The Morning Edition

The Morning Edition

The Morning Edition (formerly Please Explain) brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.

Episodes

June 26, 2025 22 mins

She is a former shearer, a pilot and a mother of three children. She has a dark past as a punk in Canberra. She has been one of the only women in the room in successive Liberal cabinets. She was the deputy to former opposition leader Peter Dutton, and following the last election, she took his job. 

She is, of course, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.

Today, chief political commentator James Massola and host Jacqueline Maley speak ...

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Donald Trump has accused Israel and Iran of already breaking a ceasefire, in a tirade against both sides as the US President left for a NATO summit in the Netherlands. 

Meanwhile, multiple American media outlets are reporting Sunday’s bunker blitz did not destroy Iran’s three key nuclear sites. 

So what’s next? And also, how did we get here in the first place? 

Today, national environment editor and...

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After eight weeks, the jury in Australia’s most high-profile trial in decades, is set to deliberate, and return a verdict.

By now, most will be familiar with the tale - Victorian woman Erin Patterson is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them poisonous mushrooms in a beef Wellington lunch. Heather’s husband, Ian, also ate the lunch but survive...

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It’s the kind of war he’s promised for years to avoid. Then just last week, Donald Trump said he’d take the fortnight to consider his options. But on Sunday, under the cover of darkness, the US president announced American forces had struck Iran.

The secret and brutal assault on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities, using so-called "bunker buster" bombs, brought the United States directly into the conflict bet...

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Donating blood is an important community service – one that’s desperately needed for patients, in life-threatening conditions. But up until now, those identifying as gay, bisexual or transgender had effectively been banned from donating. A lift on that ban will now significantly expand Australia’s donor pool at a time when blood - specifically plasma - is most needed by patients. But for many in the LGBTQ+  c...

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This week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese travelled to the G7 summit with high hopes of scoring a sidelines-meeting with US President Donald Trump. The PM wanted to discuss the AUKUS pact, and the tariffs that the US government has put on Australian aluminium and iron ore among other things. 

But events overtook, and Trump left the summit to deal with the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Albanese did not get his m...

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Israel and Iran continue to exchange missile fire in the Middle East’s latest battleground - and the world awaits a decision from Donald Trump.

The US president has long sworn off getting involved in wars like these, indeed, he’s touted himself as the peacemaker. 

But now he faces a critical decision, and a key test for his presidency. Meanwhile, Trump told leaders at the G7 summit that he’d been open involvi...

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'Train by day, podcast by night' is the catchphrase of the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast which has 50 million-odd downloads a month worldwide with a huge male listenership including in Australia.

The American host's message, while compelling, can be rambling, unpolished, and often delve into conspiracy theories.

Today, Chief Reporter, Jordan Baker on Joe Rogan’s influence on Australian men and whether it’s ...

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Some of Victoria’s top restaurants and most celebrated chefs have come under fire recently, as allegations about bullying and harassment mount from former employees. Similar such allegations have seen heads roll at hospitality giants like Swillhouse in Sydney. 

And now, allegations about a popular Melbourne restaurateur, from those who have worked with him closely, an alleged incident of indecent exposure and aggressive ...

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When news broke, 11 days ago, that one of Australia’s oldest and largest fertility services implanted the wrong embryo in a woman in Melbourne, it, naturally, made headlines around the country.

But for those of us following the story, that was just the beginning. Because this mistake occurred only two months after another woman, in Queensland, gave birth to another couple’s baby, after an embryo mix up at Monash IVF.

To...

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This week the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave a big speech at the National Press Club in Canberra, and used it to dangle the prospect of economic reform.During its first term, the Albanese government was criticised for not being bold enough in its agenda. So is the PM signalling he will use his huge majority to institute major reform? What would a daring economic reform agenda look like? And are Australians ready for it?

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June 11, 2025 22 mins

It’s hard to keep up with what’s happening in Los Angeles. And why. On Saturday, federal agents were jumping out of an unmarked van near a Home Depot parking lot and began grabbing people.

Then we heard that Donald Trump had called in the National Guard. And then the Marines.

And then, yesterday afternoon, Californian governor Gavin Newsom delivered a rebuke to Donald Trump in a nationwide address, saying: “What w...

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New York Times bestselling Author Michael Lewis is, as one interviewer recently put it, “a kind of guru of our age”. This is because, in books like MoneyballThe Big Short and Going Infinite, not to mention his own podcast, he has chronicled some of the big social and economic seachanges of our time - ...

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Australia has marked the King’s Birthday long weekend and with it comes honours for 830 people.

But there’s one that stands out: former prime minister Scott Morrison’s appointment as a companion of the order of Australia has proved divisive.

So why did Morrison get the honour? Does he deserve it? And who are some of the other awardees on the list?

Today, senior economics correspondent Shane Wright joins Nick Bonyh...

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Male humpback whales sing to each other, and when they do - over the course of a season - a favourite “hit song” emerges. Each whale passes it along, until all the humpback males in the Southern Ocean sing it. 

But humpback whales aren’t just amazing creatures, capable of tenderness, and rivalries. They’ve also managed one of Australia’s great comebacks - they numbered less than 100 on the east co...

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The dramatic shakeout from the general election continued this week, this time from the left wing of Australian politics, with WA Greens senator Dorinda Cox defecting to Labor. 
It was a coup for a triumphant Prime Minister. 
But will the PM live to regret his new recruit? What does Senator Cox’s defection mean for the much-depleted Greens party? And how does it fit with the PM’s recent approval of the e...

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Most of us have, for so long, lived under the shadow of American exports, that we’d be hard-pressed to choose which was the most intrusive. Hollywood rom-coms? Halloween? J.Lo?

That list might have been relevant a couple of weeks ago. But now America’s biggest export is Donald Trump’s MAGA mindset, according to international and political editor, Peter Hartcher. 

Today, he joins 'The Morning Edition' to discu...

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When news broke, over the weekend, that Ukraine launched a devastating and unprecedented attack on Russian air force bases, it shocked analysts around the world. 

The damage was huge. And it made a mockery of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s expectation, more than three years ago, that he would capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, within days.  

Today, Associate Professor Matthew Sussex, a fellow at the Austr...

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Since October 7, incidents of antisemitism have surged across the globe, with people attacked and synagogues and homes vandalised.

It’s with this backdrop that the latest attack has occurred, this time at a pro-Israel event in the United States.

Today, world editor Catherine Naylor on the attack in Boulder, Colorado that turned a weekly vigil into what one witness said looked like a “war zone”.

Subscribe to The Age...

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How are we to make sense of the swirling chaos around us? The multiple wars, accusations of wrongdoing, and human carnage? And how can we possibly have civilised conversations about it all?

British barrister and author Philippe Sands, is uniquely placed to guide us through this moment. It’s not just that he’s an expert on crimes against humanity, who has won cases against former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet. But h...

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