The Briefing

On todays episode we interview a disease detective hunting for patient zero and trying to stop the spread of COVID-19. Christian Peut is a Contact Tracer in the Communicable Disease and Control Branch at SA Health. Coronavirus contact tracers or "disease detectives" are the health experts who interview people with COVID-19 to try and work out who they might have got the disease from and who they m...

Welcome to a special weekend edition of The Briefing with guest Dr Pimple Popper.   In today’s episode, we catch up with global YouTube sensation, dermatologist Dr Pimple Popper AKA Dr Sandra Lee. She has more than 6.5 million YouTube subscribers and 3.9 million on Instagram… with some individual videos clocking up 60 million views.   Did she ever expect to clock up 4 millio...

Is the pandemic making us watch strange internet videos? Jan Fran has felt the need to watch ASMR and Pimple Popping videos during lockdown and on today's episode we explore why? Pimple popping videos are a type of ASMR which is an Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. We’re joined by the biggest pimple popper in the world: Dr Pimple Popper who has 6.5million subscribers on youtube and 3.9m...

For 45 years letters between the Queen and Australia’s Governor General have been kept secret. This week, against the Queen's wishes this series of private letters were released.   On todays episode our guest is the Gough Whitlam biographer who fought for the palace papers to be released in court - Australian Historian Emeritus Professor Jenny Hocking from Monash University. We're also...

When most of us could travel overseas we knew that that if it all goes pear shaped you still call Australia home and it will be waiting for you with open arms. But for many Australians overseas that changed this week.   Today we're joined by Lachlan Kitchen, who has been trying to build a life in Dubai... but had a redundancy  last week. Our other guest is James Mort who is still in Lond...

Should we be wearing face masks in public? To mask or not to mask? It’s a simple question: so why has there been so much mixed messaging about wearing a face mask here in Australia and Overseas? The advice from the World Health Organisation has now become clearer and stronger. Same with the Victorian Authorities and the American Centre for Disease control.    To answer this timely...

We know that Covid-19 testing, especially in hotspots, will be key to stopping it’s spread. However, since the second wave hit Melbourne we’ve heard of thousands of people who have refused the swab test. Should we throw the book at these people who say no? Or are there perfectly valid reasons to refuse the nasal swab?   Our guests to discuss this topic are Marylouise McLaws (UNSW...

The US is considering banning Tiktok because of concerns about privacy and Chinese government interference. India banned it last week and now our pollies are taking a long hard look at it. So should TikTok be banned in Australia? Serious concerns have been raised about privacy, censorship and Chinese government interference as Tiktok is the first Chinese-owned social media platform to become so po...

In today’s episode we look at the Melbourne public housing tower crisis. While the city of Melbourne is back in lockdown and panic buying has returned, what will happen to the 3000 people trapped in public housing towers that can’t even go to the supermarket? We speak to Abdi Ish who lives in a North Melbourne housing tower and Kon Karapanagiotidis, CEO Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. &...

Experts at the Australian National University have been testing Canberra's sewage water for traces of COVID-19. Testing wastewater is a quick and inexpensive way of tracking the coronavirus and potentially alerting communities of an outbreak before it occurs, so should it be rolled out across the country?   We speak to Dr Aparna Lal from the ANU Research School of Population Health who is lea...

Quarantining international travellers has been a huge part of Australia’s successful management of COVID-19, however Victoria faces mass lockdowns in the face of a second wave. On today’s episode we find out what went wrong with Melbourne’s disastrous hotel quarantine management. Andrew Lund is the Nine News reporter who managed to get hotel security guards to speak out and joins...

In a time of economic hardship should we be spending less on defence rather than more? As we grapple with the decision about extending Job Keeper... the government announced $270b in weapons spending. Sam Dastyari has openly criticised the move and joins us on the podcast, along with a defence analyst who has a very different view - Professor Rory Medcalf, Head of the National Security College at...

The #StopHateForProfit campaign is growing, but will it make a difference? Some of the biggest brands in the world have all pledged to suspend advertising on Facebook during July. It’s part of a campaign called #StopHateforProfit.     In today's episode we find out why the big brands are turning on Facebook, and delve into the issue of Hate speech which is a problem that has plague...

A reckoning is taking place in Australia’s legal profession. The women in the industry say it’s a boy’s club and always has been, despite more than 60 per cent of law graduates today being female. This gender based discrimination and hostile work environment is a leading reason why women step away from the legal profession. So what is going on and what can be done to fix it? Toda...

Today on the podcast we take a deep dive on what this means for the planet and what can we do to change it? We’ve known for years that the Arctic is warming at twice the global average and one side effect is that the frozen ground that melts and refreezes each year is permanently shrinking. What’s got scientists really worried is that it is no longer thawing gradually and is allowing m...

Stock market horror stories and how to avoid the same mistakes!   First time investors have been pouring into the market since the coronavirus crash. Today we find out what can go wrong and how to avoid the same mistakes.   The Covid crisis has created some wild scenes on the stock market and for people that couldn’t bet on sport anymore the stock market became a very enticing opti...

Tensions have been particularly bad since Australia led the charge on a global inquiry into the origins of the Coronavirus. Earlier this year editor of the Global Times called us the “chewing gum stuck on the soles of China’s shoes”  and a poll from last week shows Australians are worried about China. On todays episode we speak to Will Glasgow, the Australian’s Ch...

Welcome to a special weekend edition of The Briefing with guest Julie Bishop In today’s episode we catch up with Julie Bishop the former Foreign Minister and one of Australia’s most successful female politicians. What she’s been up to post politics? Adapting to technology to keep running a business Did Australia do the right thing by leading the call for an independent inquiry in...

Australia has won the bid to host the biggest women’s sporting event in the world, the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup. On today's episode we speak to Matildas star striker Hayley Raso straight after the announcement. It will be the first World Cup hosted across two football confederations with Australia and New Zealand hosting 32 teams. The Matildas and the Women's League have built up a huge f...

The data is in! Employing and promoting women makes a company more productive and more profitable, so why aren’t all businesses doing more of that? In this episode we brief you on a brand-new report that makes the unequivocal business case for gender equality in Australia’s top companies. While women make up half of the workforce there are far fewer women in leadership positions t...

Last week the government announced they want to make some uni degrees cheaper and others a lot more expensive.  On today's episode Annika Smethhurst explains the proposed changes, plus we speak with the Education Minister Dan Tehan and his former cabinet colleague Julie Bishop about this.   In today's news headlines: Novak Djokovic tests positive to Covid-19 after hosting controversial t...

Could now be the perfect time for a WAXIT and Western Australia to break away from the rest of the country? There’s long been the undercurrent of a breakaway movement in WA, re-appearing when the borders closed for COVID-19 so what does it mean now? In today's episode we find out what one of WA’s most influential people think of Waxit, former Foreign Minster and WA Leader Julie Bishop,...

Victoria has reimposed coronavirus restrictions and extended its State of Emergency after its highest number of new cases in months.   On Todays episode we take a look at what led to this spike, and whether this is the right course of action for the state.   Catherine Bennett, Professor of Epidemiology at Deakin University helps us understand this tipping point.   In todays news Hea...

Welcome to a special weekend edition of The Briefing with guest Andrew Denton. Andrew is one of Australia’s most loved media identities and after losing his father to a painful death a few years ago he’s been Australia’s most vocal advocate for assisted dying.  Andrew is passionate about having a choice about how we die and has been working to bring in Assisted Dying Laws so...

Today marks one year since Victoria introduced a voluntary assisted dying scheme.  It’s the first Australian state to enact Voluntary Assisted Dying laws, so the question is: Should the rest of the country follow suit? We speak to Dr Cameron McLaren, the Victorian doctor who’s assisted in more deaths than any other doctor. And Adam Foreman whose mum chose Voluntary Assisted D...