7am

Right now, AI data-centre mega-hubs as large as 350 hectares are being planned across Australia – that’s the equivalent of 175 MCG playing fields.
And the energy they need to fuel them is just as huge: more than the total output of an entire coal plant.
The solution? So-called “shadow grids” built in partnership between the data centres and big gas, where gas-fired power plants are placed directly on site, powering the centres and generating huge emissions in the process.
Today, Ketan Joshi, climate expert and co-author of a new Greenpeace report, on the relationship between fossil fuel companies and data centres, and Australia’s vulnerability in the AI race.


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Guest: Climate expert Ketan Joshi
Photo: REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol
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Earlier this year, authorities found something extraordinary inside a Cambodian scam compound: a fake Australian Federal Police office.
There were Australian flags, AFP-style logos, and desks staged to look official – all part of a six-storey compound used by scammers impersonating police forces from around the world.
It was a reminder that the scam messages Australians receive are often connected to a far more sophisticated and exploitative criminal industry.
New figures show Australians reported more than $2 billion in scam losses last year, and a recent UN report has detailed how people are trafficked into scam centres, held against their will, and forced to target strangers online.
In early 2024, Ben and his wife were kidnapped and trapped inside one of these Cambodian scam factories. This is the story of how they escaped – and why so many others can’t.
This episode was originally published in March 2025.

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Guest: Ben Yeo, ambassador for the Australian International Counter Slavery Alliance (AICSA)
Photo: AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit
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Tony Abbott is back at the centre of Liberal Party politics.
The former prime minister has been elected unopposed as federal Liberal Party president – a role that sounds administrative, but carries real political weight at a moment of deep trouble for the Coalition.
The Liberals are watching voters drift to One Nation, while Abbott argues the answer is to take the fight directly to Labor. But his return sharpens a deeper question inside the party about whether the Liberals can rebuild by reviving the politics of the Abbott era, or whether that only deepens the crisis they’re trying to escape.
Today, press gallery veteran Paul Bongiorno, on Tony Abbott’s comeback, the future of the Liberal Party and how the government is trying to turn the opposition’s crisis into a test of its own authority.

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Guest: Press gallery veteran Paul Bongiorno
Photo: AAP Image/Joel Carrett
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In Melbourne, few names carry the weight of Mick Gatto.
For decades, he’s been known as a survivor of the gangland wars, a man whose influence has stretched from the city’s underworld into the heart of the construction industry.
This week, police raided his home. Gatto and his wife were arrested, then released without charge. He says it was all over a driving infringement. Police say they’re investigating alleged financial offences.
But the raid has landed in the middle of a much larger fight over corruption, intimidation and alleged underworld influence inside Victoria’s building sector.
Today, investigative reporter Nick McKenzie, on Mick Gatto, corruption in the construction industry, and the reckoning now facing the state’s Big Build.

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Guest: Investigative reporter for The Age and SMH, Nick McKenzie
Photo: AAP Image/James Ross
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29 women have been killed in Australia so far this year - most allegedly by their intimate partner. Their names sometimes hit the headlines, but often not. And even then, the outrage seldom lasts.
We’ve known for a long time that Australia has a problem with violence against women. Little seems to work to change the statistics. For some advocates - a Royal Commission is the only chance at making a difference.
A petition calling for that - now sits at more than 110-thousand signatures.
Today, writer and advocate Jess Hill on whether it will ever happen, and what it could achieve, if it did.

If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support.

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Guest: Writer and advocate, Jess Hill
Photo: Ye Myo Khant / SOPA Images/Sipa USA
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.