The Briefing

Thursday Headlines:
Pauline Hanson defends Victorian One Nation leader, Andrew Hastie cartoon
Anthony Albanese defends pork barreling allegations
Another man killed in Sydney's escalating gangland war
Melbourne council bans smart glasses from public pools and playgrounds
Apple unveils new folding iPhone
Further listening from the headlines:
Sach's deep dive on Sydney's gangland war
Chris' chat with David Shoebridge
Deep Dive: Australia's not really well known for skiing, but there is a dedicated ski fraternity who love getting to the slopes each winter. So, what happens if there’s no snow?
That’s the question being put to the country’s resort operators after a dismal 2026 season plagued by warm, dry conditions and patchy snow cover.
With most ski fields wrapping up their seasons over the weekend and just a couple still clinging on, we’re being warned winters like this will become more likely, not less.
In this episode of The Briefing, Chris Spyrou chats with the CEO of Snow Resorts Australia, Josh Elliott about the future of snow tourism in Australia. We also hear from Dr Lily O’Neil from Protect our Winters to talk about what climate change’s role is in all of this
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Wednesday Headlines:
Labor unveils new laws to govern social media giants
Missing Australian found alive in Nepal
Penny Wong prepares new sanctions against Israeli settlements
One Nation Victorian leader says he's no angel, admits to previous drug use
Aussie kids record their worst reading and maths results
Further listening from headlines:
How Australia funds Israeli settlements
Deep Dive: Does Australia need a Minister for AI?
That's the call from Greens Senator David Shoebridge, who this week was appointed the party's first-ever spokesperson for Digital Rights and AI.
It comes as the government insists it's doing whatever it can to put big tech on a leash and keep people first - while at the same time selling Australia as the perfect home for the very infrastructure driving AI's expansion: data centres.
In this episode of The Briefing, Chris Spyrou is joined by Senator Shoebridge to discuss his new portfolio, whether Australia can pull itself back from being AI's wild west, and what it'll actually take to put people ahead of profit.
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Tuesday Headlines:
One Nation has been forced into a quick defence of its plan for superannuation
Australian bureaucrats want to ban videos from parliamentary hearings being shared on social media
Trial of alleged killers of Australian brothers in Mexico gets underway
Food prices could be pushed higher by record strength El Niño
King Charles issues clarification on Harry and Meghan
Deep Dive: For years, a secret formula has dictated everything we see on social media, hooking our attention spans at the expense of our mental health.
Now, the federal government is unveiling a plan to let users opt out of the algorithm entirely and return to a chronological stream of accounts they actually follow. But with increasing pressure to protect young men from the insidious manosphere, how much will an opt-out actually change?
In this episode of The Briefing, reporter Amber Schultz joins Sacha Barbour Gatt to detail her experiment posing as a 17-year-old boy online, where it took just 13 minutes to land on manosphere content, and what these proposed changes will mean for our feeds.
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Monday Headlines:
Gov to strengthen teen social media ban as it looks to create an opt-out approach to social media
One Nation reveals superannuation policy
Coalition wants to ban flag burning
Manhunt underway for Victorian man who allegedly attacked his family with an axe
US envoys hold peace talks with Russia and Ukraine
Lindsay Clancy trial ends in a mistrial
Deep Dive: In Sydney, a staggering six cases of mistaken identity in the city’s bloody gangland war has left innocent people dead, exposing a horrifying shift toward young, inexperienced gunmen carrying out underworld hits.
The body count stems from a bitter turf war which ramped up six years ago with the murder of Fares Abounader, which ignited a battle between rival crime families for Sydney’s billion-dollar illicit trades.
In this episode of The Briefing, we trace with criminologist Dr Vincent Hurley how this bloody conflict has spiralled into 24 deaths, why the criminal underworld changed, and how cheap, reckless hitmen are firing at the wrong targets.
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One in 3 Australians will need blood in their lifetime, but 1 in 30 donate across the country.
Lifeblood says recent appeals have prevented supplies falling to critical levels but have not been enough to replenish low supplies of O-positive and O-negative blood types, which are the types used in emergencies. A-positive blood stocks have also dropped in recent weeks.
In this episode of The Briefing, we talk about why our listeners should consider donating blood and we learn the extraordinary story of Krishan Lal who is the perfect example of how donating blood can change not just the recipient’s life, but the lives of those around them.
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