7NEWS Spotlight - Season 7 / Year 2026

Liz Hayes fronts her first story for 7News Spotlight for 2026 this Sunday, "Bad Treatment: Changing Women's Healthcare".

Liz said: "This story was a bit of a reckoning for me. I was aghast to learn that for decades much of women's health has been based on the research of men. I was shocked by what that has meant and how far women have fallen behind.

"But I am buoyed by the amazing efforts to remedy that – some of it life changing. And suffice to say I'm hoping it's not too late for me to make some critical changes."

For about 14 million Australian women and girls, health advice has often been built on incomplete, and at times flawed and even harmful research and information, based on results taken only from men. The consequences have been significant, with experts warning women have been suffering and even dying unnecessarily for decades.

Now, in a deeply personal major investigation – coinciding with a significant milestone of her own – Liz puts herself through a series of confronting medical tests to understand what it all means, and what women can do about it.

From uncomfortable truths to cutting-edge breakthroughs, 7NEWS Spotlight examines how women's bodies have been misunderstood for centuries, and why change is finally underway.

Along the way, Liz meets the doctors, researchers and health experts working to close the gap, exploring new approaches that could help women live better, healthier and longer lives.

Michael Usher is on the frontline of the booming illegal tobacco trade – an underground economy now worth an estimated $6 billion, fuelled by tonnes of illicit cigarettes and leaf tobacco entering Australia's ports every day.

"The size and scale of this criminal crisis is staggering. Illegal tobacco has become an uncontainable, multi-billion-dollar crime enterprise," he said.

"The imports of cheap smokes and loose-leaf tobacco have now hit record levels this year. Worse than last year. Law enforcement agencies are deeply frustrated.

"We've spent months with them on raids and on our borders. But the government is taking a very slow and bureaucratic approach to a problem it largely created, with poor policy creating a black market. We handed this to the criminals. Something must disrupt this ruthless trade and fast."

7NEWS Spotlight is embedded with police as they target powerful crime syndicates, revealing the scale of a crisis the nation's top law enforcement bosses say they are beyond arresting their way out of.

The numbers are staggering. Billions of illegal cigarettes, hundreds of tonnes of smuggled tobacco, an estimated $18 billion in lost government revenue – not because Australians have stopped smoking, but because the market has shifted underground into criminal hands.

As violence intensifies on suburban streets, 7NEWS Spotlight examines how well-intentioned government policies around the smoking tax and vaping have helped create the perfect conditions for organised crime to thrive, and why authorities say urgent change is needed.

From border seizures to raids on tobacconists now dotting our streets, this is a confronting look at how Australia has lost control of its nicotine market and how we might look to examples overseas to stop it becoming worse.

7News Spotlight this Sunday speaks to Josie Murray, the grandmother of missing 4yo Gus Lamont.

Adelaide crime reporter Hannah Foord and Michael Usher investigate a vanishing in the South Australian outback.

Usher said: "This is the interview that could provide answers to the many questions being asked about the disappearance of little Gus. Even the South Australia police still want answers.

"Gus's grandmother has never spoken before, but in an extraordinary set of circumstances has now given her first interview."

A four-year-old boy vanishes without a trace in the vast South Australian outback, triggering one of the most intensive missing persons investigations the country has ever seen.

Nine months on, the disappearance of curly-haired Gus Lamont remains a haunting mystery, with more questions than answers and a growing sense of urgency about what really happened.

Now, in a major exclusive to air this Sunday at 8.40pm on Seven and 7plus, 7NEWS Spotlight goes inside the case that has gripped the nation, featuring an in-depth interview with Gus's grandmother, Josie Murray – a central figure in the investigation who has never spoken publicly

Interviewed by police but never arrested, Josie reveals the toll of being identified as a key suspect and the moment that still troubles her about the day Gus disappeared.

7NEWS Adelaide crime reporter Hannah Foord, who has tracked the case from day one, joins 7NEWS Spotlight's Michael Usher for this unmissable investigation, as they piece together one of Australia's most perplexing missing persons cases. The pair examine critical clues, including tracks and signs investigators say point to something more, and whether vital evidence was missed in the early stages of the search.

On 7News Spotlight Ashlee Mullany reports on difficulties in conception, sperm donation, desperate measures and legalities.

Making a family doesn't come easily for everyone, and for some Australians it's becoming almost impossible.

As the nation's donor shortages increase and regulations tighten, hopeful parents are being forced into expensive, complex, and in some cases risky alternatives, in their attempts to conceive.

In this week's 7NEWS Spotlight to air on Sunday at 8.30pm on Seven and 7plus, correspondent Ashlee Mullany investigates the growing fallout from Australia's strict sperm donation laws, and the unintended consequences now driving a booming underground market.

With demand far outstripping supply, desperate Australians are turning to private donors operating outside the system – a shadowy underground market with no limits, no oversight and no guarantees.

7NEWS Spotlight reveals the confronting reality of this booming trade, where some black market donors claim to have fathered hundreds of children, raising serious ethical and safety concerns, especially for the children born as a result.

As calls for reform grow louder, this is a powerful look at the cost of the system as it stands, and the deeply personal toll on those who are desperately trying to start a family.