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The government led by Anthony Albanese is a timid troupe of shivers looking for a spine to run up.

That’s the assessment from the Labor wise men who gather for lunch in Sydney once a month – Paul Keating, Bob Carr, John Faulkner and other warriors of the past – who claim the government is too cautious and defensive.

For many Labor insiders, both in Canberra and across the country, the carping from the sidelines is an annoying distraction they wish would go away.

But there are some within the Albanese government who say the comments are providing the debate and contestability that the “broken” party sorely lacks.

Today, special correspondent in Canberra for The Saturday Paper Jason Koutsoukis on Labor’s war with its old guard.

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Guest: Special correspondent for The Saturday Paper Jason Koutsoukis.

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According to Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer Zali Burrows, he is “arguably Australia’s most hated man”.

Burrows also told a federal court that her client is too “scared” to attend court, and his reputation has been so tarnished that “the only shot he’d probably ever have in making money is by going on OnlyFans or something silly like that”.

Lehrmann has launched an appeal after a defamation trial judge ruled in favour of Network Ten, finding on the balance of probabilities that he raped Brittany Higgins at Parliament House. 

His lawyer is arguing that Lehrmann shouldn’t have to pay $2 million to Network Ten until he’s had the chance to appeal the defamation case, but lawyers for Network Ten are arguing that Lehrmann should have to front up $200,000 in order to have the right to appeal at all.

Today, defamation lawyer at Good Company Law Hannah Marshall, on Bruce Lehrmann’s chance of appeal and what it means for Brittany Higgins.

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Guest: Defamation lawyer at Good Company Law Hannah Marshal.

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Alice Springs is littered with “For Sale” signs as those who can afford it are packing up and leaving. Punitive government curfews made daily life more challenging, and families struggle to see a future for themselves if things continue the way they are. With the newly elected Country Liberal Party promising to be even tougher on crime – and lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years old – more government interventions are on the way.

But there’s also the story of those who stay to help set young people on a different path and reconnect with Country.

In the final instalment of the three part series This is Alice Springs, Daniel James heads to a station in the MacDonnell Ranges that offers an oasis of calm amid the chaos. But even here the cycle of incarceration and violence is never far from children’s lives. 

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Police are everywhere in Alice Springs. You see them driving pursuit vehicles and caged vans on the streets, or stationed outside the bottle shop checking IDs. But more police doesn’t mean less crime – it just means more people are getting locked up.

As Alice Springs reels from the police shooting of Warlpiri teenager Kumanjayi Walker, and in the wake of an apology from the Northern Territory Police Commissioner Michael Murphy for systemic racism, Daniel James wants to find out whether it's possible to mend the broken relationship between the coppers and the Indigenous community.

In the second episode of our three part series, Daniel visits the police headquarters to meet the Arrernte woman tasked with one of the most challenging jobs in Alice Springs – to fix the culture inside the police force. 

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From afar, Alice Springs is a whirlpool of myth and truth. A town with competing interests and few solutions, marked by chaos and decades of government overreach. 

That all came to a head earlier this year, with what’s been described as a “youth riot” in town. The violence led to the Northern Territory government imposing an emergency curfew. 

This is when the headlines started: in cities and towns across Australia, we read about a “crisis” about “rampages”. One newspaper described the kids here as “tiny menaces stuck on a turnstile of trouble”.

In this first episode of our three part series This is Alice Springs Daniel James visits the town at the heart of our nation, to find out how all the interventions, big and small, by governments of all persuasions have led to this chaos. What he finds is that almost all of it leads back to one thing.

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Malcolm Knox began his career as a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald, back in the 90s. His breakout was in 2004 when, as literary editor, he broke the story of the fake Jordanian memoirist, Norma Khouri for which he won a Walkley Award. Since then he has written more than a dozen books of nonfiction and has been publishing fiction since 2000. On this episode of Read This, Malcolm sits down with Michael to discuss his seventh and latest novel, The First Friend.

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The war in the Middle East is dominating Australian politics.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton spent the week attacking Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – claiming he disrespected the Jewish community when he included calls for de-escalation and a ceasefire in a condolence motion to mark the one-year anniversary of October 7.

But there are signs that Dutton’s attacks aren’t landing, and that he’s become too focused on the Middle East conflict at the expense of pressing issues closer to home.

Today, columnist for The Saturday Paper Paul Bongiorno on the indirect ways the Middle East conflict could shape life here in Australia – and the outcome of the election. 

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Guest: Columnist for The Saturday Paper, Paul Bongiorno.

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A five-minute drive from the cliff where Ben Roberts-Smith allegedly murdered Afghan farmer Ali Jan, there is a small mud-brick room used for storing almonds.

It was in this room, locals say, that a separate group of Australian soldiers killed two Afghan men in a shocking and brutal way.

Despite the intense publicity around the killing of Ali Jan, almost nothing has been heard about what happened in the almond room, and nobody has been held accountable. 

Today, anthropologist and writer Michelle Jasmin Dimasi on what the families of the Afghan men told her about the alleged crimes of Australian soldiers.

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Guest: Journalist and anthropologist Dr Michelle Jasmin Dimasi.

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For two-and-a-half years, Ukraine has been fighting Russia with the goal of “total victory” – to not only beat President Vladimir Putin’s forces back to the border, but to reclaim all territory annexed by Russia since 1991. 

But as both President Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin’s popularity and resources fade, and as another winter approaches, it’s possible that a more pragmatic end to the war could be in sight. 

Today, editor-in-chief of The Economist Zanny Minton Beddoes, on what it would take for a permanent end to the fighting, and the future for Ukraine if that can’t be reached. 

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Guest: Editor-in-chief of The Economist Zanny Minton Beddoes

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Protecting Australia’s environment is a matter of urgency – or at least that’s the message the Albanese government campaigned on two and a half years ago. 

But now, with environmental legislation stalling in the Senate and a series of announcements lacking detail, there’s a sense that the government’s priorities have shifted.  

Today, director of the Australia Institute’s climate and energy program Polly Hemming, on the rhetoric of “nature positivity” and the inaction it hides. 

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Guest: Director of the Australia Institute’s climate and energy program Polly Hemming

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