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

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A wall of grey, silted water tears through a Himalayan Valley. 

People look on in shock, disbelief and fear as buildings are swallowed. Cars are swept away and people run as the flood surges down below. 

In its aftermath, more than 800 people are dead and thousands are missing, including 43 Australians.

In the search for answers, scientists now believe the disaster began high in the mountains, when an enormous mass of ice and rock, weighing around 500 million tonnes, collapsed and unleashed a torrent of water down the valley. 

Today, glaciologist at University of Sunshine Coast Adrian McCallum, on how this disaster unfolded, and why the Himalayas and some of the world’s other great mountain ranges are becoming more vulnerable to events like it. 

 

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Guest: Glaciologist Adrian McCallum

Photo: EPA/NARENDRA SHRESTHA

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On day one of his role as communications director for the White House, Anthony Scaramucci sung Donald Trump’s praises. 

He would serve in that role for just another ten days, a span of time that has become known as a “mooch”.

Since leaving the White House, Scaramucci has become one of the president’s most vocal and scathing critics. Now, he says Trump’s return to power is the product of deeper failures in American politics, and a warning about what happens when economic anger goes unanswered.

Today, The Rest is Politics US host Anthony Scaramucci on why Trump came back, the limits of his power, and how Australia should deal with the U.S. president.

 

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Guest: The Rest is Politics US host Anthony Scaramucci

Photo: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

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The latest NAPLAN results show around a third of Australian students are still falling short in literacy and numeracy – results that have barely budged since 2023.

At the same time, Australia is settling a decades-long fight over how children should be taught to read.

For years, many schools relied on outdated methods that encouraged children to work out words using context, pictures and other cues. Now, some classrooms are increasingly moving towards phonics and explicit instruction.

But the evidence for that approach has been around for decades. So why is it taking so long for classrooms to catch up?

Today, journalist Martin McKenzie-Murray on why the old methods lasted for so long, and how children should actually be taught to read.

This episode was first published in August 2024.

 

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Guest: Associate editor of The Saturday Paper, Martin McKenzie-Murray

Photo: AAP Image/Dan Peled

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Australia has changed in ways our politics is still struggling to understand. 

We are now a majority migrant nation. Professional women have overtaken blue-collar men as the largest group in the workforce. And the two countries Australia has relied on most, China and the United States, have become less predictable. 

Labor has adapted to parts of this new reality. The Coalition, so far, has struggled to do the same. 

Today, author of Three Shocks, George Megalogenis on the tectonic plates reshaping Australian politics. 

 

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Guest: Author of Three Shocks George Megalogenis

Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins

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Over the past two weeks, allegations of sexual assault involving some of the country’s most powerful institutions – the Swans and Sydney’s Scots College – have forced an uncomfortable question about how Australia responds when women say they have been harmed.

But behind those cases is an even more troubling shift. New research suggests some young men are becoming more hostile towards women, while misogyny and sexual violence is being normalised online. 

And with pressure building on leaders and governments across the country to confront it, the question is whether the response is keeping pace with the problem.

Today, Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek, on the institutions failing women, the forces shaping a generation of boys, and whether governments are doing enough to stop it.

 

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Guest: Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek

Photo: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

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