Late Night Live — Full program podcast

While we've all been distracted with what's happening on Earth, an Australian lawyer has been helping the United Nations to draft the rules of resources in space. We speak with Emeritus Professor Steven Freeland about who really owns that comet. Then: to the last two Australians who were ever declared outlaws. On the eve of Federation, 1900, the Governor brothers murdered nine people and set of a...

The Director of Pompeii Archaeological Park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, shares some of the latest discoveries from the buried Roman city, as new areas are excavated for the first time. Plus, the Australian adventures of Hollywood writer Zane Grey, who hunted sharks and other game fish in 1930s Australia. 

John Menadue has been at the heart of Australian public life for over fifty years, working for the Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke governments. He oversaw the effective end to Australia's White Australia Policy, was CEO of Qantas and set up the Centre for Policy Development. In the media he ran The Australian for Rupert Murdoch, launched the online weekly New Matilda and founded the influential public p...

In 1998, the former Chilean head of state Augusto Pinochet was arrested on charges of crimes against humanity and genocide. Philippe Sands was called to advise Pinochet on his claim to immunity, but would instead represent a human rights organisation against him. Guest: Philippe Sands, author of 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia Originally broadcast on 17...

Environmental lawyers around the world have successfully made the case that rivers have rights, a movement that renowned science writer Dr. Robert Macfarlane tracks in his new book, 'Is a River Alive?'. Macfarlane takes us to some of the world's most beautiful rivers, and asks: what is it about running water that we find so compelling? And speaking of compelling, David Baron tells the story of how...

Acclaimed US journalists and podcast collaborators with The Atlantic Hanna Rosin and Lauren Ober join David Marr in-studio to discuss the MAGA women who love Trump, the state of the media in post-insurrection America, and the importance of complex human storytelling in journalism.  Guests: Hanna Rosin and Lauren Ober, co-hosts of the podcast We Live Here Now . Hanna is also Senior Editor at the At...

Drawing on her expertise in mental health and trauma studies, Palestinian psychiatrist, Doctor Samah Jabr, explores how the trauma of displacement and conflict continues to shape Palestinian lives. And why wool became one of the most important commodities for militaries across the globe. *This episode originally aired on 21 August 2025

What can we learn from Indigenous perspectives on Australian history? Two historians, one Indigenous and one not, explore new and very, very old ways of seeing the past in 'Deep History: Country and Sovereignty'. Then: shade. On a warming planet, shade takes on a new significance. It is an unevenly distributed resource, and, Sam Bloch argues, too often overlooked in urban design. On this special s...

If you left a feather at an American crime scene during the 20th century, chances are that Roxie Laybourne would be called. Laybourne was "The Feather Detective", a Smithsonian forensic ornithologist who solved crimes using her extensive knowledge of birds. Then: the makers of a documentary on the life of Emily Kam Kngwarray, the Indigenous-Australian painter who first picked up a brush in her sev...

Should prison architecture be used for punishment, or could it be used to create hope, instead? 'Jaywalking' is being decriminalised in some US states as campaigners say the law has been disproportionately enforced on black and Latino residents. Plus how did we end up with the QWERTY keyboard, when it wasn't designed to be fast or logical?

Sir Gerard Brennan served as the 10th Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest judicial position in the country. He was involved in several landmark cases, including the famous Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) decision. This case overturned the concept of "terra nullius" (land belonging to no one) and recognised the native title rights of Indigenous Australians for the first time u...

After 30 years of appearances on Late Night Live Laura Tingle shared her memories of Australian politics and her favourite LNL appearances before she began her role as ABC Global Affairs Editor. Plus why Aussies are in love with outdoor cinema. 

Is over-tourism coming for Antarctica? As more and more people travel south for awe and adventure, our guest has some proposals to keep Antarctica pristine. Plus: Dame Harriet Walter, internationally famous for her TV roles, has long been a celebrated Shakespeare actor on the stage. Walter has inhabited the minds of Shakespeare's women for more than half a century, and her new book imagines what e...

Linguistics Professor Emily Bender, warns that the big tech companies who promote AI, with an almost spiritual zeal, may be off the mark. Plus the bizarre story of the Roosevelt family members who sought to prove the existence of giant pandas to the West. 

20 years on from her famous novel The Secret River, writer Kate Grenville retraces the footsteps of her settler ancestors, and asks what it means to be on land taken from other people. Guest: Kate Grenville, author of Unsettled, published by Black Inc

Leni Riefenstahl has been hailed as one of the greatest directors of all time, even though her most famous films were works of propaganda for Hitler's Reich. Her film about the 1934 Nuremberg rallies broke new ground in cinematic techniques and had a huge influence on filmmakers for years to come. Riefenstahl always claimed she was just an artist, unaware of Nazi atrocities, but a new documentary...

Australian literature was never the same after McPhee Gribble Publishing, the revolutionary women-owned publishing house. The venture was started in 1975 by Diana Gribble, a socialite working in advertising, and Hilary McPhee, a novice editor. Soon authors like Tim Winton, Dorothy Hewett and Helen Garner were knocking at their door. Then: beach shacks, the humble shelters for fishermen and the des...

Despite the promise that we were “all in it together”, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a flight from sociability. While that escape may have been a relief for some, has it intensified a culture of excessive individualism, narcissism, and disconnection from one another? Julia Baird, Geraldine Brooks and Rachel Kushner join David Marr in front of a live audience at Adelaide Writers' Week.

Alan Rusbridger, the former editor in chief of The Guardian UK on Trump's push to silence dissenting voices in the media; and writer Robert Dessaix has a new memoir, Chameleon, in which he reflects on his many identities and his changing understandings of life.  Originally broadcast on March 6, 2025

One of US President Donald Trump's first executive orders was to declare there are only two genders and to ban transgender women from participating in female sports. Trans poet and comedian Alok Vaid-Menon says people need to not only have compassion for transgender people, but for the people who are trying to deny their existence. And they're getting their message out through humour. Alok's show...

A new history of the union movement in Australia looks at those often left out of the picture: migrants, women, Indigenous Australians and LGBTQIA+ people. Plus, Cambridge scholar Luke Kemp and his historical autopsy of why societies collapse.

Journalist Omar El Akkad examines what he sees as the moral contradictions of the West in the face of the Gaza war. And historian Margaret Peacock traces the history of radio propaganda in the Middle East from 1940-1960. 

Political reporter Tom McIlroy tells the story of Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles - the vast paint-splattered canvas, controversially acquired by the Whitlam government for Australia's new National Gallery in 1975. Plus, historian Sarah Gold McBride on 19th Century America's fixation on head and facial hair - believed to connote class and character.

David Marr is joined by Laura Tingle, Hannah Ferguson and Craig Reucassel to review the monumental year of 2025 - including its weirdest moments - and ask where Australia finds itself as another year looms.  Guests: Laura Tingle, Global Affairs Editor, ABC (formerly Political Editor, 7.30) Hannah Ferguson, founder of Cheek Media, co host of Big Small Talk Craig Reucassel, presenter of ABC Radio Sy...

Renowned human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson KC says the killing of two people who survived a US strike on a speed boat off the coast of Venezuela in September is a war crime. Plus, how Indigenous knowledge was used to develop a seasickness pill for the Allied D-Day invasion.