The Court of Public Opinion with Jeremy Cordeaux AM

Jeremy Cordeaux is in the garage with Pete and Gary, and opens on a genuine medical breakthrough: a Monash University trial, co-authored by Professor Mark Nelson, suggesting a daily statin for the over-60s could cut heart attack and stroke by 30 per cent, overturning earlier fears of a dementia link. He asks why medicine took so long to investigate it, and promises to chase the answers on the Friday live stream. He then turns to a run of "nanny state" and double-standard stories: Queensland's new age limits for e-bikes and scooters, the disturbing report that most young people say they have experienced strangulation during sex and the tragedy that can follow, and the coming "digital duty of care" law aimed at social media giants, which he suspects is softening the public up, noting the same government caved to the gambling lobby. He argues banning camera glasses at swimming centres is pointless when phone cameras are everywhere, warns that 91,000 over-65s have now dropped private health cover after Labor axed the rebate, flags Russian and Chinese timber and window-frame dumping threatening a $6 billion local industry, backs Queensland teachers wanting the same legal protection as police and nurses, and rails against a looming $4 stamp with once-a-week delivery. Plus this day in history from Ferdinand Porsche and Frank Capra to Britain declaring war in 1939. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is in the garage with Pete and Gary for the first day of spring, and there is plenty to cover. He pays a warm tribute to Dolly Parton, larger than life and loved by everyone who met her, then turns to the political earthquake in the west: One Nation's Luke Herdegen taking nearly 40 per cent of the primary vote and 57 per cent two-party-preferred in the Secret Harbour by-election, a seat Labor held for 40 years. He calls it strategic, psychological and a genuine shot across the bows of both major parties, backed by Red Bridge and Newspoll numbers putting One Nation ahead of Labor nationally. He argues Anthony Albanese is "delusional" for insisting he has to beat One Nation because "we owe it to history," lists the government's record of higher taxes, higher debt, falling house values and electricity up by billions, and questions a Prime Minister whose diary is full of overseas trips, including a Pacific Islands Forum most island leaders are skipping. He rejects using the Nepal avalanche disaster to justify net zero, restating that Australia could switch everything off and change the climate not at all, and returns to Adelaide, where the Malinauskas government plans to cut down another 400 trees, more than 1,000 in total, for a $96 million, three-day MotoGP-style race most locals do not want. Plus this day in history from the outbreak of World War Two and the discovery of the Titanic to Rear Window and Barry Gibb. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is back in the garage with Pete and Gary, and opens with a milestone: Andy Martin reports 10.1 million people checked out the show across all platforms in the last 28 days. He then turns to the record-breaking "Stop the Chop" petition, more than 45,000 signatures carried book by book up the steps of Parliament House, to save trees of significance the government wants to cut down for sport and events, and warns Labor there is always a price to pay in the court of public opinion. He questions why Treasurer Jim Chalmers says he is worried about the coalition and One Nation influencing the $4.5 trillion superannuation industry, but not the union movement that already sits close to it, and argues Labor has its eye on super to fund a renewables push that has seen electricity costs rise. He defends free speech and Pauline Hanson's right to take her 18C case to the High Court, citing Voltaire; flags the "unintended consequence" of paying $40,000 to $60,000 a day to anchored fuel tankers with nowhere to store the fuel; asks whether an AFL player is really worth $5 million a season; and makes a heartfelt case against putting parents and grandparents into aged care, recalling three generations under one roof. Plus this day in history from Krakatoa and Halley's Comet to Mountbatten, Mary Poppins and Don Bradman. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is back in a cold, wet garage with Pete and Gary, and the headline number is staggering: federal debt has passed $1 trillion, a one with twelve zeros after it. He works through what that means, roughly $29.6 billion a year in interest, about $569 million every single week, and contrasts it with 2006, when Peter Costello declared Australia debt-free, sold Telstra and set up the Future Fund. He argues a government this poor at managing money has little to show for the debt beyond "a masterclass in what not to do." He also breaks down how David Speers, in his view, sprung a trap on One Nation's newly elected member David Farley on Insiders, turning a reasonable point about skilled visas into a "new member goes rogue" headline, and warns One Nation to stop being naive with a hostile press. Along the way: the 4.5% unemployment rate and 16,000 jobs lost in a month that barely made the news, the tobacco excise that has collapsed from $16.3 billion to $4 billion while illicit smokes supply 80% of the market, why there is no excise on fast food or a sugar tax, agreement (for once) with the Greens that the government runs "a protection racket" for the gambling industry, Ben Carroll's promise of ten free dental clinics in a broke Victoria, the Malinauskas government misreading the felling of Adelaide's parkland trees, 103-year-old Spitfire pilot Harry Young flying again, and a contested reflection on the 60th anniversary of the Wave Hill walk-off. Plus this day in history from Neil Armstrong to Sean Connery and the liberation of Paris. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is back in the garage with Pete and Gary, and the theme is priorities. He returns to Health Minister Mark Butler's line that there is "no money lying around" to keep the over-65s health rebate, then points to a gun buyback that will pay up to $10,000 a gun and cost, by his reckoning, some $2.6 billion, to crush firearms he says could be stored, sold or put in museums. He asks the travel-advisory question nobody wants to touch: if the government warns us not to visit a long list of countries for our own safety, why is there no reciprocal caution about migration from those same places? He also takes aim at the $2.5 billion bailout of the Tomago aluminium smelter, arguing Labor's own energy policy broke a business that used to be self-supporting, and that the Prime Minister blamed coal and the Liberals for a problem created by net zero. Along the way: a Pakistan National Day ceremony at Burnside Town Hall while we hesitate over Australia Day, Strathfield becoming the first council to require English on shop signs, coordinated school-student protests he calls the product of classroom indoctrination, the Commonwealth Bank's $10.9 billion profit and why the ABC gets banks wrong, Pauline Hanson's right to say she does not like the Mardi Gras, and this day in history from the Battle of Britain to Phyllis Diller and Jerry Lewis. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is back in the chilly garage with Pete and Gary, and he opens on the day itself - 18 August, the anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan and Vietnam Veterans' Day - before turning to the news. He dismisses "melon-gate" as a media smokescreen distracting from things that matter, welcomes the opposition's plan to cut the building code from 2,000 pages to 80 (and dreams of doing the same to 17,000 pages of tax law), and asks why 100 service stations were raided for illicit tobacco when the excise is what drives people to $12 packets in the first place. The heart of the show is the NDIS. Costed on the back of an envelope at $13 billion a year, it now runs at $50 billion and is heading, Jeremy warns, for $100 billion by 2030 - and still, from Julia Gillard's founding "landmine" to Bill Shorten's warning that it was "in the hands of organised crime," no minister has taken responsibility. He is scathing about Minister Jenny McAllister saying fraud "might be something we look at," and about a plan to shift developmental-delay children into a new "Thriving Kids" bureaucracy. He also argues the Bondi attack was about immigration and hate preachers, not legal firearms - "it's not the gun, it's the person holding it" - and backs sharing immigration cuts fairly across every visa category, starting with the government's own no-go travel-advisory nations. Plus this day in history: Long Tan, the Battle of Britain's "Hardest Day," Robert Redford, Winx and the birth of Adidas. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is in the garage with Pete and Gary, and the anger is close to the surface. He opens on a London insurer threatening to cancel a driver's policy unless he removes a "Jesus loves you" sign from his Nissan — supposedly because it raises the risk of vandalism — and asks what has become of Christian England. Then the story he can scarcely believe: a Zambian immigrant with almost 100 convictions, who sexually abused a three-year-old boy and his disabled nine-year-old niece, spared deportation by a tribunal under a ministerial direction from Tony Burke, partly because he'd lose access to the NDIS. Jeremy wants to know why the Minister will explain it to everyone but him. He also takes aim at the $400,000 and 47 days Chris Bowen spent circling the globe promoting net zero, the $100 million a year Australia pays to belong to a United Nations he says has kept the peace nowhere, the stamp duty that stops downsizing, the soft-plastics problem we could solve by simply not wrapping everything in plastic, the fight to save the Snowy brumbies from slaughter, and the new warning that more than two cups of milk a day could harm a toddler. Plus this day in history — Alfred Hitchcock, John Logie Baird and the Logies, Annie Oakley, Florence Nightingale and the last "Good night, John Boy". See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is in the garage with Pete and Gary, fresh off a call to his insurance company after a ceiling collapse in South Australia's wild winter weather. He opens on the RBA — rates tipped to hold, home-loan applications down 20% — and the poll that has Labor at its worst since Julia Gillard, which he pins on "lies and backflips." The heart of the show is gambling. After a Senate witness described in tears how gambling destroyed his life, Jeremy demands to know why the Labor government keeps protecting the industry — sitting on the late Senator Peta Murphy's report for years, then taking the advice of the very people it condemned. His answer is simple: ban gambling advertising outright across radio, TV and online, no compromise, no deals with the Greens. From there the panel widens the lens — with Reverend Tim Costello and Professor Ian Plimer on the Friday live stream — to ask whether the stock market, mining, insurance, film, music and even crossing the road are all really just forms of gambling. Plus the moral dilemma of whether an AFL player should be allowed to sign away the right to sue his club over future injuries, Labor's migration split and "back door" student visas, 5,434 hours of ambulance ramping in a single month, and this day in history — from Steve Wozniak and Robin Williams to Japan's surrender and the pen that signed it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is back in the garage with Pete and Gary, and he's found the government some money. From next April, he explains, 3.2 million Australians over 65 will lose the private health insurance rebate that keeps them out of the public system — a saving of $7.9 billion the government says it simply can't do without. Jeremy begs to differ, and reads Health Minister Mark Butler a list: $23.4 billion for electric-car subsidies, $100 million for a failed Bureau of Meteorology website, $65 million for journalists at billion-dollar media companies, half a billion for a Papua New Guinea rugby league team, $4.2 million for a South Pacific resort stopover for COP delegates. Priorities, Minister. He also takes on the mass citizenship ceremonies in Tony Burke's south-western Sydney — and the four flags new Australians were presented with — asking what picture of national identity that paints. Plus new Victorian Premier Ben Carroll's claim that "integrity will not be optional" (and why Jeremy says he talked himself into a corner), the belated royal commission into the CFMEU, Australia Post pushing a letter toward two dollars, and a run of gloriously useless inventions — the pet rock, diet water, the DVD rewinder. And this day in history: the World Wide Web, Hiroshima, Big Ben, and the world's oldest tree, accidentally cut down. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is back in the garage with Pete and Gary, and there's plenty on his mind. Pauline Hanson has regained top spot as preferred prime minister in the AFR's numbers — ahead of Labor and well ahead of the Liberals — and Jeremy can only imagine the panic in the back rooms. He turns to the quiet end of fuel excise relief, and his fury that not one journalist asked the Treasurer why the government would remove cost-of-living help while indexing the excise up on top — a fuel-price rise he warns will multiply through the price of everything. He also unpacks the $23.4 billion in electric-car subsidies running to 2036 ("no wonder they're selling well — what happens when it disappears?"), the "62 cents a day" tax cut he calls a disgrace, and Jacinta Allan's farewell speech as Victorian Premier — a "complete rewrite of history" from ten years of debt, the CFMEU, and a Commonwealth Games that cost nearly a billion and never happened. Plus H5 bird flu centred on South Australia, why the Muslim Brotherhood is banned in several countries but not Australia, and this day in history — Dom Pérignon, the Queen Mother, Marilyn Monroe, Louis Armstrong and Reg Grundy, for whom Jeremy once hosted Blind Date for $15 an episode. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is in the chilly garage with Pete, Gary and Caroline the day before the Friday live stream, and there's plenty to chew over. He replays the David Speers interview in which the Prime Minister ducks, weaves and — in Jeremy's telling — visibly squirms when asked directly whether he attended a dinner at Felix Lee's Point Piper mansion, and about the alleged $1 million Labor donation that followed. Jeremy reckons there's much more to come. He also digs into the story he says isn't getting the coverage it deserves: research showing Australia's $4.5 trillion super funds invest only about 1% in renewables — because the experts have judged the risk — and his warning that the government will now be lobbied to force our retirement savings into net zero. Plus the Four Corners tomato exposé and dodgy country-of-origin labels, a real-estate "gridlock" with buyers and sellers both frozen, kids in Coober Pedy let off after attacks, the Yalata permit system Jeremy calls "apartheid", 50 years of no-fault divorce and the dark early history of the Family Court, an AI that reportedly broke out of its data centre, a $30 million bank CEO salary, the $1 million private-school bill, and Trump's new tariffs over "slave labour". Plus this day in history — the last Beetle, Henry Ford, Captain Cook and the USS Indianapolis. TOPICS DISCUSSED The Four Corners tomato exposé — country-of-origin labels, China-grown product Labor's Adelaide conference and its long-term strategy; a united front for the cameras David Speers interviewing Albanese; the Felix Lee Point Piper dinner and alleged $1m donation Real-estate "gridlock" — one of the worst auction weekends in living memory $4.5 trillion in super funds; only ~1% invested in renewables, and why The looming push to force super into net zero investments Channel Seven's Coober Pedy story — kids aged 7–12 let off after attacks Outback towns, alcohol, "pension day and royalties day" The Yalata permit system on the Nullarbor — Jeremy calls it apartheid 50 years of the Family Law Act, Lionel Murphy and no-fault divorce; Family Court death threats An AI reportedly breaking out of its data centre; the "kill switch" question Macquarie Bank CEO's ~$30 million salary; $1 million to privately educate two kids Trump's new tariffs over "slave labour" Tomorrow's live stream: Dr John Bruni, Professor Ian Plimer, Frank Sebastian, maybe Rex Leverington This day in history: last VW Beetle, Henry Ford, Captain Cook, Arnold Schwarzenegger, USS Indianapolis, Paul Anka See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is in a freezing garage with Pete and Gary, saluting Australia's gold-medal-winning Commonwealth Games team — and Gina Rinehart's $20,000 reward for every gold, which Jeremy holds up as proof that reward and incentive really work. From there it's a forensic tour of government waste: the little-known Journalism Assistance Fund tipping more than $65 million of taxpayers' money into media organisations (up to $7.5 million per applicant), the $137 million emergency phone-alarm test, and the Bureau of Meteorology's $100 million website. His question throughout: what does the taxpayer actually get? He also skewers a sign-language interpreter relaying a phone-alarm warning to deaf viewers, the $4.2 million paid for a South Pacific luxury "rest stop" for COP delegates en route to Turkey with Chris Bowen, and the $20 Kmart "mouse mover" giving work-from-home staff an instant alibi. Plus Victoria's political chaos and whether Jacinta Allan can survive, the week's inflation and interest-rate watch, a listener's provocative note on the history of Christian nations that became Islamic, and a wander through this day in history — from Route 66's centenary to Henry VIII's fifth wedding and the 32-day marriage that may be a record. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is back in the garage with Pete and Gary for a Court of Public Opinion that goes hunting for the taxpayer's money — and finds it missing. He asks a deceptively simple question: has any government project in Australian history ever come in on budget? The North Sydney pool was meant to cost $20 million and reopens after $120 million. Snowy 2.0 was pitched at $2 billion and is now tracking closer to $50 billion. Where, he asks, are the guardrails? He also digs into why public housing costs so much more to build than private, why government charges and taxes swallow half the cost of a new home, and why building in Central Australia runs 150% above comparable housing elsewhere. Building costs are up 50% in five years, the Master Builders Association head has been threatened with death for arguing for transparency, and Jeremy says the ABCC should be restored — but won't be, while the government sits in the CFMEU's pocket. Then there's the story he finds genuinely bizarre: a federal government selling its 5% deposit scheme to first home buyers while placing ads overseas, in Arabic and Chinese. Plus Channel Seven's Spotlight and what Jeremy calls a media campaign to shut Pauline Hanson up; Rupert Lowe of Restore Britain and the extraordinary suggestion that "Anglo-Saxon" is code for white supremacy; the Islamophobia report the government has sat on for nine months; Paul Keating's plan to merge the $4.5 trillion super industry with social security; and why over-regulation will send the AI industry — and its very portable capital — anywhere but here. Jeremy also revisits his own brush with terrorism: the 1977 Hanafi siege in Washington, and the interview he landed live on air with the man who led it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is in the garage with Pete and Gary, raising a glass to Derryn Hinch the day after his state funeral, then opening with a new "quote for the day" — Tony Abbott's line that "multiculturalism has failed and diversity is not our strength." From there it's a wide-ranging session: the electric-car owners stranded for months without spare parts, why "every float seems more like a sink," and Deutsche Bank's finding that Melbourne is now the dearest city on earth for a beer or a pack of cigarettes, thanks to stacked state and federal taxes. The heart of the show is Jeremy's argument that the trade union movement's push to make businesses consult workers before adopting AI is "unworkable" and will drive innovation offshore — the same forces, he says, that once priced car workers out of their jobs and handed them to robots. He also digs into South Australia's Firm Energy Reliability Scheme, revealed to cost $44 million a year despite promises of "no cost to the consumer," the government's response to the inquiry into Islamophobia, and a spirited defence of Pauline Hanson's right to a holiday — and to be discussed at all. Plus this day in history: the first moonwalk, the Sopwith Camel, Hemingway, Tony Bennett and the birth of Central Park. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is in the garage with Pete and Gary for a Court of Public Opinion that runs hot on where your money is going. Top of the list: a quietly announced $650,000 grant scheme paying up to $20,000 a head to fly climate activists and Aboriginal groups to COP31 at a luxury Turkish beachside resort — while 240,000 Australians sit in energy poverty and almost $150 million has already been allocated to the campaign. Jeremy's question is simple: if you want diversity in the delegation, why not invite a few people who think the whole thing is a con? He also takes aim at Chris Bowen's 70-strong support staff, the absurdity of Australia locking up its uranium and coal while India and China top the OECD prosperity chart and we sit second from the bottom, and Canstar's finding that Australia now has the highest inflation rate in the developed world — alongside a record $19.4 billion in credit card debt costing $10 million a day in interest. Elsewhere: Professor Victor Gao's claim on the ABC that China can strike anywhere on earth within 20 minutes, and why Jeremy thinks it makes no sense ("why would you bomb it when you've already bought it?"); 47,000 hours of ambulance ramping in Adelaide in June alone; the schizophrenia of gambling ads that end by telling you not to gamble, when naming a cigarette brand on air is a crime; 31 charges over an Adelaide Plains piggery; and a wander through 16 July — Apollo 11, Ginger Rogers doing it backwards in high heels, Margaret Court, Adam Scott, Jane Birkin's handbag, and the story of Derryn Hinch's very first radio broadcast, live from the Kennedy Space Center. Jeremy also reflects on reports of the death of actor Sam Neill at 78. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Cordeaux is back in the garage — nursing a cold and minus his radio voice — for a Court of Public Opinion that swings from the deeply personal to the deeply uncomfortable. At its heart is a warm, unguarded eulogy for Derryn Hinch, dead at 82. Jeremy knew him for decades: from La Bicyclette in Sydney when Hinch was the youngest editor of a major Australian newspaper, to hiring him for breakfast in Adelaide (where he famously couldn't get out of bed, even living next door to the station). The Human Headline, five marriages, more sackings than the Southern Aurora, jailed for naming paedophiles, a liver transplant that bought him fifteen more years — Jeremy remembers a charismatic, eccentric, deeply ambitious character, and signs off with a Sinatra line. Elsewhere: the coordinated Shiite demonstrations across Australian capital cities and why news directors chose not to cover them; the return of alleged ISIS bride Hoden Abbey despite a lifted exclusion order and allegations she acted as a Sharia enforcer; Australians priced out of homes as rents climb and Hutt Street sees a 43% surge in demand; Australia sitting second-from-bottom of the OECD on productivity; and the Telstra outage that knocked out EFTPOS, transport and triple zero — proof, Jeremy argues, that a single $20 component can paralyse a country that's abolished cash and gone all-in on digital. Plus Bastille Day and this day in history. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australia's best-known real-estate consumer advocate Neil Jenman calls in to talk with Jeremy Cordeaux about his new book "Questions Every Seller Must Ask" — and to blow the whistle on the traps costing home sellers dearly. Neil takes aim at vendor-paid advertising, the "uniquely Australian scam" where sellers are asked to pay for marketing up front whether their home sells or not, explains why auctions are often the worst way to get the best price, how commissions really work, and the one word — "justify" — that changes the whole conversation with an agent. Practical, plain-spoken and firmly on the side of the ordinary buyer and seller. With thanks to our sponsor Rossdale Homes — fixed-price peace of mind, because trust is a must. rossdalehomes.com.au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Geologist, academic and best-selling author Professor Ian Plimer joins Jeremy Cordeaux at the table for a wide-ranging, no-nonsense conversation about climate, mining and the resources that underpin modern life. Never one to shy from a contrarian view, the professor digs into the science behind the headlines, the economics of energy, and the yawning gap between political rhetoric and geological reality — with a few sharp words about ballooning public-sector salaries along the way. Provocative, informed and thoroughly entertaining. With thanks to our sponsor Rossdale Homes — fixed-price peace of mind, because trust is a must. rossdalehomes.com.au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Veteran broadcaster and journalist John Ovenden joins Jeremy Cordeaux at the table to swap stories from a remarkable career spanning more than half a century in radio and television. From the golden days of the industry to the simple joy of doing a program around a dining-room table — a nod to the very origins of Australian radio back in 1923 — John reflects on a life behind the microphone, the characters he's met, and the medium he still loves. Warm, nostalgic and full of heart. With thanks to our sponsor Rossdale Homes — fixed-price peace of mind, because trust is a must. rossdalehomes.com.au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Adelaide broadcasting legend and entertainer Peter Goers phones in to talk about taking the lead as the irascible, razor-tongued Sheridan Whiteside in "The Man Who Came to Dinner," the classic festive-season farce now playing at the Arts Theatre on Angas Street, Adelaide. Peter runs through the season — weekend evening shows plus matinees that are already nearly booked out — the production by director Sue Wiley, and the all-star local cast, which includes Jeremy's own son, Christopher. Along the way he spins a few irresistible showbiz yarns, including a memorable brush with Rex Harrison at the Savoy in London. Warm, funny and unmistakably Adelaide. With thanks to our sponsor Rossdale Homes — fixed-price peace of mind, because trust is a must. rossdalehomes.com.au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.