Australian Story - Season 29

After the Matildas' World Cup glory, star midfielder Katrina Gorry introduces us to the tiny secret weapon who rekindled her love for the game.

When the senseless death of teenager Cassius Turvey ignited fury across the nation, his mother Mechelle responded with a call for peace and unity.

Minjee and Min Woo Lee - Sibling golf superstars Minjee and Min Woo Lee are like chalk and cheese, but they share the same goal - to be World No 1.

Australian Story profiles climate change activist Anjali Sharma.

She's Australia's answer to Greta Thunberg.

At 14, Anjali Sharma was a school strike organiser. At 16, she sued the government. Now at 19, she's leading a political campaign from her university dorm.

Together with independent Senator David Pocock, Anjali is seeking laws that compel politicians to consider their duty of care to future generations as the paramount criteria when assessing fossil fuel projects.

While the bill is under review from a Senate committee, Anjali and her team of likeminded young people are lobbying parliamentarians across the political divide.

"None of us have ever participated in parliamentary legislation drafting before, and none of us have ever had to run a grassroots campaign out of our uni dorms. And it's a massive learning curve," Anjali says.

Anjali's motivation lies with her family roots in India, as she's watched her uncles, aunts and cousins endure deadly heatwaves and ravaging floods.

Stepping into the fray of climate politics is bruising for even the most seasoned of lobbyists, but despite being trolled and racially vilified, Anjali remains determined to fight for radical change.

In an Australian Story special, former politician and Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett opens up to Leigh Sales about love, loss and living large.

Australian Story revisits the remarkable life of the late Bon Scott to celebrate the 50th anniversary of him joining AC/DC.

Australian Story checks in on 2024 Australian of the Year Professor Richard Scolyer as he reaches a remarkable milestone in his revolutionary cancer treatment.

How life has changed for inaugural Alone Australia winner Gina Chick. In conversation with Leigh Sales.

Locals know him as a flower farmer but Arnold Dix shot to global fame when he helped rescue 41 Indian workers from a tunnel collapse. It turns out Arnold is also a barrister, scientist, engineer and a very unlikely hero.

Introduced by Australian Story presenter Leigh Sales

Anna Coutts-Trotter is on a mission.

The 23-year-old was in a teenage relationship when she experienced serious physical and emotional abuse.

But it was only after she told her father and mother, Federal Labor Minister Tanya Plibersek, what had happened that the family's fight for justice began.

After surviving an often-brutal court process, Anna has co-founded The Survivor Hub, a peer-led support group where survivors can connect safely and overcome the isolation that so many experience.

Leila McDougall has been defying the odds since childhood. She's overcome dyslexia, beaten cancer, and after sneaking into acting school, has written, produced and starred in a feature film to help her farming community.

Modelling agent Chelsea Bonner has spent her career fighting to change perceptions of beauty but now she has an even bigger battle on her hands - artificial intelligence.

Josh Niland's arguably Australia's hottest chef right now with his revolutionary approach to fish. The genesis of his wild experimentation: a life and death battle in childhood and the fear of failure as a young restauranter.

He can't cook, he's not after money but Shaun Christie-David is building a restaurant empire that's changing lives one dish at a time.

Kylie Kwong has been at the top of the Australian food scene for three decades. Now she reveals her surprising next chapter, as she continues to channel unimaginable grief into a force for good.

As legendary rock band Cold Chisel prepare for their 50th-anniversary tour, Australian Story looks back over the band's colourful history and examines why they have become such an essential part of our cultural history.

"The songs start as hits and then they become anthems," says journalist, writer and fan Trent Dalton. "And then, with time, they become sacred."

Music writer Mark Mordue – a Chisel fan since he was a teenager in Newcastle – says the songs are embedded into the national psyche. "Songs like Flames Trees and Khe Sanh, they're stone-cold classics and they're as much a part of who we are as Henry Lawson's story The Driver's Wife or Banjo Paterson's The Man from Snowy River."

In a special 45-minute episode, all four surviving members – Jimmy Barnes, Ian Moss, Don Walker and Phil Small – recount how the band rose from industry outsiders filling rough suburban pubs to arena-filling rock royalty.

An extraordinary live band, they were a combustible unit and broke up for the first of many times in 1983. "When we split up, I thought within two years it would be ‘Cold who?'," says guitarist Moss. "But it's the songs. It all comes down to the songs."

This episode looks beyond the band's history to explore the enduring impact and appeal of those songs.

"People come up to me in the street and say, I played your songs at my son's 21st. I danced my first dance with my wife to your songs. I buried my son or buried my father to your songs," Jimmy Barnes tells Australian Story.

Vietnam veteran Bob King describes Khe Sanh as the "unofficial national anthem" of Australia, since most people know the lyrics better than they do for the official anthem.

As the band prepare for the upcoming tour, songwriter and keyboard player Don Walker says he is looking forward to performing again.

"There's good mutual history, there's bad mutual history. The bad mutual history tends to fade and get lost in the sepia. Until next time we try and do something…"

When Quaden Bayles was nine, he was bullied and trolled for having dwarfism. But he also caught the eye of Mad Max director George Miller, and now at 13, has emerged triumphant.

Rock legend Nick Cave talks candidly with Leigh Sales about grief, addiction, religion and why he's still making challenging music in his 60s.

A matter of conscience or act of betrayal? Former Labor Senator Fatima Payman reveals the inner torment behind breaking ranks to vote against her party and the fallout that followed, at home and in the capital.

Comedian Michelle Brasier was told she had a 97 per cent chance of getting cancer. She chose to laugh about it.

Singer-songwriter Missy Higgins says she's never felt more vulnerable in her life. One of our most accomplished female artists, Missy retraces her rise to the top and reveals the emotional turmoil of the past couple of years.

The first of three episodes examines the forces that shaped the media heir and the roots of the Murdoch sibling rivalry.

In Part 2, Lachlan Murdoch feels the push and pull of the family business as he proves himself to his father.

In the final chapter, Lachlan Murdoch finally wins the long struggle to take over the family empire. But at what cost?

Australian Story reveals how Love on the Spectrum and Austin's Michael Theo found his voice and became a global star.

When Michael Theo was diagnosed with autism as a boy, his parents were told to set their expectations low for what he could achieve. Initially non-verbal, Michael developed an early fascination with animated film and TV and that helped him learn to talk. He would sit for hours reciting scripts, with a particular love for the villains, and he began to harbour an unlikely dream to become an actor.

His teenage years were difficult. He was marginalised by his peers and developed terribly low self-esteem, referring to himself as a "double scoop of dog crap".

But everything changed in his mid-20s when his search for a girlfriend propelled him onto the TV series Love on the Spectrum. Audiences in Australia and around the world fell in love with the straight-talking romantic. Then a TV director came knocking to see whether Theo could act, and an unlikely dream became a reality.

Two rock climbing accidents dealt Gus Taylor devastating blows. But now he realises climbing is the best teacher he's ever had.

A mysterious email. Shocking revelations. And the ultimate betrayal. How teacher Hannah Grundy was forced to become her own detective to unmask a sick cyber criminal whose identity she couldn't believe.

When Orange is the New Black star Yael Stone turned her back on Hollywood, everyone thought she was crazy - except the man who loved her. Social entrepreneur Jack Manning Bancroft knows what it takes to put skin in the game.

In memory of TV host Fiona MacDonald, who died this month from MND, we revisit her story, filmed as she drove around Australia with her sister to raise awareness of the disease.

In one of the toughest parts of Australia, renegade pastoralist Chris Henggeler is trialling a bold idea to regenerate his land using feral pests. Now, he's found himself on the wrong side of the law.

From vilified 'drug cheat' to Olympic gold, Shayna Jack's extraordinary return to the pool.