Already and this is this is the Daily Off.
This is the Daily oss. Oh now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to the Daily Ods. It's Monday, the fifth of January.
Welcome back, Welcome back.
I have that new year, new energy vibe. I am ready for this year.
It's going to be a good year twenty twenty six. It's got massive things in store, not just for us at TDA, but for I think the country in the world as well. Is so good to be back in your years after the summer break, Billy, I hope you have a lovely time off.
Thank you, Sam? I did did you?
I did? I did? I went to be on the Valley one of my favorite pilgrimages of a music festival. But now I'm really can you get stuck into it?
That is lovely final year of Beyond the Valley or we're going to be back this year.
We'll decide in six months. And I've been saying final year.
For a couple of years, so okay, Well, we are here to give you the audience a preview of what is coming up this year, because as Sam said, it will be a big one. We have the men's feef of World Cup. We have the census that only happens every five years, and we finally have the lawsuit between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. So twenty twenty six does seem to be a big year, and we are here to break it down.
Billy, why don't we We don't normally do this, but why don't we start with sport? Because I heard the enthusiasm in your voice when you mentioned the fief of World Cup. That's not the only big tournament this year.
No, well, I'm so excited because the Women's World Cup was such a huge moment. Granted that was set in Australia. Wait, but I want to go back to I'm going to do it in chronological order of the big sport events that are going to happen this year, starting in February, which I always struggle to say, but we have the Winter Olympics and Paralympics that will be in Italy, so it is officially two years after the Summer Olympics, which
were in Paris. Olympics and Paralympics. You just can't get better when it comes to everyone gathering around watching the TV getting behind the Aussies. Always a brilliant time.
Or any sporting tournament that requires me to move my dinner and pillow to the couch and set up camp there for a month.
I do that too.
It's great. So I mean I think from memory, the time zone for the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Italy isn't too bad for us here in Australia. There's going to be some slightly more human times than the two three four ams. It's not going to be great, but it's definitely going to be worth watching.
It's so exciting. Okay, then we move to March where we have the Women's Asian Cup. Now this will be based in Australia. This will be in Gold Coast, Perth and Sydney, and this will be such an exciting moment. I think it will really build on the momentum of the twenty twenty three Women's World Cup, which was in Australia.
The high Country got behind the Matildas. It felt like one of those rare moments where literally everyone in the country was talking about the exact same thing totally and I imagine touch would if the Matildas do well, that this will be similar to that, because once again it's based in Australia.
And they've got some tough competition. There's a lot of strong sides in the tournament. I think Japan is one of the powerhouses of women's football. China South Korea are very strong as well, and then there's a couple of really fantastic emerging nations. New Zealand has a really good side there as well. So it's going to be a competition.
But you know who else is strong, Tamka, Australia and Australia. Yes, and so we have a mighty mighty chance and if I know the mighty mighty Matilda's we have a mighty mighty chance.
And that is a good time zone for us all to watch. Then we go to June right where it's the Men's World Cup. That is not a good time zone.
No, but I'm so excited. I remember us working together on the last World Cup. Yeah, been here for too long apparently. If we're back here.
Again measuring in World Cups, yeah.
But that will be the soccer rous They have qualified for the World Cup once again, that will just be so exciting.
Yeah. And I was looking at the schedule the other day. There's a Saturday night match. I think there's a Sunday morning match. There's not two bad time zones as well, really exciting and.
Then really into time zones.
Well, I always think ahead to how much is this going to absolutely destroying my sleep cycle?
So you're just mentally preparing for that.
Now, I need to get the hours in now. But then we've got the last kind of big, major international sporting event is going to be late July early August in Scotland.
Yes, that will be the Commonwealth Games. Yeah, once again, such a great unifying moment for the whole country to get around all of our audi athletes. Yeah, that will be absolutely brilliant.
It'll be interesting to see the appetite from us all to really jump into this tournament. The tournament has struggled in the last couple of rounds with its popularity and its validity as a competition. Nonetheless, it's created some incredible moments. Glasgow will put on a big show and wow, when you take us through everything that's going to happen in sport.
This year, it's a big year, huge moments.
And then alongside that, let's go to a more traditional kind of news round of politics. I guess we can kind of look locally and overseas. Why don't we start quickly with local politics. The news headlines still kind of have a flavor of talking about some major policy implications from December's mass shooting in Bondai. At both the state and federal level. What do you kind of see is the big moments in federal politics for the year to come.
Yeah, it will be interesting to see what happens with gun laws in Australia. I think that will be a huge moment. But then also looking at how the government is supporting the Jewish community after that terror attack, and then outside of that, you know, this isn't an election year, so I guess based on that it shouldn't be a huge politics year for Australia. I will say that one thing that I think will come up is Susan Lee, who is the opposition leader. She is the leader of
the Liberal Party. Last year, towards the end of last year, there was a lot of speculation about whether or not she will remain the Liberal leader. A few of her colleagues seem very open about the fact that they want her job, so I think that that conversation will continue this year because at the end of last year it didn't look like her job was safe. Yeah, I will say that it has kind of quietened down a little bit, but one to keep an eye on.
And I'm going to keep an eye on the tech policy world this year. I think it's going to be I mean, we had the age verification and limiting under sixteens on social media come in late last year. There's really increased chatter around the way in which our government engages with tech giants, especially in the era of AI as well, so I think that's going to be a
major focus of the government. I'm also interested in how they're going to look at environmental policy, which we haven't spent a lot of time as a nation talking about over the last couple of years.
No, well, the opposition started talking about it towards the end of life last year as well, they announced their environment policy. But yeah, you're absolutely right, that also will be one to keep an eye on.
And then Billy, looking overseas, I think probably the big headline here is the US midterms.
Yes, so in the US we have the midterms this year, so that means that it is exactly two years after the presidential election where Donald Trump was elected president for a second time. So if you're not fully across this, the midterms happen across all states for offices other than the president or the vice president, and it's to decide the makeup of the US's two bodies of government. So we have the Senate and the House of Representatives, and
that's where laws get made in the US. At the moment, the Republican Party, which is the party that US President Donald Trump is from, they have a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. And I would say that the midterms are always seen as this halfway point to reflect on how the country is seeing or assessing the person that they elected and the party that they're from.
It's kind of a performance review at the pole.
That is what I was looking for. That is exactly the perfect way to describe it. So, yeah, it will be interesting to see if the country sways more to the Republican Party, who already have a lot of power at the moment, or back towards the Democrats.
Really interesting to watch. That one that's right at the end of the year, that's in November. One politics adjacent story I thought would be worth mentioning. You mentioned it before the census, so that's not kind of directly run by our politicians, but it's it's a big moment.
Big moment. It's a big night for the data nerds, big big night. So every five years, if you're not familiar with the census, every five years, the ABS counts every single person and household in Australia in this scene that is called the census, and it's basically like this huge survey for the entire population. But it's different to
other surveys because usually surveys are only sample ye. But what's great about this is that it's literally the entire population and they ask you everything from your age, to your religion, to what you do for your job. They ask about your income and it's just a fascinating snapshot of the country.
And every year, there's always every time the census is rolled out, there's always some new questions and they make some adjustments.
Yes, and this year will be the first time that they ask questions on sexual orientation and gender for individuals aged sixteen years and over, and so that will be on the eleventh of August, market in your calendar.
And Billy, let's bring it home with your I think your guilty pleasure. But also you would say, then it's not a guilty pleasure, it's just a pleasure pleasure. Let's go to pop culture.
I would say politics is my pleasure and pop culture is my guilty. People.
Well, let's end with the guilty pleasure pop culture. What are the big pop culture headlines to be looking for this year?
Okay? So, as I mentioned in the intro, we have Blake Lively and Baldoni's lawsuit. Now you might be thinking, wasn't that thrown out? That's what you were thinking that The answer is no, So only Baldoni's counter lawsuit was thrown at. Right, So Baldoni just as a refresher, he accused Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds or trying to destroy his reputation by accusing him of sexual harassment. That was a four hundred million dollar lawsuit and that was
dismissed by a judge in June last year. However, the initial lawsuit, which was brought forward by Blake Lively at the end of twenty twenty four, where she accused Baldoni of harassment on the set of the film It ends with us. That is still proceeding and that will happen in March this.
Year, okay, and that'll be a massive Hollywood court case. But on the other side of Hollywood, we have some new releases coming out.
I thought i'd go quickly through some of the new movies that are coming up. So we have Devil Webs Prada two number two. We have Toy Story Far. We have Buthering Heights that features Margot Robbie and Jacob Alordi. I feel like I've already been seeing that around quite a bit. They've already started the promotion for that one. We also have Moana the movie, which is a live action remake of the animated film. We have another Spider
Man movie. Essentially, it's just a lot of classics continuing their franchise, which is domination of Hollywood.
Yeah, which is interesting. I think in the uncertainty of Hollywood at the moment, with the presence of streaming players becoming more powerful, how expensive is to make movies, I think there's a lot of safe bets being placed on franchises that have worked in the past by studios and yeah, it looks like that's going to continue. Why don't we take a quick look at music.
Okay, some new albums that you can expect this year, we have Charlie XCX coming out with a new album, Lana del Rey, Louis Tomlinson from one direction we'll be making a return. We have Charlie Pooth and we also have Asap Rocky. And then in terms of Ossie artists who have announced that they are releasing albums this year, we have the Kid l Roy coming out with a new album and also Kelly Holiday, who saying dancing to remember that one.
One of the biggest songs from twenty twenty five. Here in hoping that.
You could sing it for us in case anyone doesn't know what.
I'm just going to do the hit movements.
Okay, well, thank god this is an audio platform. He will also be releasing an album this year. And then my final note on pop culture and I'm glad that you set this up as a guilty pleasure set.
Just can't help it.
I just can't help myself. This is entirely based on gossip and rumors and there's absolutely no evidence that this will happen this year, but I have to mention that it likely could be the year that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelcey get married. Your English teacher and your gym teacher, as she said, And.
Are we going to have to talk about your leave for that? Yeah, like how much you.
Actually get an invitation? And that's why I'm bringing it up.
I don't even think it's about you being physically there. I just think that you're going to need some time to sit in the room and look at the computer just on waiting content.
I try to keep my love for Taylor Swift a little bit closeted, and you're really exposing me right.
Well, you do a terrible job. And thank you so much for running us through all of that, Billy. We know you're going to be here all the way, taking us through the events that we can predict, but also the stuff we can't. And that's what is the magic of news, and sometimes the tragedy, but often the beauty of it is the biggest stories of the year we don't know about yet. So we feel very safe in your hands leading our newsroom and let's do twenty twenty six.
I'll be here with you sitting in this chair breaking it all.
Down, unreal and thank you for joining us for this first episode. We hope you had a really beautiful summer. We've got a great back catalog now of some excellent summer series episodes. If you wanted to kind of warm up a bit more for the year ahead, and you're on the bus or train on the way to a first day of work, or you're taking some well deserved time off after working over summer, We'll chat to you again in the afternoons with your first headlines of the year.
Until then, have a beautiful day. My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Aarunda Bungelung Calcatin woman from Gadigol Country.
The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadigol people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestrate island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.