Life Matters - Full program podcast

Helping you figure out all the big stuff in life: relationships, health, money, work and the world.

Less than 4 per cent of the statues in Australia depict women from our history. It reveals a lot about who we remember, and how they're immortalised. Our collective memory is shaped by historians' personal values, ideals and beliefs as much as it is by historical events themselves. So historian and guide Sita Sargeant took it upon herself to reshape this history to tell stories of the women we forgot. 
Shaun Micallef has never understood the appeal of gambling, but he's something of an outlier. Australians are among the biggest punters in the world, and we lose billions each year. He explains why he decided to investigate our national obsession in a new documentary series, and what can be done to protect future generations from falling prey to voracious betting companies.
It's notoriously hard to hold the attention of teenage boys. But when Andy Griffiths stumbled across a novella in his school library about a man who wakes up as an insect, it sparked something wonderful. That reading experience would set him on the path to becoming an award-winning children's author with a penchant for the ridiculous. 
Parenting styles are a bit like fashion — norms are continually challenged, evolving and ultimately judged. Psychologist Christine Bagley-Jones joins Life Matters for Head and Heart to unpack "beta parenting", the latest trend describing a more relaxed, "good enough" approach to child-rearing.

Since, COVID, there's been a 39 per cent increase in the number of people sleeping rough. When housed residents see this in their local parks, they call council to report it. But of all the levels of government, it's this local layer that it is least equipped to respond. Sunshine Coast mayor Rosanna Natoli and researcher Andrew Clarke explain how local councils are addressing the issue.
There are more than 6,300 cemeteries across the country, but space is at a premium, with many already at capacity. In some cases, the mourners visiting these sacred places are dying out too. So could we find a better way to use these public spaces dedicated to grief, giving them back to the living, while maintaining respect for the dead?
There was a time when the word "peptide" was reserved for conversations between chemists, but now it's a wellness supplement gaining momentum. It's prompted experts to call for stronger regulation, with concerns that young people are particularly at risk.

Whether you feel self-conscious about your body, or have trouble with performance anxiety, most of us experience sexual hang-ups at some point or another. Sex and relationships therapist Georgia Grace talks through where these anxieties come from, and how normalising conversations about our hang-ups can help us work through them to prioritise pleasure.
Family photo albums can hold immense sentimental value, documenting a shared history and keeping memories of relatives long since passed alive for future generations. But when the family parts ways, who decides where those memories go?

A Grattan Institute report indicates that over one million Australians a year are delaying or skipping specialist health care because they can't afford it. Specialists do vital work, and they're highly trained. But uncapped fees means costs can keep growing and people can't keep up. What can be done to balance the scales and what is the reality for the specialists?
New research has outlined the urgent need to better equip the people who become our de facto therapists — the beauticians, hairdressers, nail techs —with the tools to do this heavy emotional labour.
If you're married, did you keep your own surname or take the name of your betrothed? It's a highly gendered and changing social norm, so what does our surname actually say about us?