This week’s podcast is a special live recording (heavily edited) of Guardian Australia’s first Quarter Time event in Melbourne. Podcast regular Bridie Jabour is joined on stage by Guardian Australia’s deputy political editor, Katharine Murphy, as well as the editor of the Saturday Paper, Erik Jensen, and the comedian Lawrence Leung. The panel talk about politics – and look ahead to the election

At Guardian Australia’s Why Knot? event, campaigners told how the battle for marriage equality can be won if gay and straight supporters alike go out and spread the word about their own experience. Bridie Jabour and Miles Martignoni look back at some of the most moving speeches from Benjamin Law, Ally Hocking Howe, Kristina Keneally and Rodney Croome, and ask what role religious faith will play in the debate

Guardian Australia’s Gay Alcorn and Melissa Davey discuss Victoria’s royal commission into family violence, due to report this week after a year gathering evidence. The state government has vowed to adopt every recommendation and the report is expected to be influential across Australia.

In rural and remote Indigenous communities throughout Australia, and particularly in the Northern Territory, it is not uncommon to see children as young as seven carrying the long scars of open-heart surgery running vertically down their chest. Melissa Davey describes what she saw on a trip to the Tiwi Islands and what needs to be done to stop children from needing the invasive operation • ‘I’m too young to die’: the disease forcing Indigenous children to have open heart surgery

In this special edition of our podcast, David Marr gives his views on the cardinal’s four days of testimony to the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. What was missing from these 16 hours of evidence from a ‘prince of the church’? Human warmth, for a start, Marr tells podcast regular Bridie Jabour

While personal attacks and silly antics dominate politics in the Northern Territory, there are also serious issues at play in the region, which is home to some of Australia’s most remote communities. Guardian Australia’s Darwin correspondent, Helen Davidson, talks about the challenges and privilege of reporting from places like Arnhem Land, where the local Indigenous culture is still extremely strong

Bridie Jabour talks to Guardian Australia’s opinion editor Gabrielle Jackson and senior editor Lucy Clark about covering feminism and sexism for the Guardian. They examine why the opinion desk gets so few pitches from female writers, discuss the way in which the media often treat feminist issues like minority causes ... and talk about the night Gabrielle was assaulted by a drunk man while out for dinner – and what happened next

In the first of a new series on the stories behind the news, Elle Hunt recounts the day she spent chasing an internet hoax that fooled major media organisations and Bridie Jabour examines Australia’s first FGM trial

Join Bridie Jabour as she goes behind the scenes at Guardian Australia to discuss the making of a news story. This week we preview the series with Michael Safi on his reporting of the Parramatta shooting