7am

One Nation is copping heat for a proposal that would let Australians take some of the money going into their super as extra pay instead.
For up to three years, renters and mortgage holders could choose to take home a quarter of the money that would normally be put into their retirement – worth about $44 a week for someone on the average full-time wage.
At the same time, the Coalition has been looking at its own ways to give people greater access to their super now – and some of its MPs want to go further.
So why is superannuation suddenly being pitched as an answer to Australia’s cost-of-living and housing problems? And is it a good idea?
Today, economist Greg Jericho, on the growing political fight over what our super should actually be for.

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Guest: Chief economist at the Australia Institute, Greg Jericho
Photo: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
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In imposing scenes in the UK over the weekend, hundreds of masked men belonging to the hard-right group Patriot Platform stopped traffic.
Around the same time, political party AfD was making history in Germany – becoming the first far-right party to win in the country since World War two.
And on the other side of the world, Australia’s high court will today hear from our most high profile Neo-Nazi group in a challenge, legal experts say could see the federal government’s ban on White Australia (formerly known as the National Socialist Network) overturned.
Today, Associate professor of politics at Deakin University Josh Roose on Germany, the UK, and Australia’s high court challenge – as the far-right continues its march across the world.

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Guest: Associate professor of politics at Deakin University, Josh Roose
Photo: AP Photo/Matthias Schrader
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On the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Labor has promised a vast new national park to protect more than 12,000 koalas.
But there’s a catch.
The New South Wales government wants carbon credits to help pay for it. By ending planned logging, it could generate credits that are then sold to companies to offset their emissions.
For the Greens, that creates a dilemma at a moment when both major parties are bleeding voters – voters who are walking straight past the Greens as an alternative.
They want the forests protected, but have long opposed carbon offsets that allow big polluters to keep polluting. Now those two positions are about to collide.
Today, co-chief executive officer of the Australia Institute Richard Denniss on koalas, carbon offsets and whether the Greens are still willing to pick the big fights.

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Guest: Co-chief executive officer of the Australia Institute, Richard Denniss
Photo: AAP Image/David Wigley
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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
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.