ABC News Daily

It's the most significant defence announcement in Australia in decades.

After months of secret talks, the US and UK will help Australia develop a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

It allows Australia access to one of the world's most exclusive weaponry clubs, and everyone knows the unspoken motivation is to try to contain a rising China.

So will this make us safer?

Today on The Signal, we explore what Australia's agreed to, and where it might lead.

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Stephen Dziedzic, ABC Foreign Affairs Reporter

Federal election season is fast approaching, and lately Labor has been trying to get itself into shape.

While much of the party's policy platform remains a work in progress, personnel dilemmas have been the focus in the past few weeks.

And there've been quite a few, with the retirement of the backbencher Joel Fitzgibbon, an unseemly jostle about who would make the cut for Labor's NSW Senate ticket, and the awkward parachuting of the party's Deputy Senate Leader Kristina Keneally into a likely safe Labor seat in Sydney's South West.

So what's behind all the untidiness?

And given the Labor Party seems to believe the election isn't far off, what do we know about when it will be?

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David Speers, Host, ABC TV Insiders

If you thought Australia's vaccine rollout was on the slow side, then spare a thought for Ethiopia, Nigeria or Kenya, where vaccination rates are still in the low single digit percentage points.

Many argue it's proof the system designed to level the vaccine playing field between rich and poor countries is failing dismally.

So what went wrong with COVAX? And is it too late to turn it around?

Today on The Signal, the yawning gap between countries like Australia and the world's poorest when it comes to vaccination, and what happens if that gap isn't closed.

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Andrea Taylor, Assistant Director of Programs, Duke Global Health Innovation Centre, Duke University, US

Back in April, the Australian Government welcomed the findings of landmark report into workplace sexual harassment.

The report followed an inquiry conducted by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins, and it contained 55 recommendations which the Government said it accepted 'in full, in part or in principle'.

But this month, when the Parliament finally legislated the Government's response, several key recommendations didn't make it.

So what's gone missing?

And what happens now?

Today on The Signal, how Australia's workplace sexual harassment laws are changing, what business leaders are saying about it, and what might happen next.

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Rhiana Whitson, ABC Business Reporter

Kate Jenkins, Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner

Sam Schreuder, Cafe owner, St Kilda, Melbourne

James Fazzino, Champions of Change Coalition

Despite breaking its daily COVID record again on the weekend, New South Wales is now counting down to reopening in late October.

It's more or less in line with the national plan announced by the Federal Government in August, which sets out that 'Phase B' begins when 70% percent of the population older than 16 has had both doses of a vaccine.

But with every state in territory in a totally different situation, will everyone still want to stick with it?

Today on The Signal, Australia's extremely patchy and halting return to normal.

Do the states and territories have to stick to the national plan? And if not, what do the next few months look like?

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Dr Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Sydney

20 years after 9/11, we look at how the attacks fuelled American xenophobia and blinded the US to grave issues beyond terrorism. A view from a Pulitzer Prize winning foreign policy writer, Fred Kaplan, a witness to the Twin Towers catastrophe. Also why national debate about “opening up” must include wider use of rapid testing.

Being paid the same amount of money to work fewer hours is a strong pitch, so it's easy to see why workers might support a four day week.

Surprisingly though, there's also growing evidence that it'll boost overall productivity.

The four day working week is being trialled from Iceland and Spain to the US and Scotland, with more places contemplating the model.

So if it's a win for businesses and workers, then why isn't it already everywhere?

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Professor Juliet Schor, Economist and Sociologist, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, Boston College, Boston, US

Australia's been positioning itself as America's best friend in the world for a long time now.

It's 20 years since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, after which Australia followed the US into both Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's also, co-incidentally, 70 years since Australia signed the ANZUS treaty with America, a treaty thought to guarantee mutual protection.

In fact, the US alliance is the centrepiece of Australia's whole foreign policy.

But what if it's not what we think it is?

Today on the Signal, can Australia really count on the US?

And if we can't, then what should we be doing differently?

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Dr Emma Shortis, Research Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University, and author, 'Our Exceptional Friend: Australia's fatal alliance with the United States'

Indigenous communities are calling on governments to find better ways of using mining royalties to close the gap.

Many Aboriginal leaders had hoped that regaining land rights would improve community living conditions, and they're now sad to see cash royalties in some cases exacerbating social damage.

In the Northern Territory, $3.2 billion has been collected in royalties over the last 40 years.

So why hasn't this lifted people out of poverty?

And is there a better way to manage all this money which traditional owners, governments and land councils could agree on?

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Jane Bardon, ABC reporter

Allyson Croydon, Papulu Apparr-Kari Parent and Community Engagement Program

Joebessgo Mayers, Papulu Apparr-Kari RSAS Truancy Program

Linda Turner, Warumungu traditional owner

Norman Frank, Warumungu traditional owner

Dion Williams, Anyinginyi Health support worker

Bonnie Camphoo, Tennant Creek resident

Elliot McAdam, former NT Labor MP for Barkly

Pat Brahim, Patta native title group

On paper, the Australian economy seems to be going pretty well.

We learned last week that we avoided a recession in the second quarter of this year, and according to the latest calculation of the Bureau of Statistics the unemployment rate is a healthy 4.6%.

But with half the country in lockdown and the other half all but hermetically sealed from everywhere else, is that really the full picture?

Today on The Signal, we catch up with the ABC's Business Editor Ian Verrender.

We hear about what the latest numbers tell us, what they don't, and what may lie ahead.

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Ian Verrender, ABC Business Editor