7am

In 2019, a new venture in the Australian outback looked set to export our solar power to the world – upending our neighbours’ reliance on fossil fuels.
Backed by the billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest – Sun Cable was supposed to be Australia’s largest ever renewable energy project, transporting electricity to Singapore via 4,300 kilometres of sea cable.
It was meant to show what a different future could look like – one where Australia could export massive amounts of renewable power. But now, that future is being overtaken by something else entirely.
As big tech converges on Australia to build data centres for AI, there’s a fight over how to use our renewable energy – and big tech is winning.
Today, writer and senior research associate with the Australia Institute, Ketan Joshi, on how Australia’s AI push is colliding with the energy transition — and what it means for our emissions, our power grid, and the dream of becoming a clean energy exporter.

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Guest: Senior Research Associate with the Australia Institute, Ketan Joshi
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Family violence in Aboriginal communities is a national crisis – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 33 times more likely to be victims of domestic violence, and eight times more likely to be killed by their partner.
The trauma First Nations women experience is often made worse by the systems they seek help from and people within those systems that often misidentify the victim as the perpetrator.
But alongside these fraught systems are people doing relentless and unheralded work, to make things better for women and families fleeing domestic violence. Kalina Morgan-Whyman is one of those people – and she follows in the footsteps of her nan, Aunty Elizabeth Morgan, who founded a refuge for Indigenous women fleeing violence.
Today, CEO of Elizabeth Morgan House, Kalina Morgan-Whyman on the issues confronting our most vulnerable, the tenuous funding environment for services like hers, and whether governments of all persuasions are serious about addressing the family violence epidemic.

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Guest: CEO of Elizabeth Morgan House, Kalina Morgan-Whyman
Photo: Supplied
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In the 1970s, eight children in Perth were sent to a psychiatric hospital to be ‘treated’ for being transgender. Their experiences became the basis of a medical study that claimed kids could be cured of their identity.
Now, nearly forty years after it was released, that same study is being cited in arguments against trans healthcare and being used to shape policy and law.
Today, Walkley Award-winning journalist and founding editor of ABC Queer, Mon Schafter, on how a forgotten experiment from another era is still influencing the culture war over trans healthcare.
This episode was originally published in October 2025.

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Guest: Walkley Award-winning journalist and founding editor of ABC Queer, Mon Schafter
Photo: Supplied: Jayne McFadyen
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s the on-again, off-again political drama that has turned Australian politics into something resembling a soap opera.
For the second time in a year, the Liberal and National parties have split, rendering the coalition dead – again.
The break-up has once again thrown Sussan Ley’s leadership under the bus, shattered the opposition’s ability to challenge the government – and underscored deeper pressures from an ascendant One Nation.
Today, contributing editor of The New Daily Amy Remeikis, on the break-up, the fallout, and the ex sitting on the sidelines who can’t get enough of the spectacle.

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: Contributing editor of The New Daily Amy Remeikis
Photo: AAP Image/Lukas Coch
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Donald Trump has invited Australia to join his new “Board of Peace” – a Trump-led body he says will help bring peace to Gaza.
But the invitation comes with a warning. Some leaders say the board could undermine the United Nations – and Trump himself has suggested it might even replace it.
Trump has spent years attacking the United Nations as ineffective – and this term, his administration has moved to pull the US out of dozens of UN agencies.
So is this a peace plan, or a power play?
Today, UN analyst at the International Crisis Group, Maya Ungar, on the real agenda behind Trump’s Board of Peace and whether Australia should join.

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: UN analyst at the International Crisis Group, Maya Ungar
Photo: EPA/LAURENT GILLIERON
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.