Radio National Breakfast

The federal government has abandoned plans to establish a permanent artificial intelligence advisory body - despite growing calls for stronger oversight of the technology.

Responding to Senate Estimates questioning, the Department of Industry, Science and Resources confirmed the AI advisory body - proposed and funded in last year's federal budget - will not go ahead.

Toby Walsh is Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales AI Institute - he was also on the temporary advisory group.

The group that organised the event at the centre of the attack at Bondi Beach yesterday was Chabad-Lubavitch ... the international Hasidic Jewish movement

Its spokesperson, Rabbi Motti Seligson, joins from New York

• Guest: Rabbi Motti Seligson, spokesperson for the Chabad-Lubavitch Movement
• Producer: Grace Stranger

Federal and state governments remain locked in dispute over health funding this week.

Ministers met in Brisbane on Friday ... with the federal government topping up its $20 billion offer for hospital funding over five years.

But states say it's not enough ... amid growing concerns, thousands of older Australians and patients with disabilities have become trapped in the public hospital system.

The government has announced a deal to keep the Tomago Aluminium Smelter in New South Wales open is being finalised after the company said in October it was struggling to see how operations would remain commercially viable beyond 2028.The announcement comes ahead of the release of a government review into Australia's gas market, which is expected within weeks.

• Guest: Dan Tehan 
• Producer: Isadora Bogle 

Australia's jewish community is in mourning following a terrorist attack at a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney's Bondi Beach.

At least 12 people are dead, including one assailant, with twenty-nine people taken to hospital.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has labelled the shooting an act of evil anti-Semitism that targeted Jewish Australians.

The Breakfast Wrap takes a look back through the year in sound.

As Radio National Breakfast winds up regular programming for the year, our team has compiled the moments that made 2025

We'll also make sure you're across some of the news of the day. 

And don't miss the Breakfast Wrap right across summer on the ABC Listen app, presented by Lexie Jeuniewic.

Federal parliament may have risen for the year, but the government was fighting fires on two fronts this week.

There's the ongoing health funding stoush with the states and territories, and controversy around travel entitlements and whether the rules should change.

• Guests: Anna Henderson, Chief Political Correspondent at SBS; Shane Wright, Senior Economics Correspondent at The Age and Sydney Morning Herald; Evelyn Manfield, Radio National Breakfast political correspondent
• Producer: Jason Whittaker

State and territory health ministers will meet with federal counterpart Mark Butler today — seeking to end a public war over hospitals and strike a long-term funding deal.

• Guest: Rachel Stephen-Smith, ACT Health Minister
• Producer: Grace Stranger, Jason Whittaker

Social media restrictions for Australian children aged under 16 have been in place for around 48 hours now - with the world watching how the experiment plays out.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas is one of the architects of the ban - having commissioned the S-A state draft law that inspired the national ban back in 2024.

A parliamentary committee has been probing the nation's corruption watchdog this week.

In October, the ABC revealed National Anti-Corruption Commission boss Paul Brereton continued to advise the Afghanistan war crimes inquiry, despite assurances he had stepped away.

Mr Brereton said his recusal from all defence corruption referrals was "unnecessary" — an argument his deputy commissioners have rejected.

Helen Haines is the independent MP for Indi and the Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

• Guest: Helen Haines, Independent Member for Indi
• Producer: Isadora Bogle