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Are Catholic priests employed by the Church, or by the hand of God? This question was at the heart of a five-year legal battle between a survivor of child sexual abuse seeking compensation from the Catholic Church and Bishop Paul Bird of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat. The High Court’s decision last November – that the Catholic Church does not employ priests and therefore is not liab...

In December last year, a group of crossbenchers dialled into a secret call with the Albanese government. It was to get a briefing on a government-commissioned report on the national security risks posed by climate change – a report the government has been sitting on since early 2023. Described by one senator as “frankly terrifying”, the Climate Risk Assessment report has not been...

The discovery of an abandoned caravan full of explosives on the outskirts of Sydney earlier this year triggered widespread panic and fear.  There were reports of a list of Jewish targets – and right away, NSW Premier Chris Minns and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it terrorism. In the months that followed, discourse concerning the caravan became increasingly politicised, with Pet...

Acolytes of Elon Musk, working in the Department of Government Efficiency, are currently gutting the US government, with Musk claiming he’ll find savings of up to US$2 trillion. Department by department, DOGE staff – mostly young men from the tech world – are sacking federal employees and gaining access to some of the government’s most sensitive information. Vittoria Elliot...

Donald Trump’s full-throated support of Elon Musk continues, despite more and more people questioning why an unelected billionaire is exerting enormous power over the future of the American government. While Musk claims to be bringing his business expertise to cutting government waste, his true motives are becoming clearer. WIRED reporter Vittoria Elliott has discovered Musk’s actions...

Novelist Sonia Orchard was in her 40s when a revelation during a therapy session turned her life upside down. Could the relationship she’d had in her teens with a man more than a decade older in fact be abuse? In her new memoir,  Groomed , Sonia investigates her own story, sharing her gruelling journey through the justice system, and shines a light on the failures – social, struct...

Australia’s Chinese community proved to be a powerful voting bloc in the last election.  And as the time draws near to vote again, a growing number of politicians have realised that appealing to the country’s 1.5 million Chinese Australians is key to electoral success.  But as journalist Wing Kuang has found, the major parties’ attempts to court Chinese voters are provi...

Donald Trump’s trade war is escalating, as his wide-ranging tariffs take effect.  Australia had hoped to avoid a 25 per cent tariff on our steel and aluminium – but we now know there’ll be no exemptions. As Canada and the EU retaliate with counter-tariffs, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is focused on stemming the damage, by arguing other large industries – that would...

When Launceston nurse and midwife Amanda Duncan appeared at a Tasmanian parliamentary inquiry into ambulance ramping last year, her testimony was macabre and shocking.  Duncan claimed hospital management at Launceston General Hospital had altered death certificates – meaning deaths that should have been investigated were quietly recertified. Those revelations triggered a public inquiry,...

As Trump’s radical reshaping of the US pulls into focus, so too has the list of those who have gained entry to his inner circle.  That list includes not only Australia’s richest person – but also Australia’s largest private arms supplier.  Robert Nioa isn’t yet a household name, but the weapons mogul is a close confidante to Peter Dutton, married to a Katter...

Most Australians have been targeted by a scam attempt, from spam text messages to intricate love fraud. The scams have cost us billions. But behind these attacks is a highly organised and secretive industry – fuelled by human trafficking.  It’s believed hundreds of thousands of people are being held against their will in so-called “scam factories” across South East Asi...

Julie Bishop built her career as a politician representing Australia on the world stage.  Now, she’s taken on a new lobbying role, working for a China-linked resources company who are attempting to mine uranium in Greenland.  Bishop’s gig comes at a time when China and the US are ramping up their fight for domination in the Arctic – and if she’s successful, the be...

In Andrea Goldsmith’s ninth and latest novel,  The Buried Life , she unpicks the relationships between people and the undercurrents of doubt and faith that define a life. But more than anything else this is a book that is first and foremost concerned with death. It’s a subject that has long fascinated Andrea, something she discusses deeply with host Michael Williams on this episod...

Cyclone Alfred hits as we gear up for the federal election, bringing back memories of the floods and bushfires that tore through the country last time we voted. How Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton handle this moment could be crucial, as voters refocus on the increasing impact of climate change and closely scrutinise the plans both parties have to address it.  Today, national correspondent f...

Australia is heading into a federal election at a time when trust in politics and our institutions is eroding. Over the past two decades, satisfaction with the political system has collapsed, driven by economic inequality, housing stress and the rapid spread of disinformation across social media. Political parties are already preparing for a campaign that will lean heavily on negative messaging &n...

One evening, two weeks ago, Natan Mwanza was stabbed and killed at a bus stop in Melbourne’s south-west. He was 24 years old. Natan’s family had migrated to Australia from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008, and his death sparked an outpouring of grief from African diasporic communities in Australia. Historian and filmmaker Santilla Chingaipe also felt the impact of Natan’s...

When Arthur Sinodinos arrived in Washington as Australia’s ambassador to the United States in 2020, he was told the best way to get things done with Donald Trump was to go straight to the person in the White House handling the issue. In many cases, that wasn’t a typical official – it was a business figure, a loyalist, or even a family member. As Trump 2.0 takes shape, his adminis...

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with US President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance in the Oval Office on Friday, they were there to sign a deal that would give the US access to a significant share of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. Instead, Trump and Vance berated and taunted Zelensky, before asking him to leave. The deal remained unsigned, and relations between the...

Warmer waters, disease and antibiotics have pushed Tasmania’s salmon farms into crisis. But it’s not just an environmental disaster – it’s also a political one. With an election looming, the Albanese government is pouring millions into salmon farming in an attempt to save jobs and votes, even as rotting fish litter the shore.  Today, national correspondent for The Satu...

In Melbourne-based author Sean Wilson’s new book,  You Must Remember This , he tackles the complicated, tragic, and often fraught subject of dementia. On this episode of  Read This  Sean joins host Michael Williams for a conversation about loss, family, and how to hang on to one’s humanity as illness strips it away. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was just before Christmas when Geraldine Brooks sat down for the first in a series of conversations with Anthony Albanese – and his popularity was plummeting. The prime minister's net approval rating had dropped to minus 17, while Peter Dutton’s had ticked up to zero. Since then, the polls haven’t improved for Albanese. His critics have painted him as weak and ineffective &nda...

When the country’s peak arts body, Creative Australia, decided to dump Australia’s representative at the Venice Biennale, it set in motion an existential crisis for the arts.  The artist in question, Khaled Sabsabi, was removed from the role just days after his appointment – following an article in a News Corp newspaper, a set of opposition questions in the Senate and a phon...

It was 2020 when the government first discovered that a glitch in its system was wrongfully cutting  welfare recipients off from their payments. Rather than fixing the error, the department did nothing for three years. In that time, ten people died. Whether their deaths were the result of suicide or destitution after losing support, Services Australia won’t say. Today, senior reporter f...

The results in the latest Closing the Gap report are grim. Only five of the 19 targets are on track, and Indigenous incarceration rates are rising. But is the policy itself part of the problem? Critics like independent senator Lidia Thorpe argue that Closing the Gap hasn’t delivered change and should be scrapped. Meanwhile, the government has announced hundreds of millions in new spending, i...

One of the cardinal Murdoch family rules is never speak about the family outside the family. So, when journalist McKay Coppins got in touch with James Murdoch last year, he really wasn’t expecting a reply. But Coppins was curious – what would happen to the Murdoch empire when Rupert died? And what it would mean for his youngest son, James, who was seemingly an outcast from the family?...