Sunday Morning

8:10 What the UK local elections mean

How important were the UK local elections? Not very, you might suppose at first glance, but global media have covered them assiduously.

Lawyer and a journalist Christian Smith joins Jim to discuss the results and what they mean.

8:25 The Sunday Morning Quiz 

Quiz master Jack Waley-Cohen is back with his Sunday Morning quiz.    

Jack is the mind behind the questions on BBC's infamous quiz show Only Connect, known for being both hard — and at the same time totally obvious.     

Wake up your brain and have a go! 

8:35 Calling Home: Jude Fleming from Warren, NSW 

Award-winning contemporary landscape artist Jude Fleming grew up in Rotorua but moved to the Australian outback 40 years ago. She lives a six-hour drive from Sydney in Warren, population 1365. 

As well as painting and working in other media, Jude runs weekly art classes and has been recognised by the NSW state parliament for her decades of commitment to the arts. She joins Jim to talk about life in Warren.  

9:10 Mediawatch 

Mediawatch looks at how assumptions about important elections were upended in Canada and Canberra this week. And trying to pick winners in upcoming ones in Wellington and the Vatican suddenly seems risky too.  

Also: loud calls for military service based on bad data about the young generation - and the latest on the boardroom battle at NZME.  

9:40 Best Song Eva: Portia Woodman-Wickliffe 

 After stepping out of international retirement, Black Ferns legend Portia Woodman-Wickliffe was this week announced as part of the squad for the upcoming Pacific Four Series. The series, which kicks off this weekend, is a four-way tournament featuring New Zealand, Australia, United States and defending champions, Canada. 

The series also leads into the World Cup in August, and 33-year-old Woodman-Wickliffe has set her sights firmly on a third campaign. She joins Jim to talk about what lured her out of retirement, and she also chooses her Best Song Eva. 

10:10 How The CIA Book Club helped lift the Iron Curtain 

During the cold war the CIA managed to smuggle ten million books across the Iron Curtain. The banned titles included Hannah Arendt, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, George Orwell, and Agatha Christie. 

Books were smuggled on trucks and aboard yachts, dropped from balloons, and hidden in the luggage of hundreds of thousands of individual travellers. Once inside Soviet Bloc, each book would circulate secretly. 

Author Charlie English has written about the clandestine project and joins Jim to discuss The CIA Book Club and about the power of books during the Cold War. 

10:45 Barrie Cassidy: the results of Australia's Federal Election  

The polls closed for the 2025 Australian Federal Election on Saturday evening, ending a heated election campaign between incumbent Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton.  

Veteran political journalist Barrie Cassidy was the senior press secretary for then-PM Bob Hawke, the former host of ABC TV’s political discussion programme Insiders, and currently co-hosts Guardian Australia podcast Back To Back Barries alongside Tony Barry. He joins Jim to discuss the results of the election. 

11:10 Report from the Vatican: Conclave set to begin 

The papal conclave forms to start the selection process for a new pope on Wednesday. Cardinals from around the globe have been gathering at the Vatican. Some are considered more ‘papabile’ than others– meaning they’re thought to have the qualities and characteristics necessary to become pope.

Senior correspondent for Crux, Elise Allen joins Jim to discuss the latest from Vatican City. 

10:25 Why are restaurants so noisy? 

Loud music, whooshing coffee machines, clanging cutlery and raised voices fill the air in many restaurants.   

Professor Carl Hopkins, the head of the Acoustics Research Unit at the University of Liverpool, is with Jim to talk about what can be done to tone things down and why restaurant noise can be so uncomfortable. 

11:45 Can you post photos of suspected thieves?  

It has become increasingly common to see well-meaning homeowners posting CCTV footage to community social media pages, warning neighbours of alleged suspicious individuals. But is it legal to post photos or footage of another person, especially when claiming they may be scoping your property?  

Criminal lawyer John Munro joins Jim to discuss the legalities around posting another's likeness.