Victoria has a new premier this week - and within hours of being sworn in, Ben Carroll did the one thing his predecessor spent months refusing to do: call a royal commission into the CFMEU. 

Jacinta Allan's resignation was driven in large part by a corruption scandal engulfing the state's Big Build, where a landmark report earlier this year alleged the construction union had siphoned $15 billion from taxpayers while the government turned a blind eye.  

Reporters at The Age have been documenting the organised crime, intimidation and misconduct across the union's Victorian operations since 2024.  

In this episode of The Briefing, we revisit Chris Spyrou's conversation with award-winning investigative journalist Nick McKenzie from The Age, recorded back in February when that explosive report first landed. 

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Welcome back to our new weekend format, The Briefing: Our Take. 

Every Saturday we're loosening our ties and kicking off our shoes to take you behind the scenes of the week that was; stories we loved or debated, what you, the listener, thought of a topic or conversation, the Weekend Quiz and capping it off with a Weekend Briefing favourite: The List. 

In this episode we talk about the feedback we got ahead of Chris' sit-down with Kyle Sandilands, comments on Hannah Ferguson’s run against the PM and Jacinta Allan’s resignation.  
 
We also stop by the red carpet of the new Spider-Man movie and quiz friend of the show Justin Hill on everything that happened in the news this week – make sure you play along! 

The Weekend Quiz (just questions, no answers):   

1. What’s this sound? (listen to hear it!)
2. Europe is threatening to boycott what ... and for a bonus point, why? 
3. Victorian premier Jacinta Allan resigned this week. Who was named her successor?
4. It was revealed this week that it cost $45,000 for the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to manage which loveable marine chaos agent? 
5. Who announced this week they’d be running as an independent against Anthony Albanese in the seat of Grayndler at the next federal election?  

The Weekend List:  

• To Watch: Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Justin Hill) 
• To Listen:  Wet Leg (listener Chris – you can watch the Coachella performance here) 

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Friday Headlines: 

• US completes ‘heavy wave’ of strikes against Iran 
• Australian family beg for government help as son faces death penalty in Syria
• Labor housing plan already 100,000 homes behind schedule
• UEFA agrees to boycott FIFA competitions over controversial World Cup sell-off plans
• Revealed: Neil the Seal's damage and care bill

Deep Dive: A new push is starting for access to Voluntary Assisted Dying to be expanded to telehealth services, in a move that advocates say would directly benefit people living in the regions or who are too sick to travel. 

Labor this week endorsed a change in law that'd lift a ban on the practice, but the Prime Minister doesn't agree, saying allowing it would threaten the strict safeguards in place to ensure VAD is only accessed by people who genuinely want and need it. 

In this episode of The Briefing, Sacha Barbour Gatt is joined by Go Gentle spokesperson Andrew Denton to discuss why there's a debate on this issue and what's next in the fight to allow VAD via telehealth. 

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Thursday Headlines: 

• Pause in fighting between US and Iran over as Trump threatens to ‘beat the f****** shit out of Iran’
• SA police call off search for missing 3-month-old boy
• Bird flu has first local transmission
• Rate hike unlikely after inflation numbers lower than expected
• OpenAI's rogue agent also hacked other companies

Deep Dive: Australia's no stranger to famous faces trading their day jobs for politics. Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett, broadcaster Derryn Hinch, Olympians Nova Peris and Zali Steggall, as well as former journalists Zoe Daniel and Maxine McKew. 

But only one of them has unseated a sitting Prime Minister. 

Hannah Ferguson is looking to become the second. 

In this episode of The Briefing, Chris Spyrou is joined by Ferguson to unpack her independent tilt at Anthony Albanese in his seat of Grayndler - why she won't be joining forces with the Greens or Teals, and some of the policy platforms and values at the heart of her campaign. 

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Wednesday Headlines: 

• One Nation support plateaus in new poll
• Search for missing baby boy in South Australia continues today
• Human casualties confirmed after magnitude 7.1 earthquake hits Japan
• Ben Carroll calls for Royal Commission as Opposition criticises his integrity
• 3.6 million people track Qantas flight to France

Deep Dive: Jacinta Allan has stepped down from the Victorian Labor leadership after less than three years in the role. 

With an election just four months away, how does her decision affect the party's chances of winning? And can Labor get back on top in Victoria? 

In this episode of The Briefing, Channel 7's Political Editor, Mark Riley joins Sacha Barbour Gatt to explain. 

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What does it really take to run Australia’s most iconic airline, and oversee one of the biggest public backlashes in corporate history? 

Alan Joyce has written a tell-all memoir, pulling back the curtain on his high-stakes leadership, political access, Chairman's Lounge secrets, and the personal cost of being one of Australia's first openly gay CEOs.

In this episode of The Briefing, the former Qantas boss sits down for an unvarnished chat about his fifteen years at the helm, his new book Riding the Jet Stream, and whether he regrets any of the calls that have defined his legacy. 

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Tuesday Headlines: 

• Vic Labor leadership spill could happen today
• Hanson considering High Court after losing Faruqi appeal
• Wildfires burn across France and Spain
• Australia eyes its first new refinery in 60 years
• AusAlert test hailed a 'success', but Queensland won't use it

Deep Dive: For over a century, Qantas built a reputation as Australia’s most trusted airline ... until COVID forced a desperate survival strategy that triggered the biggest reputational crisis in its history. 

Former CEO Alan Joyce was the man at the helm during those three years, overseeing brutal layoffs, emergency repatriations and a response that saved the company from impending bankruptcy. 

But that also came with severe public backlash that defined his final years at the helm. 

In this episode of The Briefing, Sacha Barbour Gatt sits down with Joyce to discuss his new memoir Riding the Jet Stream and his own reflections on what it took to save the Flying Kangaroo, and whether he regrets any of it. 

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Monday Headlines: 

• Jacinta Allan expected to face leadership challenge
• US and Iran pause strikes as fears petrol could return to $2 a litre in Australia
• Berlin gay pride terror suspect shot dead
• More bird flu detections in South Australia 
• Australia's flag bearer wins gold at the Commonwealth Games

Deep Dive: There’s a good chance your phone and millions of others will freak out this afternoon. 

If things go to plan, all compatible mobile devices in Australia will sound a loud siren at 2pm AEST and display a "CRITICAL AUSALERT", as the federal government tests a new nationwide emergency warning system. 

In this episode of The Briefing, Chris Spyrou is joined by QUT Associate Professor Paula Dootson to unpack how the system works and who it might leave behind. They also discuss the unsolved risk for domestic violence victim-survivors who keep a hidden phone, and what some of the backlash says about our trust in government. 

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OpenAI admitted this week that two of its most powerful models broke out of a sealed test environment and hacked another company - on their own initiative, to steal the answers to an exam they were sitting. 
 
The AI lab says it’s unprecedented but it lands about a month after the Five Eyes spy alliance - the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia - warned that advanced AI is accelerating the speed, scale and sophistication of cyber threats, and that the shift would take months, not years. Australia's own signals directorate put its name to that warning.

So how worried should we be? And what can any of us actually do about it?  
 
In this bonus episode of The Briefing, we revisit Chris Spyrou’s conversation with cybersecurity expert Alastair MacGibbon, the founding head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre, recorded in the days after the Five Eyes warning was issued.

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Usually this is where you'd find The Weekend Briefing - a feature chat with a human behind the headline. This Saturday, we're launching something a little different: the week that was, and what we all made of it. 

And by "we" we don't just mean us. You're in on this one too. 

Each Saturday kicks off with a debrief on one story we couldn't stop talking about off air - this week it's the Divine Playhouse, the queer-led arts venue shut down inside a Sydney building that stopped being a church in 1932.  
 
Then it's our first ever weekend quiz, which Chris has not shut up about for a fortnight (full questions below). 
 
Then we open the inbox - your DMs, your comments, and where you landed on the big one this week: should men be working in early childcare? 
 
And of course we cap it off with the weekend list: 

• Revenge – unsure if the TV series or the act (listener Claire)  

• The Boys on Amazon Prime (listener Chris)  

• Theo of Golden by Allen Levi – NYT bestselling novel (listener Suzanne)  

• Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey – in cinemas now, or 6.15am at IMAX if you’re producer Alex. 
   

The Weekend Quiz (just questions, no answers):  

1. Which controversial influencer faced court this week after being arrested in Miami? 
2. After being in Europe and spotted at a luxury resort in Italy with Gina Rinehart, Pauline Hanson was back on home soil. Which state did she head to first?
3. What is the name of the UK's new Prime Minister?
4. An Australian woman made global headlines this week for an extremely rare "one in 15 million" event. What was it?
5. Which member of parliament yelled “sit down” while on live television this week? 

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Friday Headlines:

• Billions more invested in AUKUS as Labor looks to keep a lid on debate at national conference
• Pauline Hanson lashes DV payments, child support, in newly surfaced interview
• Global oil price back up above $100 for the first time in two months
• Warnings after Open AI model breaks out of cage and hacks another company 
• Aussies have already won gold as slimmed down Comm Games get underway

Deep Dive: Why do Australia’s telcos fail so catastrophically? This month, Telstra’s network suffered a nationwide outage that shut down trains and blocked Triple Zero calls, following major outages for Optus customers in 2023 and 2025. 

Do other countries have similar telco failures, or are Australia’s uniquely bad? What has to change to make sure Aussies are always connected to the phone network? 

In this episode of The Briefing, Sacha Barbour Gatt is joined by Carol Bennett, the CEO of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network. 

Further listening from headlines:

• Gambling chat with Kate Chaney: What the govt buried on budget day
• The world’s spies are worried about AI

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