7am

For years, Australia has made cigarettes increasingly expensive in an effort to drive down smoking. Now, the Coalition wants to dramatically reverse course.
It's promised to slash the tobacco excise by 80 per cent, arguing that soaring cigarette prices have fuelled a violent black market. It also wants to legalise and regulate vapes and nicotine pouches.
Labor says there’s no evidence the tax cuts would draw smokers away from the black market, while public health authorities warn it could undo decades of progress in reducing smoking.
So, who’s right?
Today, Martin McKenzie-Murray on how Australia’s public health success helped create the conditions for a deadly tobacco war – and whether making cigarettes cheaper could actually help end it.
This episode was first published in May, 2025.

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Guest: Martin McKenzie-Murray
Photo: AAP Image/Diego Fedele
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Paul Keating has been out of office for thirty years. But he’s never really left the national conversation.
Keating wanted Australia to find its security in Asia, not from it, and to stop defining itself through bigger powers in the Anglosphere.
That vision now sits uneasily alongside AUKUS, a more powerful China, and an Australia tied ever more closely to the United States.
Today, historian and author of Grand Ambition James Curran, on Keating’s argument for a more independent Australia – and why it continues to challenge the modern Labor Party.

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Guest: Historian and author of Grand Ambition, James Curran
Photo: AAP Image/Darren England
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Speaking at the Press Club this week, consent education advocate Chanel Contos outlined how social media companies are feeding misogynistic content to young men online.
Now, she wants the government to compel social media companies to give people the option to restrict their algorithm.
So can, and should, the algorithm be contained? And would social media companies even comply?
Today, CEO of Teach Us Consent, Chanel Contos on the damage the algorithm is doing – and the next tech frontier.

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Guest: Teach Us Consent CEO Chanel Contos
Photo: AAP Image/Lukas Coch
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They’ve been dubbed pervert glasses. And with good reason – women around the world are reporting being sexually harassed, filmed without their consent, often without their knowledge.
But this week, the federal government ruled out an import ban on smart glasses – as concerns about the technology rise and examples of their misuse flood the internet.

Today, Associate Dean of Interaction Technology & Information at RMIT Dana McKay,
on the rising popularity of smartglasses, how to regulate their use, and the dangers if wearable surveillance tech becomes widespread.

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Guest: Associate Dean of Interaction Technology & Information at RMIT, Dana McKay
Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
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One Nation has declared that “politics has changed” after snatching a formerly safe Labor seat in a surprise by-election victory in WA over the weekend.
Until now, it had been the Coalition feeling the effects of the orange wave, but now Labor officially has a Pauline problem of its own.
So what does this mean for the government, and the country?
Today, WA political reporter for Business News, Gary Adshead on how One Nation won over WA voters and whether it can replicate that victory elsewhere.

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: Political reporter for Business News, Gary Adshead
Photo: AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.