The Briefing

James Valentine passed away in April, voluntarily. The beloved ABC radio presenter and musician had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and chose voluntary assisted dying so he could have a say over how he lived his last moments. 

Valentine cared about moments. In a moving eulogy at Valentine’s public memorial, his son, Roy Valentine, said that his dad always asked the question: “How do you want to live?” James Valentine lived with joy, curiosity, and openness, and wanted everyone else to be able to do the same. 

Today, James Valentine is being officially honoured as a Member of the Order of Australia. In this episode of The Briefing, Natarsha Belling is joined by Roy Valentine to talk about his father’s legacy. 

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Monday Headlines: 

• Former Australian of the year Professor Richard Scolyer dies aged 59
• More than 900 Aussies on the Kings Birthday honours list 
• Newspoll has One Nation ahead of Labor for the first time
• Oscar Piastri misses podium at Monaco Grand Prix

Deep Dive: June 8 marks the UN’s World Oceans Day, a chance to raise global awareness of the critical role our seas play in the health and wellbeing of the planet. 

While a lot of our focus and knowledge of the ocean is on the parts we can see, there are teams of scientists and researchers who are probing the deep sea, around three quarters of which remains unmapped and unexplored. 

In today’s deep dive, Sacha Barbour Gatt is joined by the CSIRO’s Dr Will White to discuss the deep sea, the recent discovery of new species off the coast of Australia and why it matters. 

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As most states (sorry, WA and QLD) gear up to celebrate the King's Birthday public holiday tomorrow, some might be asking the question Aussies have been asking themselves for decades;

Why are we still living life under the British monarchy?

In this bonus episiode of The Briefing, we hear from a republican and a monarchist about their arguments to either leave or stay.

This episode was first published in October 2024 as King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived in Australia for a royal tour.

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Antoinette Lattouf is no stranger to The Briefing. Long before she became the centre of one of Australia’s most closely watched media controversies, she was sitting in the host’s chair herself.

Since then, the journalist, author and co-founder of ETTE Media has endured a very public battle with the ABC after being taken off air over a social media post about Gaza - a dismissal later found by the Fair Work Commission to be unlawful.

In this chat with Sacha Barbour Gatt, Antoinette reflects on the fallout from that experience, the lessons behind her new book Women Who Win, and why women who challenge the status quo are so often punished for it.

Weekend list with Helen Smith

• Listener Karli TO WATCH: Widows Bay on Apple TV
  
• TO WATCH: The Sheep Detectives in cinemas 
• TO TRY: Digital photo frame 
  
• TO WATCH: The Real Housewives of Rhode Island on Hayu
  

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Headlines: 

• One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce backtracks over kicking permanent residents out of their homes
• ASIC is formally investigating KPMG
• Thermos King Food Jar recalled after causing vision loss in the US
• China’s about to put a 55% tariff on Aussie beef
• Prince Andrew appears with a massive face bruise 

Deep Dive: 

Aussies love to talk about property prices, and the focus this week has been on new data showing declines in some house prices. But how significant are the downturns in Sydney and Melbourne, and what kind of properties are still hitting record highs? 

In this episode of The Briefing Natarsha Belling is joined by My Bui, economist at AMP, to talk about whether Australia is actually in a property correction, and what it could mean for your finances. 

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Friday Headlines: 

• Labor facing uphill battle to get CGT and NDIS legislation passed
• Government calls for investigation into sexual assault allegations of Australian flotilla members
• Hezbollah rejects latest ceasefire
• Bondi hero charged with assault
• Content creator fired over viral Indigenous skit

Deep Dive: A robot recently beat the human half-marathon world record by seven minutes, another walked the Met Gala red carpet, while one major world religion is ordaining them as monks. 

Humanoid robots are turning up in spaces we once thought were exclusively ours - and that's not an accident. It's the latest move in a multibillion-dollar effort to make machines feel familiar, relatable and, ultimately, welcome. 

In this episode of The Briefing, Chris Spyrou traces the 60-year playbook behind our relationship with machines - from a 1960s MIT chatbot to a breathing AI in your pocket – to explain how we arrived at a moment where robots are beginning to move from our screens and showrooms into our streets. 

Further listening from headlines: 
'I heard the screams': Inside Israeli detention

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Headlines: 

• Trump rebuked by Congress over war powers, as Iran and Lebanon agree to new ceasefire
• Elderly man was stabbed before shooting home invader in rural NSW
• Melbourne Neo-Nazis convicted over ANZAC Day boos, as High Court dismisses hate group challenge
• Mary the Tassie Devil is still on the loose

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Thursday Headlines: 

• One Nation support surges among women, inner-city livers and the wealthy 
• Netanyahu brushes off tensions as Trump confirms fiery phone call
• Australia among countries facing new US tariffs 
• 80% of cigs and vapes smoked in Australia last year were illegal
• Lisa Jane Spencer faces backlash for skit mocking Aboriginal Australians 
• NSW to allow medicinal cannabis users to drive

Deep Dive: We already know that our increasing appetite for all things AI has the potential to harm the planet and our hip pockets, with energy-hungry data centres needed to power the demand. 

A new report by the Climate Council has highlighted this fact, with fears of a 25% increase in electricity prices by 2035 and 3x growth in water consumption and energy needs in less than four years if things keep going unchecked. 

But there are ways for data centres to be green, with the Climate Council’s CEO Amanda McKenzie explaining how on this episode of The Briefing. 

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Headlines: 

• GDP growth in March quarter was 0.3%, lower than expected
• Carlton dick pic case to be heard in public
• Protests in Britain over police actions during stabbing death
• Active fighting again between Iran and the US
• Bear attacks in Japan are on the rise 

Deep Dive: 

The accounting firm KPMG is in crisis, after a whistleblower revealed KPMG had used confidential client information to secure further work for itself. Accounting firms are meant to be the upstanding citizens of the corporate world – now, though, KPMG is at risk of losing customers who no longer trust their documents will be kept secret. 

In this episode of The Briefing, Natarsha Belling is joined by Tansy Harcourt, senior writer for The Australian. 

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Wednesday Headlines:

• Israel strikes southern Lebanon despite Trump’s announcement
• Changes to the NDIS will cause ‘material harm’ to disabled Australians
• Barnaby Joyce joins anti-abortion rally in Sydney
• Charlie Pickering calls Grace Tame's ABC podcast 'problematic'
• The ‘franken-can’ named Australia’s worst packaging 

Deep Dive: Tony Abbott is back in frontline Liberal Party politics, after being appointed the party’s Federal President.  

But not everyone in the party is convinced it's a good idea. Supporters see Abbott as a powerful communicator who can help reconnect the Liberals with their base, while critics fear his return could overshadow leader Angus Taylor and deepen divisions between the party's conservative and moderate wings. 

In this episode of The Briefing, Chris Spyrou speaks with AFR political editor Phillip Coorey about why Abbott is back, how much influence a party president really has, and whether his return can help reverse the Liberal Party's decline 

Further listening from the headlines:
“Globalise the Intifada” explained

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