Late Night Live — Full program podcast

We revisit two memorable LNL conversations from recent times: Simon Winchester's cultural history of the wind, and Australian writer Lech Blaine's astonishing account of his beautiful, terrifying childhood - growing up in Queensland pubs stalked by Christian fanatics.  Guests:  Simon Winchester, journalist and author of The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind Lech Blaine, author...

Confronted with a series of existential threats, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor argue in their new book that wealthy billionaires, including the so-called "tech bros", have become focused not on how we can deal with those threats,  but who will best survive them.  They warn there is an urgent need for far more limits on dangerous technologies than US President Donald Trump's Whitehouse accord. Plus...

The German Peasants' War was the greatest popular uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution. In 1524 and 1525, it swept across Germany with astonishing speed as thousands of people massed in armed bands to demand a new and more egalitarian order. The response from feudal overlords was brutal, but while the rebellion was suppressed, it would continue to influence subsequent revolts, c...

A host of new companies are rushing to apply for seabed exploration licences promised by the Trump administration - but are they equipped for this venture? Plus, trauma has gone from the clinic to the culture wars, but is a politics built around personal suffering crowding out class, power and solidarity? Guests Todd Woody, Reporter, Bloomberg News Catherine Liu, Professor of Film & Media Stud...

Mark Kenny reviews PM Anthony Albanese's week at the United Nations in New York, and asks whether the Australian leader should be more assertive in rebuking the US President, on issues like the regulation of AI. Volkswagon is cutting jobs, considering factory closures, and even turning one car plant towards defence production. Can the company reinvent itself before its glory days become history? A...

Doctors work long hours in hospitals around the world, but visiting doctors in Gaza have to endure just some of what their local peers do: military attack, inadequate resources, inadequate food, and a starving, distressed population.  Plus, the curious history of vanilla - and how, despite its exotic flavouring and difficult cultivation, "vanilla" became a term for bland.  Guests: Dr Bushra Othman...

Australia is a nation built by migrants, but immigration has always been politically contested. A new history traces how we came to decide who belongs, who gets in and who is kept out, right back to the early days of the colony. Plus, historian James Crawford explores what happens when the resources that underpin modern life become harder to find, harder to extract and harder to replace. Guests Ma...

Bruce Shapiro surveys the path ahead to November's critical US midterm elections, as US President Donald Trump's polling sinks to a new low. Plus, the senior Guardian correspondent Luke Harding on how Putin has up-ended the postwar global order, with help from his American counterpart.  Guests Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine and Director of the Global Center for Journal...

Anna Henderson is travelling with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as he launches Australia's bid for a seat at the UN security council, does the United Nations have a future? And why bandicoots are doing your garden a fantastic service.  Guests: Anna Henderson, Chief Political Correspondent, SBS Richard Gowan, Director of Global Issues and Institutions at the International Crisis Group Annabel El...

For millenia, Turkiye’s former capital of Istanbul has been at the centre of world affairs thanks to its geography straddling the Bosphorus, the natural canal that forms the border between Europe and Asia. President Erdogan is keen to see the country reclaim some of its former power and importance, and get rich in the process, as his reign becomes more and more autocratic. Suzy Hansen chronicles t...

The U.S.A.I.D program was established by President John F Kennedy in 1961, at the peak of Cold War tensions, but researcher Luke Fletcher says its roots date back to WWII, and a desire by the US to greatly expand its economic and military power. Plus, a tribute to Mary Gaudron, Australia's first female High Court judge. Guests:  Luke Fletcher, Executive Director, Jubilee Australia Research Centre...

Our regular UK correspondent appraises Ed Miliband's bold stance on West Bank. Meet Dutch-Australian Kim Sajet, former Smithsonian director who Donald Trump tried to fire. And the allure of world globes. Guests: Ian Dunt, columnist with i-news; co-host of the Origin Story podcast Kim Sajet, Director of the Milwaukee Art Museum; former Director of the US National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Nikol...

Anna Henderson on One Nation’s migration policy, the response to Pauline Hanson's 'derogatory' remarks about Aboriginal people on a podcast, and the government’s increasingly aggressive approach to big tech. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on what Benjamin Netanyahu was told before October 7, and why Netanyahu is threatening to sue Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Plus the hidden meanings in w...

As Australia grapples with a surging illicit tobacco trade, the Coalition and One Nation have called for a substantial cut to Australia's excise on legal tobacco. Professor Becky Freeman says the tobacco industry has long backed a tax cut, and continues to wield significant political influence. Plus, how did Washington journalists gain access to information during the Cold War, and why did they ke...

Artificial intelligence presents enormous challenges to the business of journalism in its pursuit of truth and dissemination of credible information. News Director with EBU Liz Corbin says AI developers must respect key principles around transparency and accreditation to ensure their tools don’t damage the integrity of news. Plus, after an extraordinarily hot summer, Europe's iconic rivers have re...

Bruce Shapiro reflects on the life of American feminist icon, Gloria Steinem,  former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's attempts to keep current Mayor Zohran Mamdani from attending the commemoration of 9/11, and multiple legal cases are still at play over President Trump's attempts to centralise electoral rolls. In Adelaide, the SA Premier is pushing ahead with plans to cut down nearly a thousand...

Anna Henderson discusses falling house prices, One Nation's superannuation policy and Nationals' leader Matt Canavan's controversial 'feminisation of the curriculum' statement. Italian political analyst Lorenzo Pregliasco on how prime minister Giorgia Meloni has stayed in power for four years. Plus meet Alexander von Humboldt, the German philosopher who started the ecology movement.  Guests:  Anna...

By now lab-grown meat was supposed to be a tasty, affordable, ethical food option, reducing the harms of industrial livestock farming. But these hi-tech ventures have failed to deliver on the hype. Plus, revelations from archaeological work at the old campsites of Queensland's notorious Native Mounted Police. Guests:  Erin Somers, writer, essayist, critic and novelist. Author of 'Where's the beef'...

Corporations can cause enormous harm, yet the law often struggles to hold them to account. Law professor Penny Crofts argues that horror helps us understand the scale of corporate wrongdoing. Plus how a British art dealer looted Cambodia’s ancient treasures during the Khmer Rouge era, and sold them to the world’s most prestigious museums and collectors. Guests: Penny Crofts, Professor of Law at UT...

There's been a big Tory reshuffle, a bloody one. Our UK politics commentator Ian Dunt analyses what's behind it. And Jeff Sparrow on the radical, socialist, unionist life of Australian poet and writer Lesbia Harford.  Guests:  Ian Dunt, columnist with i-news; co-host of the Origin Story podcast Jeff Sparrow, journalist, writer, editor, author of the biography 'Somewhere Here the Future's Hid - the...

Anna Henderson looks at One Nation's historic win in Western Australia, securing its first lower house seat in the state. In oil-rich Alberta, a growing separatist movement is asking a once unthinkable question: should the province leave Canada and become an independent country? Plus, how GPS (Global Positioning System) now underwrites everything from rideshares to traffic light systems, internati...

Yale Professor Samuel Moyn argues that the old in the United States have hoarded wealth and power, and that something needs to give. Plus, Australian historian Tom Griffiths corroborates the extraordinary encounters of a 1900s white cattle station girl, Alice Duncan-Kemp, who learned from Indigenous Mithaka people in outback Queensland.  Guests: Samuel Moyn, Professor of Law and History at Yale Un...

Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore traces 125 years of war, revolution, upheaval and revival in the Middle East. From the final days of the Ottoman Empire to to the current Iran-US conflict, Simon's new book The Cauldron examines the forces, characters and calamities that have shaped the region. Guest: Simon Sebag Montefiore, writer and historian Producer: Ali Benton

Bruce Shapiro asks if US President Donald Trump has betrayed American cattle farmers, after he eased tariffs on foreign beef. Australia sells weapons to the United Arab Emirates, but could those weapons be ending up in Sudan? Plus, the story of the first camera that made it to colonial Australia in May 1841.  Guests: Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor for The Nation, executive director of the Glob...

One Nation is mopping up after new MP David Farley's 'rookie mistake' on his party's net migration target. Veteran Jerusalem correspondent examines the work of the Israeli ambassador to Australia Hillel Newman, after an IDF report found that no one would be held criminally liable for the death of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and her colleagues in Gaza in 2024. Plus, composer and host of The...