Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast
Episodes
A new treaty for the High Seas
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Ocean advocates call it 'the most exciting thing that's happened this century'. The lawless High Seas have a new international Treaty - the UN's High...
What can and can't the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion decide?
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion gets underway, legal writer Richard Ackland discusses what the Commission can and can't c...
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark: The UN has a woman problem
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A new report from the group GWL voices (Global.Women.Leaders) has highlighted the scarcity of women at the top of international organisations, across...
Anna Henderson's Canberra: ISIS women and Australian values
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As the debate continues over what to do about the Australian ISIS women and children in Syria, Anna Henderson discusses the current political obsessi...
The end of the gay rights revolution?
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The LGBTQI rights movement in the West has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams, but gay author Ronan McRea argues this success seems suddenly fragi...
The end of the gay rights revolution?
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The LGBTQI rights movement in the West has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams, but gay author Ronan McRea argues this success seems suddenly fragi...
Immigrant labour from the Pacific: are we getting it right?
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
With political rhetoric around immigration firing up again, we look at the great potential, but very real problems, of a temporary migration policy, ...
Deflect, distract, deny: how politicians avoid direct answers
18 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The best political communicators don’t just speak, they position. They don’t just answer, they frame. They don’t just promise, they hedge. A...
The return of Germany as a military power
18 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a Zeitenwende, a “watershed moment”, in the words of Germany’s chancellor at the time. Germany shook itself ...
Ian Dunt's UK: is Keir Starmer's leadership is risk?
18 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's has spruiked Britain's necessity to be closer to Europe, both in defence and economic terms, at the Munich Security ...
How green are green burials?
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Knowing that your body is contributing to the growth of a tree or the richness of soil is increasingly attractive. But the healthier climate claims m...
Washington tightens grip as Cuba faces mounting crisis
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Whether former President Donald Trump will strike a deal with Cuba remains an open question, as pressure on Havana intensifies. Trump has signalled t...
Democracy for sale: gambling’s grip on politics
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
While Australians lose over $31 billion to gambling each year, industry donations to major political parties continue. Over the past decade, million...
The music of the stars, with the "founding mother" of asteroseismology
16 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Conny Aerts had a hunch, that stars had internal rotation and measuring those rotations could give us rich information about the universe. She was ri...
Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong's voice of freedom, will die in prison
16 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai will die in prison, after being sentenced to 20 years. Lai is one of the island's most prominent pro-democracy advo...
Anna Henderson's Canberra: what to expect from the new Coalition leadership
16 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The new Opposition leader Angus Taylor and deputy leader Jane Hume are hinting their crisis plan will involve lowering taxes and immigration, possibl...
Anna Henderson's Canberra: what to expect from the new Liberal leadership
16 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The new Opposition leader Angus Taylor and deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume are flagging their crisis plan will involve lowering taxes and immigration...
Steven Pinker on common knowledge... and common delusion
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Steven Pinker asks us to look at how group knowledge works. Pinker argues that what drives society is knowing that what we know is w...
The memes are the politics: Charlie Warzel on Trump's Extremely Online administration
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The White House is publishing AI slop images; ICE conducts raids and turns the video into film-style trailers; right-wing influencers are sitting in ...
Gaza is a nightmare, but once it was a dream
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Gaza is today in ruins, with over seventy thousand dead and buildings everywhere rendered rubble by the onslaught from Israel since the Hamas attack ...
An old book, a hidden drawing: how Sydney held the answer to an Italian Renaissance mystery
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When librarians from the University of Sydney found a sketch and an inscription in the back of a 1497 copy of Dante's Divine Comedy, they called in R...
How journalists are tackling three million Epstein files - and what they're finding
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Epstein files are so immense that if printed out they would equal two Eiffel towers of paper. So how, exactly, are journalists making sense of th...
"A moment of reckoning" - NSW police response to Sydney Herzog protest under spotlight
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The actions of NSW police are being questioned after videos emerge showing violent scenes at the Sydney protest against Israel's President, Isaac Her...
Toads most feral: what can Australia do?
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Cane toads (Rhinella marina) are an invasive species introduced to Australia in 1935 to control agricultural pests. The species spread rapidly and no...
Indonesia and Australia sign a security pact: what are we worried about?
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We're now even closer with Indonesia. On 6 February Anthony Albanese signed a security pact with Indonesia's president, Prabowo Subianto, agreeing to...
Bernard Keane's Canberra: A Coalition reunification, even as the Liberals contemplate "non-existence"
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Parliament returns for the second half of the sitting fortnight, with the Liberal Party and The Nationals reunited, again. But all is not calm. Liber...
Winnie-the-Pooh: how the gentle bear left a complicated legacy
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Winnie-the-Pooh, the Bear of Very Little Brain, has been entertaining children for a century this year, but for Pooh's creator, A. A. Milne, the char...
Tucker Carlson, the influential broadcaster admired by President Trump
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The US commentator Tucker Carlson began his working life as a respected and brilliant writer on a small conservative magazine. He moved to television...
White fur, black market: the illegal trade in polar bear skins
04 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Australian filmmaker Abraham Joffe pulls back the curtain on a reality most people don’t realise: Polar Bears are still legally hunted and sold aro...
Why is everyone rushing to do trade deals with India?
04 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
After twenty years of negotiations, the European Union has suddenly managed to cut a trade deal with India. Not to be out-done, US President Donald T...
Ian Dunt's UK: Anger over Mandelson's Epstein links and a new candidate for Reform
04 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Former UK Labour powerbroker Peter Mandelson is retiring from the House of Lords amid intense scrutiny over his links to convicted sex offender Jeffr...
Peter Drew, the 'AUSSIE' poster artist who wants to engage with young right wing men
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Drew's 'Aussie' posters, seen around our cities, have now been copied in Melbourne by someone using a picture of the younger of the two Bondi s...
Iran expert says war is likely with the US if Trump gets bored with negotiations
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Iran’s president has signalled a potential diplomatic shift, saying he has directed diplomats to seek negotiations with the United States as fears ...
Bruce Shapiro's America - are the Epstein files another distraction?
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The US Dept. of Justice published over three million additional pages from the Epstein files containing over a thousand references to Donald Trump, a...
Australia's secret indigenous circus royalty
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When the Colleano circus family came to town, it was a big deal. Their acrobatic skills took them from Lightning Ridge, to New York and London in the...
The Rafah crossing reopens, and Isaac Herzog visits Australia
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Israel reopens the Gaza-Egypt crossing at Rafah, under strict conditions. Plus: on February 8 the Israeli president Isaac Herzog will be arriving in ...
Anna Henderson's Canberra: Littleproud hangs on, One Nation surges, and Parliament returns
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What is going on with the conservative side of politics? A motion to spill the leadership of the Nationals failed on Monday afternoon, and by the end...
Barry Jones on a life of public service and the state of politics today
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"Our politics is dumb and completely short-sighted and personally obsessed." At 93 Barry Jones, former ALP National President, writer and public inte...
America's first central banker was a reluctant revolutionary
28 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Willing was a merchant trader, America’s first bank president, and its first central banker. Willing bankrolled – and in the process helpe...
The Nationals' impact on the Coalition
28 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
With the National Party leaving the Coalition, and a Nats leadership spill pending, we look at the disproportionate power the Nats have wielded in th...
Springtails - the tiniest critters you've never heard of
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Springtails are pretty much everywhere, and all over the world. They are important nutrient recyclers, but not many people know about them.Guest: Mar...
Mark Carney was the hero of Davos, but what is he positioning Canada for?
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney stepped onto the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos , no-one expected him to set the world on fire...
Bruce Shapiro: is the killing of Alex Pretti in Minnesota a tipping point?
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On January 24, nurse Alex Pretti was protesting the presence of immigration officers in Minnesota when he was detained and surrounded by Border Patro...
We've had 237 Straya Days: what do they say about us?
26 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you looked at Australian history through the lens of a single day — January 26 — what kind of nation would you be looking at? In his new book ...
The expansion of Indigenous Protected Areas
26 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Last year saw the biggest expansion yet of Indigenous Protected Areas. Advocates say IPAs are the ideal approach for managing ecologically important ...
Multicultural Australia under strain
26 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On this Australia Day, we look at the political weaponising of multicultural Australia, and immigration, and we ask how this is playing out in voters...
How Oscar Wilde was reclaimed by his grandson
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
It’s 125 years since the death of Oscar Wilde. The famous playwright and author died alone in a French hotel in 1900. Since that time, so much has ...
Stephen Miller: the architect of Trump’s immigration agenda
21 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen Miller, often described as the architect of Donald Trump’s immigration policy, has been a defining force behind some of the administration’...
Ian Dunt on pulling out of Adelaide Writer's Week and the challenge of tackling Trump's increasing threats
21 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Dunt talks about his decision to withdraw from Adelaide Writer's Week and examines the fraying trans-Atlantic relationship between the US and UK,...
Where does King Charles get his money?
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
King Charles is worth more than $3 billion — although it's hard to put an exact figure on his fortune, because royal records aren't published and p...
Bruce Shapiro's America: what's next after Trump's year of chaos?
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
One year since US President Donald Trump's inauguration and the global order has been completely shifted, while the United States is now a country wh...
Do the hate speech laws go too far?
19 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As the Albanese government drops key provisions from its hate speech legislation, Late Night Live takes a deep dive into what's left of the laws, and...
Bernard Keane's Canberra: can Albanese get hate speech laws through parliament?
19 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Crikey's political editor traces the path to the hate speech legislation being debated in Parliament this week, and looks at why One Nation is outpol...
LNL Summer: Tim Minchin on music, fatherhoood, the Internet... and nipples
15 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Minchin turned fifty this year and just ran a marathon for the first time. He's returned home to Australia, with his new album Time Machine, and ...
LNL Summer: The murderous rampage of Joe and Jimmy Governor in 1900 New South Wales
14 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the winter of 1900, Wiradjuri man Jimmy Governor and his brother Joe murdered nine people across New South Wales, in a rampage that caused panic i...
LNL Summer: Cooperating over space resources
14 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Some of the same countries that are in conflict right now are sitting in United Nations meetings together to discuss the future of outer space. St...
LNL Summer: Zane Grey's shark-hunting adventures in 1930s Australia
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Zane Grey was an American western writer, celebrity and big game-fisherman. In so many ways, his life was larger than most. But it was in Australia...
LNL Summer: Why Pompeii keeps revealing new secrets
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The largest excavation in a lifetime is underway at the famous archaeological site of Pompeii — the Roman city buried in ash when Mount Vesuvius er...
LNL Summer: John Menadue critiques Australia's media and our relationship with the United States
12 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
LNL Summer: Philippe Sands on war crimes and impunity - from Pinochet to now
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In 1998, the former Chilean head of state Augusto Pinochet was arrested on charges of crimes against humanity and genocide. Philippe Sands was called...
LNL Summer: A rich man obsessed with Mars? Welcome to the 1890s
07 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
At the turn of the 20th century, one American became obsessed with the idea of life on Mars. He carried his obsessions into a public movement that ma...
LNL Summer: Is a river alive?
07 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the last decade, courts around the globe have granted legal personhood or explicit rights to rivers, largely driven by environmental activism. In ...
LNL Summer: Fleeced: a story of wool and warfare
05 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
For millennia, wool has been more than just a textile fibre for cold climates—it has played a strategic role in warfare, both supporting armies wit...
LNL Summer: Palestinian psychiatrist Dr Samah Jabr on dealing with trauma in Gaza
05 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Samah Jabr is a world-renowned psychiatrist who has spent over twenty years practising in the West Bank and Gaza. In a powerful interview, she des...
LNL Summer: Have we forgotten the value of shade?
01 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On a warming planet, heatwaves are proving increasingly deadly. But in the cities where most of us live shade can be hard to come by. In ancient time...
LNL Summer: Deep history, an Indigenous way of seeing the past
01 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This nation’s past can be understood a whole lot better if Indigenous perspectives on history are listened to. It means considering rock art and ot...
LNL Summer: From Utopia to the Tate - the art of Emily Kam Kngwarray
31 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Kam Kngwarray, from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory, picked up a paintbrush in her 70s for the first time, and now her work will...
LNL Summer: The woman who solved crimes with birds
31 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Author Chris Sweeney tells the remarkable story of Roxie Laybourne, the Smithsonian ornithologist who became the nation's leading expert in feather f...
LNL Summer: Why do we use the QWERTY keyboard?
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The QWERTY keyboard wasn't designed to be fast or logical. It was created in the 1870s to stop typewriter keys from jamming - and to suit telegraph o...
LNL Summer: Is it time to decriminalise jaywalking?
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, a number of states and cities in the US have decriminalised 'jaywalking', relaxing laws that campaigners argue have been disproporti...
LNL Summer: How prison architecture can change lives
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Should prison architecture be used for punishment, or could it be used to create hope, instead. Criminologist Yvonne Jewkes has helped design prisons...
LNL Summer: Abolishing terra nullius - the legacy of Chief Justice Gerard Brennan
29 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
LNL Summer:Australia's love of cinema, indoors and outdoors
25 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Australia has a surprisingly long history of cinema enjoyment. It takes many forms, and pops up in a wide range of settings. Guest: Ruari Elkington,...
LNL Summer: Farewell Laura Tingle
25 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After 30 years of appearances on Late Night Live - spanning nine Australian Prime Ministers - Laura Tingle bade farewell to LNL as its political corr...
LNL Summer: Harriet Walter on what Shakespeare's women might have said
24 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Actor Dame Harriet Walter — known for her recent roles in TV hits like Succession and Killing Eve — has been performing Shakespeare on-stage for ...
Is it ethical to holiday in Antarctica?
24 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
One hundred and twenty five thousand people visited Antarctica last year. Can the region cope with an ever growing tourism industry?Guest: Anne Hardy...
LNL Summer: AI. Don't believe the hype
23 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI, we’re told, has the potential to free us from mundane tasks, revolutionise industries, and solve global problems. Linguistics Professor Emily B...
LNL Summer: The Roosevelts deadly hunt for a giant panda
23 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During the 1920s, dozens of expeditions scoured the Chinese and Tibetan wilderness in search of the panda bear, a beast that many believed did not ex...
LNL Summer: Kate Grenville confronts her settler ancestry
22 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
LNL Summer: Was Hitler's filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl complicit in Nazi atrocities?
18 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
LNL Summer: A no-frills history of the Australian beach shack
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Along the coast of Australia are hundreds of humble shacks, often with interesting stories to tell. Basic shelters for no-frills fishing, or homes fo...
LNL Summer: The feminist publishing house that launched Australia's best writers
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the early seventies two Melbourne feminists hatched an idea to set up their own publishing house. Diana Gribble was a socialite working in adverti...
LNL Summer: Geraldine Brooks, Rachel Kushner and Julia Baird at Adelaide Writers Week 2025
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
LNL Summer: Robert Dessaix's life reflections
15 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Robert Dessaix, now based in Hobart, was named Thomas Robert Jones by his adoptive parents. His name change to Dessaix, to reflect his French ...
LNL Summer: Alan Rusbridger on Trump's threats to journalism
15 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Veteran British journalist and editor Alan Rusbridger discusses Donald Trump’s attacks on the US press, Jeff Bezos’s editorial about-face at the ...
LNL Summer: Societies collapse. Will ours?
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We're living in unusual times, with political history being made every week and the seemingly imminent collapse of a certain global super power on th...
LNL Summer: The Australian workers the union movement left behind
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A new history of the union movement in Australia says marginalised groups like migrants, women, Indigenous Australians and LGBTQIA+ people were often...
LNL Summer: Radio propaganda wars in the Middle East
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Before the 1967 war, radio ruled the Middle East—TV was a rare luxury. For the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Israel, the airwaves...
LNL Summer: Omar El Akkad reckons with the West
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
'One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone wi...
LNL Summer: how 19th Century Americans thought about hair
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The thickness, colour and texture of facial and head hair showed character traits about men and women, it was believed in 19th century America. The a...
LNL Summer: Blue Poles, when a painting shocked Australia
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1973, the Australian government acquired the painting Blue Poles by Jackson Pollock for $1.3 million AUD. It created huge division in Australia, a...
Laura Tingle, Hannah Ferguson and Craig Reucassel farewell 2025
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Marr is joined by Laura Tingle, Hannah Ferguson and Craig Reucassel to review the monumental year of 2025 - including its weirdest moments - an...
Bush medicine: how Indigenous practice has survived millenia
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A new exhibition at the University of Melbourne's Medical History Museum, Cultural Medicine: The Art of Indigenous Healing celebrates 65,000 years of...
Geoffrey Robertson on the world's failures to prosecute war crimes
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Ian Dunt's UK: Budget woes and a look back at 2025
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This year in British politics was defined by constant upheaval: leaders under pressure, parties fractured over strategy, major policies overturned or...
Bruce Shapiro's USA: how Trump has changed America in 2025
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Late Night Live regular Bruce Shapiro looks back at a remarkable, often febrile year in US politics, under President Donald Trump's second administra...
Draining the great Australian swimming pool
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As the mercury rises for another Summer, millions of Australians - in city suburbs and country towns - will flock to the local municipal pool: these ...
Anna Henderson's Canberra: defence, weddings and alliances
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The government has taken much greater control of the defence budget and tries to marry defence land acquisitions with their housing targets; Prime Mi...
Anna Henderson's Canberra: a Defence overhaul, a Lodge wedding, plus Hanson and Joyce
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The government has taken much greater control of the defence budget and tries to marry defence land acquisitions with their housing targets; Prime Mi...
India's Maoist guerillas surrender after fifty year struggle
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1960s when counter-culture and unrest was peaking around the world, India's left-wing protest movement took the form of a group of militant Ma...