Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

How the Commonwealth Bank tried to stop a royal commission by using dirt files, intimidation, threats and surveillance against whistleblowers and journalists. Reporter Adele Ferguson investigates.

Can you guess this week's tweeter?

Australian trailblazer Rebecca Johnson is chief scientist at the Smithsonian Museum and before that she made history as the first female science director at the Australian Museum’s since it was founded in 1827. But to find out about the year that made her, we go back to Johnson’s teenage years, and her dreams of being a dancer.

Digital rights non-profit Access Now have released their annual report on global internet shutdowns, reporting the worst year on record. Incidences of shutdowns combined with human rights abuses and violence are on the rise, we ask what can be done to curb this growing concern.

Mavis Ripper was once hailed as Australia’s first woman of fashion, designing costumes for Australian films, and pioneering the use of Australian wool for her designs. So why is it that not one of Ripper’s designs or costumes is known to exist today? Social archivist and curator Tom McEvoy is still searching and will give an address about Mavis Ripper to the Sydney Fair antique next weekend.

British writer and former US correspondent Matt Frei will explore the question, Can America be saved from itself? in this year’s Christopher Hitchens Lecture at the Hay Festival.

Why is Georgia's new "foreign agents" transparency bill cause for concern? The President of Georgia has vetoed the bill, but the ruling Georgian Dream party are planning to overrule her decision in a final parliamentary vote. The bill has been called "inherently Russian". Guest: Eka Gigauri, executive director at Transparency International Georgia.

Dr Thuli Madonsela is the woman who drafted South Africa's constitution in 1994, and headed the investigation into then-President Jacob Zuma's alleged corruption. With South Africa's elections coming up on May 29th, Madonsela weighs in on how far the country has come since 1994. Guest: Dr Thuli Madonsela, former Public Protector of South Africa, and current Chair of Social Justice at Stellenbosch University.

This week marks 25 years since the restoration of a Scottish Parliament and the devolution of limited powers from Westminster. But with the ruling Scottish Nationalist Party engulfed in leadership chaos, the country - and the push by many Scots for full independence - stands at a crossroads.

Three dead dolphins turn up in an oil spill.

Ro Allen is Victoria’s Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner .

Tracey Slaughter's latest prize-winning personal essay is told from her perspective growing up on the floor of her mother's hair salon, listening to the stories of women.

A.J. Jacobs has made a career out of experimenting on himself and one of the regular results of his experiments is long stints in the New York Times bestseller list.

Ecologists are calling for a re-evaluation of the purpose of the dingo fence that sits on the Queensland / New South Wales / South Australia border.

-A British government inquiry is looking into the “unspeakable and unimaginable brutality and sadism” of Nazi concentration camps during the German occupation of the Channel Island of Alderney in WW2.

Deep in the jungles of Indonesian Borneo live a group of critically endangered Orangutans. Though their populations are threatened, their booming ‘long calls’ can still be heard for kilometres. But what exactly are they saying? Orangutan calls are exceptionally variable and notoriously difficult to de-code, but that hasn’t stopped a team of researchers from Cornell university from trying.

The images and reporting from inside Gaza are almost exclusively the work of local journalists

"Simone" arrived on a remote island to help asylum seekers. But she witnessed something there that convinced her to leak over 2000 documents. Reporters Paul Farrell and Maddison Conaughton investigate what happened.

Can you guess this week's tweeter?

The 2023 Ocean Photographer of the Year grew up in a family completely disconnected from nature. She was raised in inland China. Her parents are both lawyers who enjoy Mahjong as their main hobby, rather than adventuring into the wilderness.