, and that the deprivations and constant state of underlying anxiety is unique to our generation. But while this is a once in a generation pandemic, Australians have lived through difficult times before and survived. And some of them are still alive to tell us about it.   86 year olds Dorothy McRae-McMah...

J.K. Rowling is one of the most famous authors in the world. The Harry Potter book series have sold more than 500 million copies across 80 languages. Potter isn’t just a series, it’s a phenomenon.   Back in June, J.K. Rowling retweeted an opinion piece that used the phrase “people who menstruate”. Rowling -- who has over 14.2 million of followers on Twitter -- publicly...

Eighteen years ago today 202 people including 88 Australians were killed in a terror attack in the tourist district of Bali. A powerful car bomb, hidden inside a white Mitsubishi van, was detonated by a suicide bomber right outside the Sari Club, a renowned open-air thatch-roof bar in the Kuta district.   The blast site itself has lain dormant for almost 20 years, and the question of wha...

Fast fashion is the rise of cheap, trendy, affordable and accessible clothes that turn catwalk trends into bargain buys in a matter of weeks. And while more fashion choices might seem like a good thing for consumers, it’s a bad thing for the planet. The average Australian buys 27 kilograms of clothes every year, and we throw away 23 of those, so 85 percent of what we buy ends up in land...

Homeownership in Australia is declining, with the biggest drop happening for young people. But the good news to come out of the Federal Budget this week is that the Government has added an extra 10,000 places to its First Home Loan Deposit Scheme which allows singles or couples to buy their first home with a deposit of only five per cent and the government acting as guarantor for the loan. This ge...

The federal budget is usually handed down in May, but this year it was delayed while the government focused on the coronavirus outbreak and rethought their approach to an economy in big trouble. The government has now released its plans to reboot the economy in what is reported to be one of the most important federal budgets in Australia’s history.   So how does the government intend on...

While countries like China, Italy, France, Spain were taking strict lockdown measures when the Pandemic struck, Sweden went out alone with a very different approach. People were still out in cafes, children were still going to school and there were very few facemasks.   Initially that seemed to be a disaster compared to their neighbouring countries, as their infection rate was high, their dea...

On today’s episode we get the latest sleep science on daylight saving. A peak medical body says daylight saving is bad for us, and the EU has voted to stop doing it from 2021. So is it time for Australia to get rid of it?   Last month the US American Academy of Sleep Medicine changed its position on daylight saving, coming out against it citing new research the health impacts of moving...

Donald Trump reportedly claimed $US70,000 in haircuts as part of millions in business expenses that have helped reduce his federal tax bill to just a few hundred dollars. An investigation by the New York Times exposed two decades of the Presidents tax returns, revealing he paid just $750 US in both 2016 and 2017, and paid no income tax in 10 of the past 15 years.   Trump's critics hope the le...

Today we find out about the woman at the centre of one of the biggest crime scandals in Australian history. Last year it was revealed that Lawyer X was Nicola Gobbo: a prominent Melbourne lawyer who represented some of Melbourne’s biggest criminals and at the same time was giving information about them to the police.   The Lawyer X scandal could see some of Australia's most notorious cr...

What’s going on inside some of Australia’s most expensive schools? What kind of culture is being promoted? Should private schools review their culture? Are the high marks, fancy uniforms and big gymnasiums really worth it?   The recent muck up day scandal re-opens some of the debates about the problems with private schools elitist attitudes to people less fortunate, and unhealthy...

For the last week, there has been an epic struggle of life and death on a remote wild part of the Tasmanian coast. 470 long-finned pilot whales were discovered beached around Macquarie Harbour and Ocean Beach near the Tasmanian town of Strahan. The tragic event stands as the largest whale stranding in Australian history.   Rescuers have managed to save 110 whales but sadly the rest are d...

175 years in a US prison: that’s the sentence Australian Wikileaks founder Julian Assange could be facing. Julian is currently in London with legal proceedings underway to decide whether or not he is extradited to the US to face espionage charges. In this episode we get you up to speed on Julian’s story so far, going back to 2010 when he and Wikileaks made headlines for the release of...

On today's episode we look at the global campaign to strip Beijing of the Winter Olympics asking: Should a country have the privilege to host the Olympic Games if the government of that country is doing something harmful to its citizens?   Hosting the Olympics is a privilege and often a very positive PR moment for the host nation, however a group of human rights activists have delivered a joi...

There are 25,000 Australian’s wanting to come home from overseas and our Prime Minister wants them home by Christmas. But with limits on the number of people allowed home and into quarantine each week the airlines that are still flying can only bring in a fraction of the passengers they used to, so passengers are being charged first and business class tickets and those with economy seats are...

Turia Pitt was 24 years old when she was caught in a grassfire while competing in an ultramarathon. She tried to outrun the flames but couldn’t. She suffered burns to 65% of her body and wasn’t expected to survive her injuries.   But Turia is proof that with the right mindset anything is possible. On today’s episode we find out what Turia’s tragedy taught her abou...