Late Night Live — Full program podcast

Late Night Live regulars Bruce Shapiro (USA) and Ian Dunt (UK) reflect on a turbulent, torrid and at times bizarre year in politics on both sides of the Atlantic: from Trump's America to Keir Starmer's Britain. 

Anna Henderson looks at the government's control of defence budgets and the blossoming relationship between Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce. In India the Maoist guerillas have surrendered after a fifty-year insurgency and it's a windfall for the Modi government in more ways than one. Plus Australia's public swimming pools are being neglected as Council budgets tighten and fewer people learn to sw...

Author and journalist Gideon Haigh uncovers the intriguing tale of Australian man William Richard Wallace - the oldest prisoner in recorded history. Wallace was a convicted murderer and spent most of his life in the J Ward facility for the criminally insane in Ararat, Victoria. He died behind bars at 106, in 1989. And the story of the extraordinary Birrundudu drawings - a collection of some 800 cr...

The veteran Canberra journalist Niki Savva dissects the monumental result of the 2025 federal election. Where has it left both the Coalition in opposition, and the Labor party in government? And what does the result says about the political attitudes of modern Australia? Guest: Niki Savva, author of Earthquake: the election that shook Australia, published by Scribe

Nauru briefly had one of the highest per-capita incomes on earth, thanks to phosphate mining - so where did all the money go? Transgender troops kicked out of the US army by Donald Trump take their fight to court. Plus, how ancient cultures made - and talked about - prosthetic limbs.  

Pauline Hanson's burka stunt stymies the Senate while the Labor government is deep in negotiations with the Greens and the Coalition to get changes to environment laws through before the end of the year. Plus how Benjamin Netanyahu has survived politically in what Aluf Benn, editor in chief of Haaretz, argues is “perhaps the greatest break with the status quo of Israeli history.”

The acclaimed writer Simon Winchester turns his eye to the wind - the invisible force with the power to sustain, relieve, inspire, irritate and destroy us. From antiquity to today, we fear and revere the 'breath of the gods'.  Plus, the bold Australian publication Quarterly Essay reaches its 100th edition. 

Bruce Shapiro looks at why Donald Trump has finally agreed to release the Epstein files. After being devastated by yet another hurricane, Jamaica is seeking reparations for both climate havoc and the impact of slavery. And how foxes colonised Australia.

Author Helen Garner sat through the trial of Erin Patterson, who was convicted of murdering members of her family with deadly mushrooms. She reflects on coming face to face with a murderer, her love of the courts, her faith and what happens when people have to face the consequences of their actions.  Guest: Helen Garner, co-author of The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations about a Triple Murder Trial, w...

After the Liberal Party joined the Nationals in ditching net zero, what is the fate of remaining Liberal Party moderates in city seats? A new documentary reveals the brutality of Myanmar's civil war, as an election looms. Plus, with evermore man-made materials in orbit, how is traffic managed in space?  

As Russia and the US both threaten resume nuclear testing and China has tripled its stock of nuclear arms, former foreign minister Gareth Evans says Australia should lead a new arms control push. Plus economist Joseph Stiglitz is warning we are facing an “inequality emergency.”

The writing of Australian history has tended to focus on the south-eastern corner of the continent, but the story of colonisation north of the Tropic of Capricorn paints a vastly different picture of this country, its people, politics and ambitions.  Guest: Henry Reynolds, historian and author of Looking from the North: Australian History from the Top Down

What caused the latest drama at the BBC, and what does it say about the state of British media? Ian Dunt explains. As Brazil tries to present its best side to the world during COP30, unrest is stirring in Rio de Janeiro. Rio's governor is undertaking a violent crackdown on gangs in the city's favelas, with a death toll in the hundreds. Then, on a happier note, Australia owns the oldest surviving c...

The Liberal Party looks likely to drop their net zero policy this week, but what will that do for their base? At the heart of the genocide in Sudan is a fight for control of the country's gold mines, which is making the leader of the rebel forces very rich. Plus the mystery of the missing footage of the Whitlam government dismissal in 1975. 

50 years since the Governor-General sacked sitting Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, do modern Liberal MPs still back the Dismissal? Plus, Peter Fitzsimons pays tribute to the heroic war surgeon, Ernest 'Weary' Dunlop. 

New Yorkers have shaken the United States's political establishment and delivered 34-year-old socialist Zohran Mamdani a thumping victory in the city's contentious mayoral election. Bruce Shapiro breaks down the early results. And US President Donald Trump said he wouldn't touch the East Wing of the White House. It's now been flattened, and there are plans for a new ballroom to be built. Plus Andr...

U Thant went from being a Buddhist teacher to playing a pivotal role in resolving some of the most dangerous international crises of his time as UN Secretary-General, so why has his legacy been over-looked?  Plus what Australia's first photographs can tell us about early colonial life - and what they left out. 

Anna Henderson looks at the political implications for both the Nationals and the Liberals of the Nats' decision to abandon its net zero policy. Can banning kids from social media really work, and will the big tech companies comply anyway? Plus the strange story of the CIA Kryptos code and why the answer is being auctioned off. 

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese says that rather than ensuring Israel respects the basic human rights and self-determination of the Palestinian people, Western states - including Australia - have provided Israel with military, diplomatic, economic and ideological support. And investigative journalist Quentin Beresford examines the deep connections between the Labor party and the gambling...

A new book looks at author Patrick White's startling use of language, his mythic depiction of the Australian landscape and the people who inhabit it, and the power his prose still holds today. Plus philosopher Lucy Allais reflects on the nature of forgiveness.

What does Ian Dunt think of the King's attempt to eject Prince Andrew from his royal lodgings? Then, in America, Chicagoans have been organising against ICE agents who are attempting to implement Trump's aggressive deportation agenda. Here at home, anthropology has turned 100 years old. Can the academic discipline escape from its colonial roots?

Anna Henderson looks at what changes the government is trying to make to environment protection laws and why the Coalition wants to split the bill. How an Indonesia-based surveillance company tracked journalists, activists and dissidents all over the world, and the scientists using artificial intelligence to understand whale language. 

Today, we look backwards. Gough Whitlam's dismissal didn't come out of nowhere; 1974 and 1975 were years of intense political turmoil and scandal. Paul Kelly was there, in his late-20s, as The Australian newspaper's chief political correspondent, and has become one of the chief chroniclers of the dynamics that led to The Dismissal.  Political ghosts haunt Russia, as well. But there's a very specif...

The famous Benin bronzes, looted by the British in 1897, are gradually being returned home to Nigeria. But they won't be on display at Benin City's new Museum of West African Art when it opens next month. Plus, classicist Professor Marguerite Johnson on understandings and expressions of love in antiquity.

Bruce Shapiro looks at Anthony Albanese's first meeting with US President Donald Trump and whether the critical minerals deal will see Australia become America's quarry. The little Dutch-speaking country of Suriname in South America has been ruled by a despot for years. But now it has elected its first female president who is promising to turn its fortunes around, and save its rainforests at the s...