Ask the Squiz

Ask the Squiz

We’ve had plenty of questions from Squizers over the past week about what’s going on in the news - so in Ask the Squiz, we’ll be doing our best to answer them. There’s so much happening in the world right now - it can be a lot - but it does make for some interesting topics to dive into. And today we’ve got a cross-section of them, including:

• the AUKUS deal

• the New York City mayoral race

• and the demise of The Project

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Listen time: 21 minutes

All about AUKUS…

Our first topic kicks off with a question from Brian, who’s asked us to cover off the debate around AUKUS - why we do or don’t need it.
AUKUS can be complicated to explain, but basically, it’s a security pact between three countries. As you might have guessed from the name, they’re Australia, the UK and the US.

And what does it involve?
There are 2 main pillars. The first one is the part that has got a lot of attention. It’s a deal where Australia will buy 3 nuclear-powered subs from the US and 5 from the UK, and we’ll work together to design and build those. And that’s not coming cheap - it’s worth hundreds of billions of dollars in Australian money (more than $370 billion…).

That’s a lot of dosh…
Yep - nuclear technology is tricky to manage and it’s an area Australia hasn’t dipped into. Not only are there laws to change to facilitate having this sort of technology here, but we have to build the skills base. And we need a plan on dealing with nuclear waste at the end of the subs’ life as well.

So it’s a lot more than just buying a boat…
Yep - submarine reactors use highly enriched, weapons-grade nuclear fuel, and it’s tricky to manage. But the AUKUS pact isn’t just about the subs; it’s also about an ongoing partnership where we collaborate with the US and UK on other military tech, like long-range missiles and AI. This is a category of the agreement called Advanced Capabilities, and it’s the part of the deal that the US is currently reviewing after the election of Donald Trump. The UK did the same thing after it elected a new Labor government headed up by Sir Keir Starmer.

And what’s in it for the UK and the US?
For the UK, it’s similar to us - a boost to jobs and skills as they develop their submarine industry, a tighter military alliance with the US, as well as access to US military tech. But what the US gets out of it beyond cold hard cash is a bit of a trickier question… 

Where does China come into things?
The US and China are rivals, and a security pact with us helps the US with their security presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Plus we’re paying them a lot of money. But not everyone’s a fan; the guy conducting the review, Elbridge Colby, the Undersecretary for Defense in the US, said 12 months ago that “the benefits are questionable and the viability is also questionable” - so he’s not exactly Team AUKUS going in… 

When will the US review be done?
It should be done sometime this month, so we’ll see if it turns him around. Even though the Albanese Government didn’t originate the AUKUS pact - that happened under former Coalition PM Scott Morrison - it wants the agreement to stick. 

Is everyone in Oz on board?
Nope. Former PM Malcolm Turnbull is one who isn’t; he said the deal is too expensive, it’s weighted in the favour of the UK and the US, and there are doubts that we’ll even get the submarines by the deadline of 2032.

Speaking of which, will the submarines end up being redundant before they’re actually delivered to us?
That’s a tricky question to answer because tech does move so fast - but what we do know is that some people, including former PM Kevin Rudd, have said that the long gap leaves Australia “strategically naked” in the meantime. There’s also the matter of anti-submarine warfare that’s being developed…

What’s that?
We’ve been reading up on technology and military techniques that take away a submarine’s main advantage, being the fact it can hide underwater. And it might sound sci-fi, but it includes tech that could make the ocean ‘transparent’ by 2050. So, while we can’t answer definitively if they’ll be redundant, the issue is definitely worth considering.

A New York state of mind…

Our next question comes from Penny, who has asked about the significance of Zohran Mamdani winning the Democratic primary to become the party’s nominee for Mayor of New York…
Let’s start with what a primary actually is, which is essentially a mini-election to work out who a party’s candidate will be for a later election. 

What happened in the primary for the Democratic candidate for Mayor of NYC?
Zohran Mamdani officially won that race this week. He got nearly 550,000 votes, compared to his nearest opponent Andrew Cuomo - a former governor of New York who was considered the favourite - who won around 430,000.

Is that position a big deal?
It’s definitely a high-profile role in the US, because New York is such a big and influential city. And New York City leans heavily Democratic - the majority of its recent mayors have been Democrats - so that puts Mamdani in the box seat to be the mayor.

The Democrats had a tough trot at the last federal election, right?
They sure did, and there’s been a lot of discussion about how they’re going to get back to being relevant - a bit like what the Coalition is going through in Australia…

And is Mamdani’s approach something they might copy?
Let’s look at the policies that helped Mamdani win - he referred to himself as a “democratic socialist” and he said he would heavily tax wealthy New Yorkers in order to fund initiatives like free child care and public transport, a rent freeze, and government-run grocery stores. 

Do some people see a problem with that?
Many commentators are saying an agenda that works in New York - a city that, as we mentioned, already leans very heavily Democratic - could be harder to sell further afield. So, his brand of politics might even damage other Democrats who are trying to be more broadly appealing. But he’s definitely made waves… 

What will the party do if he wins the general election?
His supporters will certainly have a stronger argument if he also wins that - it will be really interesting to see what the party as a whole does from there.

A wrap on The Project…

Let’s move on to our third question; it’s about the news media, one of our favourite topics. This one comes from Heather, who wants to know what the end of The Project after nearly two decades on air says about how Australian audiences are changing when it comes to news and current affairs?
We’ve mentioned The Project wrapping up a few times on our Squiz Today and Weekly Wrap podcasts… It had a long run, especially for an Aussie TV show, before it was cancelled in favour of a new current affairs show called 10 News +

So, not that much has changed?
Well, Channel 10 has replaced a news show with another news show - just with a bit of a different vibe to it. This new show is more serious-minded than The Project. It’s promised to be much more about investigative and long-form journalism, as opposed to a mix of news, interviews and comedy.

Why change one news show for another, if it’s news that’s the problem? 
So let’s look at what the data says…. As it happens, the 2025 edition of the Digital News Report from the University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre has looked at exactly this topic. And one of the key things it found is that younger audiences are drifting further and further away from broadcast TV - and that’s where we get to the crux of the issue for The Project. 

Which is?
For a long time, Channel 10 had a youth-focused approach to the kinds of shows it made. That’s why The Project was there in the first place, and it was why 10 was kind of first on the scene with huge reality TV franchises like Big Brother and Australian Idol. 

So if young people aren’t watching broadcast TV, it’s not a great idea to have a youth-focused network…
That’s something that the president of Channel 10 Beverly McGarvey spoke about when she broke the news to staff that The Project was over. She said that younger audiences aren’t using free-to-air TV anymore, and it meant that having The Project on air, in her words - didn’t stack up. 

Is news on broadcast TV still working?
If you look at the ratings on a weeknight, you’ll generally see Seven News, 9 News and A Current Affair at the top of the tree - we’ll see if the new 10 News + offering can get into that conversation over time. And so while it’s definitely true that people are moving away from broadcast TV in general - it’s not necessarily from news. But in the case of The Project, it’s more about who that news is for that’s led to the show’s end.

So, where are those younger viewers getting their news now?
It won’t surprise you to hear they’re increasingly relying on social media. And just one more tidbit from that report to end on - it also found that news avoidance, which means just switching off from the news altogether because it’s too emotionally difficult or a bit much, is still a major problem in Australia. 

Is that where you come in?
Sure is… As you know, our mission is to keep you informed but not overwhelmed, so if you know someone who resolutely ignores the news because it's a lot and you can recommend The Squiz to them, we’d really appreciate it.

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Keep your questions coming…

We're interested in more questions from Squizers so we can drill down on what you want to know more about.

We’ll be back with another Ask the Squiz in the first week of August - so if you’ve got a question you’d like answered about the news, send it through to [email protected] and we’ll answer it then. Stay tuned…

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