Extra - Full Program Podcast

By all accounts, it appears that the Australian economy is coming out of the pandemic fallout earlier than expected and stronger. Most corporations have been reporting strong profits, commodities such as copper and nickel are priced at a ten year high, there's a bumper crop of wheat with again, strong global prices, household debt has been reduced whilst savings have increased. However, caution is prudent. Some fiscal measures are being removed or reduced, the global economy still has a long way to go and if anything the last twelve months has taught us, we need to be prepared for the unexpected.

A royal commission into aged care and a review on Australia's retirement income have in various ways showed where efficiencies are required. One recommendation from the Australian Council of Social Services is to make superannuation more equitable by taxing earnings after retirement to help pay for aged care services. CEO of ACOSS Cassandra Goldie explains.

The rising power of the online world, from Facebook to Reddit to Google, is disrupting established institutions – the stock market (Gamestop) and the media (news distribution). We look at the political responses and whether regulators can keep up.

The new Biden administration, Putin versus Navalny, Modi versus Indian farmers - Geraldine canvasses opinion on all the international news that's fit to print.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was supposed to signal the triumph of liberal democracy over tyranny in Central and Eastern Europe. But this has been a failed promise, and now we're seeing the backlash.

We’ve all heard in passing about Aboriginal people being used as trackers to assist early settlers in Australia, to find their way in this vast continent, or to find someone. But what is perhaps not know widely is the opportunity those traditional skills of tracking gave to Aboriginal men and women during colonial days, to use those skills to adapt and survive in a new world by being attached to police stations across the country.

For decades we have built an economy out of digging things out of the ground and selling them overseas. It's brought us wealth, but as we look to the future, it could become a curse.

WW2 caused enormous shifts in Australia's sense of itself and its place in the world Three guests, David Malouf, Julianne Schultz and Frank Bongiorno reflect on the changes - big and small - which shaped our political, economic and social fabric for the next few decades.

Tom Holland argues that many of the things we hold to be self-evident in terms of human rights and values — for example, gender equality, our solidarity with the weak against the strong, the displacement of religious law by the law of love — derive from the teachings of Christ.

GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is less famous than its siblings, MI5 and MI6 but this cyber intelligence agency is at the centre of Britain’s security makeover. A timely new book looks at the agency’s past which includes code cracking in WW2 – and its future.

Reimagining diplomacy

Twenty years ago there was no iphone, no Facebook, no Twitter and Google was just getting started. Since then the rapid developments in technology have thrown the media industry into chaos, upsetting orthodoxies about content, delivery, audiences and value judgements. Even now the consequences are hard to grasp.

In a recent book review in the Times Literary Supplement, Rory Stewart, former UK Conservative Minister and colleague of Boris Johnson, criticised him as an 'amoral figure'. He wrote: 'Unless we begin to repair our political institutions and nurture a society that places more emphasis on personal and political virtue, we will have more to fear than Boris Johnson.’

Suddenly there’s a lot happening on the renewable energy front. Victoria announced a giant new battery. NSW announced a major renewables plan. Then businessman Andrew Forrest announced his Fortescue Metals Group would become a huge energy company – one of the biggest in the world - focussing on renewables. It seems state governments of both political persuasions, and the private sector, are deciding not to wait for a national plan.

In a year like no other, there is an election like no other. Journalist and author Anne Summers takes the temperature of the US as it counts down to voting day.

An unpopular king, an unaccountable military government and too many rules about what to wear, how to bow and when to speak have left a new generation of Thais feeling short-changed. They're taking their dissatisfaction to the streets.

The past week has seen some spectacular leadership fails in Australia.

As Australia negotiates a rapidly changing political environment there is grand talk about co-operation and friendships, but the reality doesn't always live up to the hype as a new issue of Australian Foreign Affairs documents.