The Morning Edition

The EU trade deal, and One Nation’s South Australian election

26 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

This week, while we were all freaking out about the oil crisis – and rightly so – European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen visit...

Peter Hartcher on why the Iran conflict is spiralling out of control

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How can we make heads or tails of where the Iran war is headed, and when it might end, when Donald Trump changes his strategy with whiplash speed? One...

What the Kyle and Jackie O split says about Australians

24 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As much as we love to hate Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O, who for so long ruled Australia's most expensive radio program, the implosion of their show i...

Explaining the petrol problem and whether gas is next

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

You’ve noticed the hike in prices at the petrol pump, but how high might prices go? And are we at risk of running out of petrol?Today, energy re...

'Looksmaxxing’ is the dark new trend and Australian men are leading it

22 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

"Looksmaxxing" is a trend on social media where, as the name suggests, men aim to "maximise" their appearance in sometimes extreme ways. There are tal...

Is it really time to panic about petrol supply?

19 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

This week we’re talking about the enormous global volatility the government is dealing with, courtesy of the US-Israel war on Iran, and whether ...

Trump unloads on Australia, and MAGA official quits over Iran war

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

For someone who has said he’s already won the war in Iran, US President Donald Trump sure is angry.On Tuesday night, he lashed out at allies, in...

“We don’t know what the harms could be”: when medicinal cannabis doesn’t work

17 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Go to any family or professional gathering these days, and there's a good chance you’ll be in a room with someone who’s used medicinal can...

How the 'Great Australian Dream' of home ownership has changed

16 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Housing affordability in Australia is at an all-time low, and it’s left young people rethinking the dream of homeownership – something pre...

Do the Oscars ever get it right?

15 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

By now, you’ve probably seen the Reddit threads blowing up over which movie should win the best picture Oscar today. How can Ryan Coogler’...

The extraordinary story of the Iranian women's soccer team

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we talk about the incredible story of the Iranian women's soccer team, some of whom defected and were given asylum in Australia. It was a w...

Trump's 'need for violence'. And have we joined the war on Iran?

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It could be argued that no American president has been as enamoured with violence as Donald Trump. He appears to relish all of it: the spectacle, the ...

How the Iranian women’s soccer team escape unfolded

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Five female Iranian soccer players, in Australia competing for the Asian Cup, escaped in the night from their handlers to seek refuge from their home ...

Reporting from Lebanon: How far will the Iran war expand from here?

10 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Thousands of people in Lebanon have fled their homes due to Israeli airstrikes and forced evacuations as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah esc...

How a group of Australian gamblers beat the Texas lottery

09 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The lieutenant governor of Texas has called it “the biggest theft from the people of Texas in the history of Texas”. He was referring to t...

Mickey the 'monster': Sinister allegations behind spectacular corporate unravelling

08 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Micky Ahuja catapulted his company MA Services from nothing to the big time to become the security provider of choice to the federal government retail...

The politics of war, and why Peter Dutton was so upset over leaked Liberal Party review

05 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Israel and the United States are at war with Iran in a rapidly escalating conflict that Australia seems to be trying to avoid as much as possible.&nbs...

'The MAGA base is splintering': Might Iran break Trump?

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Only six days since the United States and Israel began bombing Iran, the destruction is mounting. More than 800 people have been killed, including Ira...

Regrets? There are none. David Littleproud on Coalition split and what Nats do next

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this bonus episode of Inside Politics, we’re joined by the Nationals leader David Littleproud.He’s a man under pressure – comment...

The energy vampires next door: Life next to an AI mega-factory

03 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

If leading figures of the AI boom, like OpenAI chief Sam Altman, have their way, much of the world (or better yet, space) will be covered in data cent...

Abuse claims against Trump in the missing Epstein files: will it bring him down?

02 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Only days before US President Donald Trump declared war on Iran, another Epstein files bombshell dropped — this one, relating to allegations aga...

US-Iran war: Iran’s government has been ‘decapitated’. What now?

01 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

US President Donald Trump's declaration of war on Iran at the weekend seemed inevitable but nevertheless shocking. Ayatollah Ali Khamanei and civilian...

Tim Wilson accused the treasurer of pouring fuel on the inflation flames – is he right?

26 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

This week we had some not-so-great inflation figures and also reports that there'll be another interest rate rise right before the government hands do...

What Ukraine’s four-year resistance against Russia teaches us about survival

25 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Pentagon once said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could succeed in three days. So, as the war rages on, more than four years later, what ...

Inside Dr Jamal Rifi's mission to bring 'ISIS brides' and children home

25 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Jamal Rifi is the Sydney doctor at the centre of a controversial mission to repatriate the so-called ISIS brides – 34 Australian women and child...

Kidnapped, body found: The case of Sydney grandfather Chris Baghsarian

24 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A scream in the night, glass smashing, and dogs barking - these were the first signs that something terrible had happened in a suburban Sydney street....

What it will take for police to charge Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

23 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was taken into police custody on his 66th birthday last week, it was the first time in nearly 400 years a British roya...

Designer babies: Healthier, better DNA? Or a gateway to eugenics?

22 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Every parent has the same fiercely held wish for their unborn child: that they're born healthy, and continue to thrive. But how far would you go to ac...

The return of 'ISIS brides’ raises so many questions about what it means to be Australian

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australia's ISIS brides - the women trying to return home with their children from Syria - are not getting help f...

The Sketch: Tony Wright on 'Nation's worst government? Jane Hume's hyperbolic historical claim' 

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Tony Wright, the associate editor of The Age, has been writing for 50 years. He is the master of what we call the political sketch. Sketches are ...

Trump won’t shelter us. But does Australia really need nuclear weapons?

18 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are in a dangerous new nuclear age, according to a growing number of world leaders. The signs are not just in Russia’s threats to use its nuc...

A Sydney mother, the big bank and the court stoush over $44.11

17 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It should have been a time of celebration for a Sydney woman, who had bought a new home for herself and her daughter.But as settlement loomed, her app...

How far will Angus Taylor go to crack down on immigration?

16 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“Our character is essentially Anglo-Celtic and Judaeo-Christian. That's what has made our country attractive to migrants, and we should keep it ...

The CFMEU ‘crime gang’: A honeypot of money, and a government that looked the other way

15 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Investigative reporter Nick McKenzie’s 2024 exposé of the criminal infiltration of the construction sector prompted a slew of investigati...

Anthony Albanese interview: Police prayer disruption at Herzog protest needs ‘full explanation’

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We're bringing you an extra episode of Inside Politics today because Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had an opening in his diary, and he's granted us ...

Is government spending really driving inflation?

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

There’s a bit going on with the Liberal Party this week, but while that unfolds we are going to look at some bigger issues.  Interest rates...

Japan’s new PM is the 'Trump whisperer'. Will she compel Albanese to follow suit?

11 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is so pro-Donald Trump she’s become known as the “Trump whisperer”. She also just gai...

Who is Isaac Herzog and why are there protests everywhere he goes?

10 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The violence that unfolded outside Sydney Town Hall on Monday night was ugly. Protesters were punched, kicked and trampled as they tried to breach a p...

The politics of Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl’s half-time show

09 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

If you’ve taken a passing glimpse at news over the past week, you would have come across the name Bad Bunny.The Puerto Rican musician recently w...

Gina Rinehart, the disability pensioner and a fight over 12km of fencing

08 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We all know how a neighbour with irksome habits can drive us to distraction. Maybe their leafblower is their best friend. Or they blast their music at...

Bill Shorten on his random, oblique reference in the Epstein files

05 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today on Inside Politics, we welcome back former opposition leader Bill Shorten, who is now the Vice Chancellor of the University of Canberra.It'...

The Epstein files troubling Trump and who he’ll threaten next

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Another tranche - amounting more than 3 million pages - of the Epstein files has been published.The US Department of Justice says this is the final dr...

Why our obsession with interest rates and cost of living is a problem

03 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate for the first time in two years yesterday, to 3.85 per cent. Exactly as mortgage holders have been fearing.But w...

'A crazy week' ahead: Leadership spills and more Liberal defections

02 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Can the Coalition reunite, after two weeks of political infighting? And will the Liberal and National parties’ leaders, Sussan Ley and David Lit...

Forged via Facebook. The anti-vax parents faking child health records

01 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

"No jab no play” policy means unvaccinated children can’t be enrolled in childcare or preschool in most Australian jurisdictions. But some...

A funeral, secret plots, and 'wayward children' — another messy week for the Coalition

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The drama between the Liberals and the Nationals continued this week with what seems to be a total breakdown in the relationship between Liberal leade...

‘Numbers, numbers everywhere’: Interest rate rise likely, but what does it all mean?

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Inflation has risen again, and the markets are already tipping interest rates are likely to increase next week in response. Today, senior economics co...

Beyond the Alex Pretti video: On the ground in Minneapolis

27 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Two Americans have now been killed by federal agents on the streets of Minneapolis in less than three weeks.Their families say they were sweet, passio...

Nude processing sessions and alleged sexual abuse: The cult still operating in Australia

26 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

She was given the pseudonym XC, by a court, to protect her identity. And she’s never spoken publicly about her experience. But the court documen...

The remarkable story of how Timor-Leste is tackling cervical cancer

25 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

More than 25 years ago, photojournalist Kate Geraghty travelled to Timor-Leste to document the struggles of the Timorese people as they wrestled back ...

The Sketch: Tony Wright on the Coalition’s 'ship of fools'

23 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Tony Wright, the associate editor of The Age, has been writing for 50 years. He is the master of what we call the political sketch.Sketches are akin t...

Barnaby Joyce opens up on his defection to Pauline Hanson's One Nation

23 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

One Nation is having a bit of a moment. Pauline Hanson’s outfit, accused by both major parties of exploiting racial anxiety over her career, has...

Littleproud fired the gun, but Ley set it up: The spectacular Coalition break-up

22 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are back with a special episode of Inside Politics as a few things have happened this week - namely the break-up of the Coalition, a century-o...

Coalition splits – again – over hate speech laws

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Coalition is in disarray after the resignation of three Nationals frontbenchers on Wednesday. The senators, including Bridget McKenzie, breached s...

'So much change, so much chaos': One year of Trump 2.0

20 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Ronald Reagan’s presidency of the 1980s is known as the ‘Reagan Revolution’, while Franklin D Roosevelt - the only president who has...

The rise and fall of one of Australia’s most powerful criminals

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Kazem Hamad rose rapidly to become one of the nation’s most powerful organised crime players. The syndicate he is accused of heading waged a rel...

Aus Open prize money is at an all-time high. But are players being paid enough?

18 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When Australian Open stars, such as Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka, hit the courts this week, they’ll do so with the support of screaming fa...

Best of 2025: Bill Shorten on Albanese's Trump triumph, and the opposition's next move

15 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Inside Politics is still on a break, but we’re set to return in two weeks.   Today, we return to an episode released just after Anthon...

Why Kevin Rudd resigned, and what it means for our relationship with Trump

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When Kevin Rudd announced on Monday that he would leave his post as ambassador to the United States a year early, it was a penny-drop moment for many....

Is the Iranian regime about to collapse?

13 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The protests that have been spreading across Iran now, for weeks, have been growing more violent. Video footage and eye witnesses described security f...

Floods at one end, bushfires at the other. What's behind Australia's climate 'whiplash'

12 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

While firefighters in Victoria battle devastating bush fires that have destroyed homes and livestock, at the other end of the country, Queenslanders w...

First Trump invaded Venezuela. But it may not be Greenland that's next

11 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

On the first day of the new year, Donald Trump wrote on his social platform Truth Social, what he wanted for 2026. And I quote, “Peace, peace on...

Best of 2025: Albanese meets with Trump next week. Anything could happen

08 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We’re on a break over summer, our dear chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal is probably off to a yoga retreat somewhere in Bali, and we ret...

Best of 2025:  Is Dezi Freeman being glorified like the other 'daring, desperate or deranged' fugitives who came before him?

07 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Hi, it’s Samantha Selinger-Morris here, and I’m the host of The Morning Edition. We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before...

Best of 2025: Women were once ‘essential’ to the Liberal Party. What happened?

06 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning Edition team returns next week. Last May, the incumbent Labor government swept ...

Best of 2025: What is freebirthing?

05 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Hi, it’s Samantha Selinger-Morris here, and I’m the host of The Morning Edition. We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before...

Best of 2025: Why gangland figure Tony Mokbel could walk free 

04 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today we’re heading back to a court in Melbourne with crime writer Chris Vedelago. It was the day when one of the last remaining figures from th...

Best of 2025: The rallies, the neo-Nazis, the flag-draping: How politics on immigration have led to this point

01 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Happy New Year. We’re on a break over summer - lucky us - before we return at the end of January for another year of Inside Politics. Today, we&...

Best of 2025: Chifley, Hawke, Rudd. Albanese beat them all. But what’s next? 

31 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Remember how there was a federal election? In this episode, we return to Anthony Albanese's astonishing landslide victory in May with former chief pol...

Best of 2025:  How a dancing Robert Irwin became America’s antidote

30 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we return to a good news story as we kick off a new year. The fame of Robert Irwin, the son of ‘crocodile hunter’ Steve Irwin, was ...

Best of 2025: The lawyer (and author) who represented Palestine in international court

29 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As we say goodbye to 2025, we can only hope we also see an end to the swirling chaos of multiple wars that raged across the world, and in the case of ...

Best of 2025: The tobacco tax causing carnage in our streets

28 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A tax on tobacco seemed like a great idea to deter smokers and raise revenue.  But, as the price of cigarettes soared, major criminal organisatio...

Best of 2025: A Labor 'landslide' and disaster for Dutton

25 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hi and Merry Christmas! Your Inside Politics team is on a little hiatus over summer before we return at the end of January. In the meantime, we hope y...

Best of 2025: Is this the beginning of the end of the American empire?

24 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning Edition team returns mid-January. It was another big year for the human headlin...

Best of 2025: The sentencing of mushroom cook Erin Patterson

23 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning Edition team returns mid-January.  Well, the mushroom murders was the crim...

Best of 2025: Is Prince Andrew an existential crisis for the monarchy?

22 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning Edition team returns mid-January.  Today, we return to an episode recorded...

Best of 2025: Belle Gibson's cancer con

21 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hi, it’s Samantha Selinger-Morris here, the host of The Morning Edition. We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning ...

Tony Abbott on running for Senate, AUKUS and cultural ‘self-loathing’

20 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this bonus episode of Inside Politics, former primer minister Tony Abbott joins host Jacqueline Maley and chief political correspondent Paul S...

Anger in the aftermath: Albanese and the Bondi attack

18 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week it feels wrong to talk about politics in the wake of the horrific antisemitic massacre at Bondi Beach on Sunday. Australians and Sydneysider...

Courage and kindness in the face of the Bondi attack

17 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On the evening of the shooting at Bondi, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese  said: “An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Aust...

Holocaust survivors chose Sydney after the war. Then came the Bondi attack

16 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Michael Visontay heard of the shootings at Bondi Beach on Sunday, his first instinct was to call his son, who often swam there. Then came the sic...

A voice note from our reporter on the Bondi shooting

16 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We're releasing an additional episode today featuring one of our reporters, Elias Visontay, who was at Bondi Beach with a friend on the night of the t...

Bondi terror attack: On the ground after mass shooting

15 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sunday’s Bondi Beach terrorist attack, which targeted a Hanukkah celebration, was the worst mass shooting in Australia since Port Arthur. Some i...

How horror Bondi Beach terror attack unfolded

14 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As we record this on Sunday night, 11 people have been confirmed dead in a mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney, with the New South Wales Police Com...

Inside Politics: The ‘dirty business’ of MP expenses

11 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we're delving into the expenses scandal, if indeed we are calling it a scandal, that has engulfed the Communications Minister Anika Wells. A $1...

Trump and the Caribbean boat strikes: Did a war crime occur?

10 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The video is, according to those who have seen it, horrific to watch. Two sailors cling to the debris of a blown-up boat in the Caribbean, when they&r...

The sex offenders being protected under secretive orders

09 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Our mastheads have discovered that a number of sex offenders have committed crimes - in our communities - after serving their time in prison. And here...

What happens when social media goes ‘dark’ for Australian teens

08 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Parents across the country have been wringing their hands for months about how the social media ban will work – and more so, if it will work.&nb...

Blood on the ground: What’s happening in Sudan

07 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When American author Anne Applebaum travelled to the frontlines of the Sudanese civil war this year, she gave herself a stern remit. Bare witness to, ...

How does a government minister spend $100,000 on flights to New York?

04 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was on his honeymoon after his low-key Lodge wedding last weekend, while Senate estimates rolled on in C...

Kate McClymont on the fake accountant, the solicitor, and the stolen millions

03 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Mark Leishman and his wife Kathy first sought out the help of George Dimitriou, they were suffering with cash-flow problems at Mark’s busin...

Will 'Gentle Density' help fix our ‘housing stupidity'?

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

New figures out on Monday show that the median house values in Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane have become, well, kind of insane. They’re the kind...

Why shark attacks in Australia are increasing

01 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It really was the stuff of nightmares. A Swiss tourist, who was swimming with dolphins off the NSW coast, was suddenly mauled by a three-metre bull sh...

How real is the rise of One Nation?

30 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Pauline Hanson marched into the Senate last week wearing a burqa, it felt, for a moment, like we were back in the 1990s.  Those were the sor...

Barnaby defects, Hanson offends and Sussan Ley comes on the podcast

27 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Well, Barnaby Joyce finally announced his resignation from the Nationals this week, paving his way to join One Nation, in a week where Pauline Hanson ...

'Nice is nice': How a dancing Robert Irwin became America's antidote

26 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We feel like we’ve known him since he was in nappies. But now, at 21, the fame enjoyed by Robert Irwin - the son of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin...

‘They view it as a contagion’: Why Trump wants our migrant data

25 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump has long tried to stamp American institutions - and the daily life of his country’s citizens - with his ultra-conservative ideology...

Why the BOM spent $96 million on its website

24 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Bureau of Meteorology has been plagued with public stuff-ups, including, just a few years ago, a false tsunami alert sent to half of the country.T...

'Blood oil': How Australia is funding Russia's war

23 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Australia banned the importation of Russian crude oil. Even so, Russian oil is still making ...

Albanese wants to protect Australia ‘as it is’. But is it good enough?

20 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Recently on this podcast we have been highly fixated on the problems within the Liberal opposition and we have neglected the government somewhat.&nbsp...