The Morning Edition

We bring you this bonus episode today, on Wednesday April 30th, after the first day of what’s become known as the mushroom trial.

This is the case that centres around a quiet country lunch that resulted in three people dead, and another fighting for life, after the food they ate contained - as a jury was told - death cap mushrooms.

To tell us what unfolded in court today, we’re joined by The Age’s court reporter E...

It’s never happened in Australia. But should we have a federal Minister for Men? Dan Repacholi, a Federal Labor MP, who is currently campaigning for re-relection, says it’s a “no-brainer”. He knows how taboo it is. That to promote the idea risks him being labeled anti-woman. But tragedies and struggles in Repacholi’s electorate - and his own experience - have convinced him of the need to speak out.Toda...

Salmon farming is not something most voters consider when they go to the polls on election day. But for Tasmanian voters, it is a huge and often divisive issue. This debate about the environmental effects of salmon farming is playing out in an election where any other discussion of the environment is pretty much non-existent.

Which is curious because energy policy goes hand-in-hand with the environment and that is a decisive topic ...

For decades, modern-day Welcome to Country ceremonies have been an established ritual in Australia, performed by Indigenous elders, far and wide.

But on Anzac Day last Friday, during the hush of the dawn service remembering war veterans, Bunurong and Gunditjmara elder Mark Brown was booed, and jeered at, while performing the ceremony in Melbourne. 

And then that night, a planned Welcome to Country ceremony was ditched at ...

K’gari, formerly known as Fraser Island, is one of Australia’s natural wonders and every year, almost half a million people enjoy its wild and sprawling environment.

But as visitor numbers swell, the question of how tourists coexist with some of the island’s oldest residents, the dingo, becomes more important.

Twenty four years after a nine-year-old boy was fatally mauled by two dingoes on K’gari, strategies...

This week we are doing a special podcast about our complicated relationship with political polls. As journalists, we like them because, maybe, they can tell us something about what voters are really thinking. But we are a bit wary of them too. Especially after the federal election in 2019, where the polls were wrong. That caused a massive rethink in how polling is done, and how we in the media rely on it. Jacqueline Maley is joined...

Six days ago, American president Donald Trump signalled, with frustration, that he was prepared to walk away from trying to broker a peace deal with Russia over Ukraine, and leave the country to its fate.

And then, yesterday, we got the news. Russian president Vladimir Putin had a new offer.

Today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher, on where this leaves Ukraine. And what the latest negotiations mean for the rest of ...

It wasn’t uncommon, in the 19th century, for women to be given the diagnosis of ‘hysteria’ and admitted to mental health asylums if they didn’t do what their husband said, or, if they swore, or had sex outside of marriage. But did you know that women are still being involuntarily sectioned in Australia? Today, investigative reporter Aisha Dow on what has led many women to end up in this terrifying situation,...

The threat teal independents pose in this election - to the dominance of the two-party system, to the stability of our parliament and to the Liberal Party’s base - is very real. Today, we focus on two of these seats: Bradfield in Sydney and Kooyong in Melbourne where the teals and the Libs are neck and neck. City reporter for The Age Rachael Dexter and NSW political editor Alexandra Smith join Jacqueline Maley to discuss.

Subs...

Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, has died at the age 88. Francis, who had led the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics since 2013, had been in increasingly poor health and pain.

We are re-publishing this episode, recorded in February, with former religion editor at The Age, Barney Zwartz, on Pope Francis' mixed legacy and the impact he has had on lives, whether Catholic, or not.

Subscribe to The Age & SMH: ht...

Australians love a ‘battler’.

Images of shearers, Anzacs, and gold diggers are deeply entrenched in our history.

Politicians know that too. Why else do we see them in hard hats and high visibility vests?

But a couple of moments in this election campaign have hit a nerve. They came from a blue blood Liberal candidate in Melbourne, and the opposition leader’s son in a press conference in Brisbane.

Today, Frank Bongi...

More than 1800 women have shared experiences of feeling gaslit, being dismissed by doctors or being told their pain was in their mind as part of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age’s investigative series into medical misogyny in Australia’s healthcare system.

Among the most alarming stories are those of almost 60 women who detailed their delayed cancer diagnoses. Some spent years in pain or with symptoms that they...

This week on the campaign saw the release of competing housing policies, and the appearance of Peter Dutton’s son Harry.

But in many ways the campaign continued to be overshadowed by Donald Trump. Labor is making increasingly explicit attacks trying to link Dutton to the US president. And Dutton’s cause wasn’t helped with one of his key frontbenchers aped a Trump slogan. Does this mean the wheels have fallen off t...

So many of us have been yanking at our hair, or just standing around, slack jawed, as we’ve watched sharemarkets collapse and the chance of a recession barrel towards us - all as a result of Donald Trump’s tariffs. But to focus on the economic chaos is to miss the larger domino effect that’s been taking place in the background, as countries begin scrambling for a safe harbour.

Today, international and polit...

This week our revered economics editor Ross Gittins wrote an essay for the Age and Sydney Morning Herald, in which he lamented the state of this election campaign in particular, and Australian politics in general. The essay was titled “They treat us like mugs”, and Ross did not miss with his critique of the timidity and cynicism of the two major parties’ campaigns. Gittins joins Jacqueline Maley in the studio, to ...

When news surfaced in March, that schools across Australia were recording record levels of violence, with a huge number of principals having either suffered physical abuse, last year, or witnessed it, education reporter Nicole Precel wanted to find out more.

What, if anything, could stop principals from being bitten, and teachers from being pushed down stairs, by students? And turn around the often plummeting academic records and m...

The Australian government and opposition party have both announced policies to address the country's housing crisis, with young people in particular priced out of the market.

Labor say they want to drop deposits for mortgages to buy a home to five per cent, while the Coalition want to make mortgage repayments tax deductable. 

In an early release episode, Brendan Coates, who is the Grattan Institute's housing and economic secur...

A year on from Joel Cauchi's apparently indiscriminate stabbing spree at the Westfield shopping centre in Bondi Junction, what have we learned?

Later this month, an inquest into the attack, which claimed the lives of six people and injured another 10, will begin. 

Today, chief reporter Jordan Baker, and crime reporter Perry Duffin, on what the coroner hopes to learn and whether any intervention in the lead-up could have preven...

No one fell off a stage this week, but we did see the two party leaders face off for their first debate, plus the Coalition released modelling of its gas policy.

With energy prices so crucial in this election, we are going to take a closer look at the Coalition’s gas plan - is it credible or is it just a cover-up for a nuclear policy that may never come off? 

Chief political correspondent David Crowe and special first-ti...