Shows / Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Sunday Extra presents a lively mix of national and international affairs, analysis and investigation, as well as a lighter touch.
Episodes
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Medicinal Cannabis no better than placebo for some mental health conditions
A major new study from the University of Sydney, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, has found medicinal cannabis is no more effective than a placebo in…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Unpacking the Tillies v Japan Asia Cup final
Julian speaks with former Matildas vice captain Moya Dodd about the outcome of the Matildas Asia Cup final against Japan.Guest: Moya Dodd, former Matildas Vice…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
A South Australian election result with 'massive national implications'
“A political earthquake” with “massive national implications”: that was the verdict of ABC Election Analyst Casey Briggs on the outcome of Saturday's South…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe rich history of Australian artworks about Antarctica
Antarctica has long captured the imaginations of artists and poets, as well as explorers and scientists.Since 2023, The University of Tasmania has been running…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe Year that Made Me: Adam Elliot, 2004
Adam Elliot is an auteur writer and director of animated films, who has carved his own path in the Australian film industry with his idiosyncratic films that…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
30 years since Port Arthur, a meditation on the aftermath returns to the stage
Australia will mark the 30th anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre in April 2026. The process of dealing with the grief and its ongoing effects are dealt…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastHave human emotions changed through history?
Have you ever wondered what your ancestors were feeling decades or centuries ago? Rob Boddice is an historian who argues that differences in our contexts and…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastHow the global economy is used as a weapon of war
As an official in the US State Department, Edward Fishman worked on imposing sanctions on Russia. Eddie discusses his latest book Chokepoints, which examines…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Deep Impact averted by a shove in the right direction
NASA crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in 2022, hoping the kinetic impact would nudge it off its orbit. The mission was called the Double Asteroid…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Iraq's hard-won stability threatened by Iran conflict
As the conflict in the Middle East enters its third week, Iran continues to launch attacks against US allies in the Gulf. Iraq, which borders Iran, is being…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Tooba Khan Sawari: A sporting chance in Australia
This week seven members of the Iranian women’s soccer delegation were given humanitarian visas to stay in Australia rather than returning to Iran after…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
India through Indigenous eyes
Julie Janson is a Burruberongal woman, novelist, playwright and poet. In her new book, Letters from India, she writes about the profoundly moving experience of…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe Year that Made Me: Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, 2023
Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO is a soprano and composer whose extensive CV includes Artistic Director of Short Black Opera and Dhungala Children's Choir, First…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Gatz is a play worth the numb backside
Gatz is a six-hour theatrical reimagining of The Great Gatsby (eight and a half hours with intervals), which The New York Times called “the most remarkable…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Dr. Bot - The future of AI in medicine
As doctors are weighed down by increased demands, reduced support and the fast pace of change in medical research, could AI help save the health system for…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Getting deep: the fascinating infrastructure of subsea cables
Roughly 98% of all global internet traffic travels not via phone towers or even satellites, but underwater, along a vast network of fiber optic cables that run…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Nepal elects rapper-turned-politician Balen Shah
Rapper-turned-politician Balen Shah has been elected Nepal's new Prime Minister. The 35 year-old was the mayor of Kathmandu before he ran against former leader…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
The Pahlavi Shahs of Iran
Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah of Iran, is pitching himself as a democratic future leader of Iran, claiming to have broad support in Iran. Who were the…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
The underestimated power of the chokepoint
Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz highlights how vulnerable global trade routes can be to disruption — and how easily strategic choke points can be…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastIran's Supreme Leader is dead... what happens next?
Donald Trump has announced the death of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from a missile strike coordinated by the United States and Israel. Julian…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe Year that Made Me: Bob Brown, 1976
Bob Brown is a giant of the environmental movement and Australian politics.A former doctor, Bob is the co-founder of the Australian Greens, served as a Senator…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe People's Guide to the Australian Constitution
As Constitutions go, America’s is the most famous and revered document. By contrast, the Australian constitution doesn’t inspire as much interest.Two lawyers…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe award winning documentary about a fascist Italian poet
Fiume o Morte! Has been praised as “the funniest and most unorthodox history lesson of the year”. In January, it was awarded Best Documentary at the European…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastPreserving LGBTQIA+ history at the State Library of NSW
It wasn’t very long ago that LGBTQIA+ relationships were criminalised in Australia. This creates challenges when it comes to uncovering pieces of queer…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastWhy Václav Havel's 1978 essay is "eerily relevant today"
When Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney gave his rousing speech on middle powers at Davos, he quoted Václav Havel - the Czech dissident, and later president -…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Forty years on from the fall of Ferdinand Marcos
Forty years ago this week, events in the Philippines were underway that would lead to the fall of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who had served as President…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
An ex-Pentagon official on US and Israel's strikes on Iran
The world is coming to grips with the joint American and Israeli strikes across Iran, and Iran retaliatory missile and drone strikes in Israel and in multiple…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Israel seeks to revive the death penalty
In November 2025 a bill was introduced to Israel's Knesset by the Jewish Power Party that would re-establish the use of capital punishment in the country's…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastAustralian journalist Murray Hunter is a free man again
Last October, we covered the story of Australian writer and resident of Thailand Murray Hunter, who was arrested in Thailand for articles he had written on…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastWhy Myanmar removed its representative from Timor-Leste
Last week we spoke with Christopher Gunness from the Myanmar Accountability Project about the universal jurisdiction legal case that Timor-Leste has opened…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
The Year that Made Me: Julie Inman Grant, 1995
The e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant on growing up in a single parent household, her connection to Ted Bundy, rejecting an offer from the CIA and…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Cooking the first mushrooms sent to space
In August 2024, astrophysicists from Swinburne University sent vials full of the mycelium of edible mushrooms to the International Space Station. They made it…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastHow one DMT trip could treat depression
A fascinating new study observing the effects of the psychedelic drug DMT - or dimethyltryptamine - on people who have already tried two other forms of…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Hillary McPhee on other people’s words - again
The legendary publisher and one half of McPhee Gribble has re-published her memoir Other People's Words with a new afterword.
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
The UK chemical research facility that identified Navalny poison
The testing that identified the poison that killed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was carried out at Porton Down, a British government chemical defence…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Ian Bremmer's Puppet Regime
Geopolitical analyst and president of the Eurasia group, Ian Bremmer has a new avenue for explaining the big news in international politics: Muppets-style…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Winston Peters proposes referendum on Maori seats
A political debate has erupted in New Zealand over whether or not to retain special Maori electorates in the New Zealand parliament.
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
From foreign correspondent to Uber driver
Steven Scherer has written about his unexpected journey from career high to just trying to make ends meet and provide for his family in a touching essay in…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastTweet of the week, 15 February 2026
This week's tweeter has a soft, high-pitched call, and can be found around dense undergrowth in forest, scrub, heath and along creeklines. It's the Red-browed…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
The Year that Made Me: Marianne Jauncey, 1998
Dr Marianne Jauncey works with people many in society dismiss as “lost causes” — drug users in Kings Cross, in inner-city Sydney. But far from acting the…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastRivers Flow: Reflections on the songs of Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that the following program contains names of people who have died.“It seems certain some human…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe return of The Muppet Show!
In what is perhaps the biggest news in TV comedy of the year - maybe in forty years - earlier this month, a brand new episode of The Muppet Show was released…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Household Names: Breville
In this episode of Household Names we delve into the history of Breville, a company that many of us are familiar with because of their iconic jaffle makers…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
The dilemma of de-extinction
A scientific breakthrough by Colossal Bioscience has seen the 'resurrection' of the dire wolf, a megafauna-hunting wolf species that died out around 10,000…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe cybersecurity expert taking Services Australia to court
Queensland software developer Fraser Tweedale made a Freedom of Information request for the MyGov Code Generator app's code so he could review it, but the…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Timor Leste takes on Myanmar for crimes against humanity
Timor Leste has appointed prosecutors to investigate crimes against humanity committed by the Myanmar military junta against members of the Chin ethnic group…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe missing edition of OZ Magazine
In the 1960s independent magazine OZ became a cause célèbre when its editors were charged, in the UK and Australia, with obscenity.Edition 4 of OZ magazine is…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe Year that Made Me: Abraham Kuol, 2010
Abraham Kuol spent the first seven years of his life in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. His family came to Australia as refugees, and this year he is Victoria’s…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe Aussie Magna Carta
The Magna Carta is one of the world's most famous documents, and Australia has it's own copy from 1297. Libby Melzer recently completed a 10 year project to…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe uncanny rituals of Opera for the Dead
Straight from Sydney Festival to Melbourne's Art House, Opera for the Dead is a striking contemporary Chinese cyber-opera that blurs ritual, music and…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Household names: Mary Penfold
Mary Penfold was the driving force behind Penfolds wines, which grew from a small vineyard outside Adelaide in the 1850s to the wine-producing powerhouse that…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Ulanbaatar, another capital on the move
The number of countries planning to relocate their capital cities now also includes Mongolia, where building works are underway on a new capital.
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Does 'good character' still belong in sentencing?
'Good character' as a mitigating factor of sentencing is poised to be abolished in NSW courts. The proposed new bill in NSW parliament relies on the…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Bangladesh's first post-Hasina election
17 months after the revolution that ended the 15 year rule of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League, Bangladesh goes to a general election on…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastHow water cremations work
Have you ever heard of water cremation? It sounds like a misnomer but it is an increasingly popular way of cremating the dead, which its proponents choose for…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Tweet of the week, 1 February 2026
This week's mystery caller is a common, aerobatic predator of small insects – the Welcome Swallow.
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastThe Year that Made Me: John Birmingham, 1989
John Birmingham is perhaps best known for his documentation of the "horror and madness" of Australian share-house living in his 1994 book He Died With A…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Searching for the real da Vinci code: Leonardo's DNA
A group of researchers have been (gently) scouring works of art and objects connected to the great Renaissance painter and inventor Leonardo da Vinci in a…
Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcastStolen Man on Stolen Land
Tyree Barnette arrived in Australia in 2012 with rose-coloured glasses for the laid-back, multicultural, egalitarian nation. But he soon found that being…
- Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast
Mr Bunning, the man behind Australia’s hardware heavyweight
You know the jingle but do you know the story of the family behind Australia's iconic hardware retailer and sausage sizzle fundraiser?