Late Night Live — Full program podcast

Anna Henderson on the attack on Independent MP for Indi, Helen Haines. Plus tensions between the PM and Treasurer Jim Chalmers over credit card payments, and why the Nationals won't support the EU trade agreement. Also on the show, India's youth movement, the Cockroach Janta Party, is testing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's grip on power. Plus hordes of yabbies are trashing rivers in souther...

A new documentary looks back at the career of fiercely independent journalist and host of Democracy Now ! Amy Goodman and why she thinks independent media and dissent are what will save us from despots. Plus another documentary looks back at the fight against the Hindmarsh Island bridge in South Australia, the place where Ngarrindjeri women conducted sacred women's business and refused to back dow...

Australia's unique alpine eucalypt is starting to die out. The High Country may never be the same again, a new book argues. And longstanding New Yorker magazine writer Susan Orlean, author of 'The Orchid Thief' and 'The Library Book', on her fascination with the stories of people who are not famous or powerful. Guests:  Ant Sharwood and Anna Langford, co-authors of 'The last snow gum' (Hachette) S...

Ian Dunt on UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham's push for a reset in Britain’s relationship with the EU. Could this be the beginning of the end for Brexit? Yanis Varoufakis' take on Greece's recent multi-billion dollar defence deals with the US and Israel. Plus mathematics professor Clemency Montelle takes us through the history and the importance of zero.  Guests: Ian Dunt, iNews columnist and regula...

When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was elected he promised to address a gap in federal anti-discrimination law which allowed faith-based schools to sack gay kids and teachers, but he has thus far failed to do so. Now Independent MP for Wentworth, Allegra Spender, has introduced a bill to end the right of religious schools and universities to punish gay and trans pupils and staff. Plus, as AI res...

Two writers investigate two mysteries from 19th Century Australia.  Kate Grenville uncovers a bundle of letters in the archives about the NSW country school teacher Joseph Connor, accused of beating his students. Was he a monster or the victim of a small-town vendetta? And Sally Young solves Australia's strangest political crime: the theft of the ceremonial mace from Victoria's state parliament in...

The Lord of the Rings made J.R.R. Tolkien one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. But who was the obsessive, conservative and often difficult man behind Middle-earth? And Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, has a new and equally remarkable true story to tell. In 1942 in Nazi-occupied Paris, the Nazis arrest a Jewish family, but their 11-year-old daughter escapes...

Our regular US political commentator on the Cornell University sexual assault case, the failed execution of Christa Pike, and the dire outlook for the Republicans, four weeks before the midterms. Valerie Trouet, a paleo-climate scientist, compares tree rings from living trees with historical and archaeological wood to reconstruct climate patterns going back thousands of years. It enables her to lo...

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...