Life Matters - Full program podcast

The main street is the heart of a country town, and it can often give you a quick picture of how the place is faring. With new data showing more than 5.3 million metropolitan Australians would consider a move to the regions, that first impression can be make or break. Sheep farmer turned property investor Max Jones, regional Queensland mayor Shaun 'Zoro' Radnedge and Professor Andrew Beer discuss what it takes to breathe new life into these communities.
We've all had at least one run-in with a neighbour before. But if you knew they could leave you a review, would you think twice about chucking your overflowing rubbish in their bin? Rowan Thambar explains why he created a website called Rate Thy Neighbour, and the unspoken social rules it's revealed.
The concept is simple: a rotary phone, disconnected from any network, offering a quiet place to sit and chat with someone who's died. The wind phone began as one man's way to say goodbye, but the idea has now spread around the world, opening up space for conversations about death, loss and grief.
And author, academic and activist Bri Lee shares the book that awakened her feminist rage, and ultimately, changed her life.

Many of us feel overwhelmed by the demands of everyday life — hustling to make ends meet, managing never-ending life admin, staying fit and healthy, caring for the people around us, and worrying about the state of the world. So if you're feeling stuck, how do you regain a sense of hopefulness? Writers Jodi Wilson and Andrew Sloane share the practical changes you can make to your daily life to bring things back into balance. 
And for Ask Aunty, Fiona Harris and Joe Sullivan help navigate a neighbourly dispute over street trees on the nature strip.

After the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, Australia built thousands of public pools, which are now reaching the end of their lives. Royal Surf Life Saving Australia estimates about 40 per cent of public pools will be obsolete by 2030. So what do we lose if our pools start closing, and why are they so important that locals are lobbying to save them?
In an age where people are writing entire novels using ChatGPT, author Bri Lee chose to write her latest work completely by hand. It's a small act of resistance pushing back against the relentless quest for convenience, but Bri's not alone. Columnist for New York magazine The Cut, Kathryn Jezer-Morton, coined the term 'friction-maxxing' while investigating this trend, pushing back against the mindless optimisation of all facets of modern life. 
Do you ever catch up with your grandkids for a good old-fashioned yap, only to find you're barely speaking the same language? Don't worry, that won't last. The American Dialect Society has named its words of the year for 2025 and it appears that old-school gems like 'yap', 'skedaddle', even 'diabolical' are making a comeback.

One of the oldest libraries in Australia, the State Library of New South Wales, is marking its 200th anniversary this year, and as part of the celebrations it's collated a collection of stories about how libraries have changed us. Editor Phillipa McGuinness and teacher-librarian Megan Daley discuss their favourite stories from the library.
Research shows our average focus time on one task has dropped from about 2.5 minutes in the early 2000s to around 40 seconds today. So what would happen if you took away all the distractions? No screens. No notifications. No artificial light. No outside world. Scientist Kiana Aran reflects on spending five days in a cave-like sensory deprivation chamber, hooked up to sensors to measure what total isolation does to the body and mind.
Wuthering Heights has inspired dozens of screen adaptations, but it feels like no-one can agree on whether this latest version starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi is the best or the worst ever. We love to argue over authenticity and the limits of creative licence, so why do we get caught up when characters from a book jump off the page and onto the screen?

Coles is in federal court this week, accused by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) of misleading shoppers with fake discounts — a claim Coles has denied. With trust in Australia's supermarket giants once again under the microscope, how easy is it to shop elsewhere?
Hobbies are good for us, but it turns out that investing serious time and effort into our leisure activities can bring long-term benefits. Researcher Emily Messina and amateur sword fighter Kiara Bruggeman discuss the connection, community and serious skills that can come from going deeper.
If you're out in a busy public place and take a moment to look around, chances are you'll spot a CCTV camera. But would you feel differently if those cameras were actively scanning and identifying you? Digital wellbeing expert Joanne Orlando explains how to identify the risks of digital surveillance.