Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast
Episodes
Crayons in the desert: the breathtaking Birrundudu drawings of 1945, revealed
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1945, sixteen Aboriginal men working at Birrundudu Station created 810 crayon drawings, commissioned by anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Bernd...
Bill Wallace: the world’s oldest prisoner, who died at 106 in an asylum in Ararat
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1925 in Melbourne, two young men were having lunch in a cafe in King Street, Melbourne when one of them lit a cigarette. Another diner confronted ...
Niki Savva on why the 2025 federal election was a political 'earthquake' in Australia
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The veteran Canberra journalist Niki Savva dissects the monumental result of the 2025 federal election. Where has it left both the Coalition in oppos...
Wooden toes, iron hands: the ancient artistry of prosthetics
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In ancient times, limb loss was not uncommon, and often deadly. For those that survived - and had money to spend - commissioning a bespoke prosthetic...
America's transgender troops take Donald Trump to court.
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In January, US President Donald Trump passed an executive order that banned transgender troops from serving in the American military. Now, several of...
How Nauru got rich
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nauru became rich because it sat on one of the world’s purest and most valuable phosphate deposits — the key ingredient in fertiliser. When Nauru...
Haaretz' editor, Aluf Benn, on Netanyahu's political survival
24 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Golda Meir fell after the Yom Kippur War. Menachem Begin quit after the disaster of the 1982 Lebanon invasion. But despite the trauma of October 7, B...
Anna Henderson's Canberra: Pauline Hanson's burka stunt and environment laws final push
24 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Senate was suspended after One Nation's Pauline Hanson wore a burka in the chamber. The Senator claimed it was a national security issue, but Ann...
Jenny Hocking AM calls for free access to Dismissal archives
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of 50th anniversary commemorations of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's dismissal, the historian and biographer Professor Jenny Hocking AM s...
Wind: the invisble force of nature that we can't live without
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's invisible, it drives us crazy, and we couldn't live without it: the wind has been a constant presence for all of history, and was one of the fir...
How the Quarterly Essay reached its 100th edition
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
25 years in the making, the Australian publication Quarterly Essay has reached its 100th edition. Editor Chris Feik shares how QE was born, and how i...
When foxes went feral
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Seventy years after foxes were first introduced to Australia in 1870, they had managed to spread across the continent. For the first time, their colo...
Hurricane devastated Jamaica seeks reparations for climate damage and years of slavery
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jamaica was devastated when Hurricane Melissa hit. Hundreds of thousands of homes were flattened, and whole towns were destroyed by one of the most p...
Bruce Shapiro's USA: Trump's backflip on the Epstein files
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bruce Shapiro joins Late Night Live as the US Senate approves the release of the Epstein documents, after a confounding backflip from the US Presiden...
Helen Garner on Erin Patterson's trial and a lifetime of keeping diaries
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Author Helen Garner sat through the trial of Erin Patterson, who was convicted of murdering members of her family with deadly mushrooms. She reflects...
Can we stop space from filling up with junk?
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Space is big... but not infinite. The area around the Earth is populated by thousands of satellites and a million pieces of space debris, and those o...
Calls to reject Myanmar's "sham" election as evidence revealed of torture by the Junta
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As Myanmar prepares for its first elections since the military junta took over in 2021, a new documentary from Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has ...
Anna Henderson's Canberra: what next for the Liberal moderates?
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As the Liberal Party joins the Nationals in ditching a net zero emissions target for 2050, what is the fate of the remaining moderate MPs in the Libe...
Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz warns of 'inequality emergency'
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1966, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz wrote his PhD thesis on inequality. Almost sixty years later, after decades of research, numerous books, and ...
Gareth Evans says Australia should lead nuclear arms control talks
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As Russia and the US both threaten to resume nuclear testing and China has tripled its stock of nuclear arms, former foreign minister Gareth Evans ha...
Henry Reynolds turns Australian history upside-down
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Australia's (very, very) early computer: CSIRAC
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The University of Melbourne is celebrating 70 years of Australian computer classes, which were first taught on CSIRAC, the earliest computer ever bui...
Brutal police killings in Rio's favelas shock the world as Brazil hosts climate summit
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On October 28, conservative Governor of Rio, Cláudio Castro, ordered over 2,500 police officers and soldiers to storm the city’s favelas at dawn. ...
Ian Dunt's UK: Trump threatens to sue the BBC
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to sue the BBC for 1.6 million dollars, over an inaccurate clip aired on its flagship documentary program,...
The mysterious lost footage of Whitlam's dismissal
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Fifty years on, the dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam on November 11th 1975 remains the most dramatic day in Australian political history. Bu...
The fight for gold at the heart of Sudan’s genocide
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Rebel forces in Sudan have captured the city of el-Fasher in a coup so violent the blood stains could be seen from space. The RSF rebel army is led b...
Anna Henderson's Canberra: Gough Whitlam's statue and net zero fallout continues
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam dismissal approaches, Prime Minister Albanese announces the commissioning of a statue of Gough Whitlam for C...
Peter FitzSimons on the life of Weary Dunlop
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The war medic Edward 'Weary' Dunlop became legendary in the POW camps of World War II for his courage and leadership, including putting his body betw...
50 years on, do modern Liberals still back Whitlam's dismissal?
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The dismissal of Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the Governor-General on November 11, 1975 is perhaps the most dramatic and most contentious mo...
Author takes on AI company who pirated her book
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When New York based, Queer thriller writer Andrea Bartz, discovered the AI company Anthropic, had pirated her book to train its AI large language mod...
Trump's ballroom blitz
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Despite lacking approval for construction from the federal agency that oversees building projects, US President Donald Trump has commenced major reno...
Bruce Shapiro's USA: Zohran and a wave of Democrats put Trump on notice
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After a stunning ascent, Zohran Mamdani is the youngest mayor of New York in more than a century. Mamdani is a fierce critic of Donald Trump, and Tru...
The camera in the colony: Australia's oldest photographs
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The emergence of commercial photography technology in the mid-19th Century coincided with the rise of imperial control in the Pacific, including the ...
From Buddhist teacher to UN Secretary-General: The legacy of U Thant
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During his decade as UN Secretary-General, U Thant played a pivotal role in resolving some of the most dangerous international crises of his time. Fr...
Kryptos: the 30-year code that was accidentally cracked
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When the CIA was building its new headquarters, they commissioned a statue designed to pay homage to the spy agency. 'Krytpos' was both a sculpture a...
Kids are about to be booted off social media
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On 10 December, the government's new law banning under-16s from having social media accounts will be enforced. It's a world-first attempt to rein in ...
Anna Henderson's Canberra: will the Libs follow the Nationals and abandon net zero?
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pressure is building inside the Liberal party to follow the Nationals' decision to abandon its commitment to net zero carbon emissions. Anna Henderso...
How Australia’s politicians got hooked on gambling
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Aussies love to gamble, whether it’s on the horses, down the pokies, at a fancy casino, or, increasingly, betting on their favourite sports team fr...
Francesca Albanese: genocide in Gaza would not be happening without the complicity of other countries
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
'The genocide in Gaza was not committed in isolation, but as part of a system of global complicity.' That's the conclusion of the UN Special Rapporte...
Forgiveness: do we need more or less?
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Pope forgave the man who shot him in the stomach. Erika Kirk forgave the assassin who killed her husband, Charlie. But what, exactly, is forgiven...
Reflecting on the power Patrick White's prose still holds today
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Patrick White was Australia's only Nobel Prize-winning author, renowned for novels like Voss, The Tree of Man, and The Vivisector. His work explored ...
One hundreds years of Australian anthropology: what have we learned?
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Anthropology is the study of human cultures, with a strained culture of its own: its practitioners have often been involved in colonial control of na...
Locals disrupt Trump's deportation blitz in Chicago
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the streets of Chicago, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are busy arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants as...
Ian Dunt's UK: Prince Andrew fallout and British Labour loses big in Wales
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
King Charles wants Prince Andrew out of the Royal Lodge, as allegations against Andrew resurface in Virginia Giuffre's posthumous memoir. The Prince ...
Can AI help us talk to whales?
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If AI language models can "learn" human languages, and translate between them, could AI also help us to decode what animals are saying? Off the coast...
The Indonesian surveillance company tracking phones all over the world
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
International investigative journalism outfit ‘Lighthouse Reporter’ found a vast archive of data on the deep web containing thousands of phone nu...
Anna Henderson's Canberra: why does the Coalition want to split the environment bill in two?
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As parliament resumes, Labor has a big bill to push through: changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, which ha...
The ghost of Stalin
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Josef Stalin left this earthly realm on March 5, 1953. The circumstances of his death were deeply chaotic – his guards and inner circle were too af...
Paul Kelly on the political chaos before The Dismissal
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It was 1974 and Canberra was in turmoil. A young Paul Kelly was the chief political correspondent for The Australian newspaper, and covered the mount...
Did the ancients love like us?
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Love is the big emotion, the one that drives our literature and our lives. It has done since antiquity. But when the Greeks and Romans wrote about lo...
Looted Benin Bronzes are returning to West Africa. But will they go on display?
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The new Museum of West African Art will open in Benin City, Nigeria next month. It was hoped that the new galleries would display the world's most co...
Why is the world running out of sand?
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After water, sand is the most-exploited natural resource in the world, but its use is largely ungoverned, meaning we are consuming it faster than it ...
Suriname – the little South American country that overthrew a despot, elected a woman and discovered oil
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Suriname is a small Dutch speaking country in South America. It’s been run by a despot racking up debt and oppressing its citizens. But now they’...
Bruce Shapiro's USA: Albanese goes to Washington
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Australia went to Washington. Our PM, Anthony Albanese, met with Donald Trump in the White House, where Trump signed an agreement about cr...
Why did two Australian hospitals cancel Gaza-related speaking events?
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne cancelled a scheduled speaking event entitled 'Children and War' amid concerns about staff safety...
Journalist Chris Hedges on being cancelled by the National Press Club
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Australia’s National Press Club was due to host Pulitzer prize winning journalist, the former Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times, Chri...
Bernard Keane's Canberra: What is Barnaby Joyce up to?
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nationals MP and former leader, Barnaby Joyce has announced he won't run for the seat of New England at the next election. Rumours about that he'll j...
Tim Minchin's nipples are just fine, thanks
16 Oct 2025
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 ...
A way forward for Israel
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Israeli-British historian Ilan Pappé, warns that political fractures in Israel are wider than ever. In his new book, he highlights the 2022 right-wi...
The strategy behind Trump's foreign policy chaos - and where it leaves Australia
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
While Donald Trump’s presidency might seem chaotic from the outside as the US appears to be retreating from its former role as a global superpower,...
Come fly with me: women in aviation
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Commercial aviation really took off after World War Two. Many countries established their own national airlines and women became an integral part of ...
Madagascar has its own Gen Z protesters
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A military coup is underway in Madagascar after nationwide protests triggered by chronic power and water outages, poverty and government corruption. ...
Ian Dunt's UK: Keir Starmer in Egypt, and the word on Brexit
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Dunt looks at the UK's role in the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, and examines why British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is slamming Brexit.GU...
Esperanto: what happened to the language of optimism?
13 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With a common tongue, could the world solve its problems? In 1887, a Polish eye doctor tried to answer that question by creating a new, easy-to-learn...
Are cloud patterns changing with the climate?
13 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gavin Pretor-Pinney is the founder of an organisation called the Cloud Appreciation Society, which boasts thousands of members online. His passion ha...
Labor waters down its super tax plan
13 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The treasurer has reworked the government's stalled superannuation tax plan, in an effort to push it through the parliament. New polling paints a sor...
LNL update: Irris Makler on the Gaza peace process
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist Irris Makler returns to Late Night Live in the wake of Israel, Hamas and the negotiating parties reaching an agreement on the 'first phase...
Have we forgotten the value of shade?
09 Oct 2025
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 tim...
Consent on trial: inside the Gisele Pelicot case
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gisele Pelicot became a feminist hero when she waived her right to anonymity after being drugged and raped by her husband and at least fifty other me...
Oliphant: the Australian behind the bomb
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sir Mark Oliphant hasn't had a billion-dollar movie made about him, but — according to the author Roland Perry — maybe he should have. Oliphant w...
Sanctions and bombing pushing Iran towards China
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In June Israel launched a surprise 12 day long attack on Iran. The US joined in, damaging much of their nuclear infrastructure and large parts of Teh...
Predator-Free by 2050: New Zealand’s high-stakes bid to reclaim its natural heritage
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
New Zealand has an ambitious mission to become predator-free by 2050, aiming to eradicate all invasive species—such as rats, stoats, and possums—...
How two years has changed Israel and Gaza
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Two years on from Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7th, Israel and Gaza are irrevocably changed. Journalist Irris Makler reflects on the profound s...
Bruce Shapiro's USA: Trump turns troops on "enemy within"
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
US President Donald Trump is determined to deploy the National Guard in more American cities to support deportation efforts, but a Trump-appointed ju...
Plant hunters: the 19th century orchid mania
06 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
'Plant hunting required cunning, resilience, and a seemingly unshakeable sense of entitlement to the resources of other nations.' An account of the h...
Rutger Bregman wants you to stop wasting your talents and show some 'moral ambition'
06 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dutch historian and writer Rutger Bregman is good at making wealthy people uncomfortable. In 2019, he called out the billionaires at Davos for their ...
The twisted history of rope
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Rope weaves together the fascinating story of one of humanity’s oldest inventions — a simple twist of fibres that literally held the world togeth...
The Australian who was key to the creation of Israel
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
IN 1947, Herbert Vere "Doc" Evatt was Australia's external affairs minister and the appointed chair of the United Nation's Ad-Hoc Committee on the Pa...
A rich man obsessed with Mars: welcome to the 1890s
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At the turn of the 20th century, one American became obsessed with the idea of life on Mars, and carried his obsessions into a public movement that m...
Surviving Malka Leifer: a decades-long struggle for justice
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The new documentary Surviving Malka Leifer reveals the inside-story of the Malka Leifer saga, when three sisters from Melbourne's ultra-Orthodox Jewi...
The man who brought salmon to Tasmania
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid-1800s, Tasmanian sheep farmer James Youl embarked on a fanciful mission, to transport live Atlantic salmon eggs from the northern hemisphe...
Nila Ibrahimi: a girl's right to sing in Afghanistan
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Nila Ibrahimi was 13 and living in Kabul, the local government banned girls from singing. She sang anyway, and was part of a protest movement th...
Ian Dunt's UK: British Labour conference, Farage in the polls and Tony Blair
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Dunt explores the political culture surrounding the UK’s party conference season, considers whether Reform’s Nigel Farage has become the defa...
Threads of Empire: history's most coveted carpets
29 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, carpets have been coveted by shahs, emperors, conquerors and chieftains. Historian Dorothy Armstrong tells the stories of twelve fasci...
ASIC licenses a stablecoin for the first time. Wait... what's a stablecoin?
29 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
ASIC, the Australian financial regulator, has licensed a stablecoin for the first time in its history. A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency, and ...
Mark Kenny's Canberra: Albanese champions Australia's role on the world stage
29 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is on his way home after announcing Australia's intention to run for a position on the UN Security Council at his spe...
Why people loved - and feared - Adelaide's first policewoman, Kate Cocks
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kate Cocks was a formidable woman. Appointed to the South Australian Police Force in 1915 at the age of 40, she was given the same salary and powers ...
Bandung 1955: when the Global South united to prevent war between China and the US
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia, was an historic meeting of 29 Asian and African nations - the largest gathering of non-European nations the...
What happened to NGOs?
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1990s, NGOs (non government organisations) delivered more official development assistance than the entire U.N. system. Now, increasing anti-NG...
What the data actually says about young Australian voters
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Australians went to the polls in May's federal election, Generation Z and Millennials outnumbered baby boomers at the ballot box. What does thi...
How privacy law is taking over from defamation suits
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist and former presenter of Media Watch, Richard Ackland, looks at how Australia's privacy laws are being used in place of expensive defamatio...
Where does Nepal go from here?
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A flash revolution toppled Nepal's government earlier this month, as protests from young people over a social media ban quickly escalated into violen...
Bruce Shapiro's USA: More Kirk fallout tests America's commitment to free speech
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Returning: Jimmy Kimmel. Not returning: the dozens of academics fired for comments on Charlie Kirk. America's love of free speech is being tested by ...
Ritual: the world’s first collection of Muslim-Australian poetry
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Poetry has been part of Muslim expression since ancient times; from the 8th century, poetry flourished in Arabic, Persian, and later Urdu and Turkish...
Mark Kenny's Canberra: Australia recognises Palestine as Albanese heads to the UN General Assembly
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Kenny examines the political path to Australia recognising Palestine ahead of the UN General Assembly and what it means for our relationship wit...
Donald Trump is letting US corporations off the hook - Public Citizen report
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
US President Donald Trump was elected on a law and order platform, but consumer and public affairs watch organisation, Public Citizen, Trump’s admi...
Has the CIA lost its way?
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Founded in 1947, the CIA was established under the mission 'know thine enemy'. Now, under US President Donald Trump, the agency is being gutted. Puli...
Australian war memorial withdraws literary prize awarded to author and journalist Chris Masters
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Australian War Memorial has decided not to award a prestigious literary prize to journalist Chris Masters for a book about alleged war criminal B...
The Patagonia story: how to make a fortune and give it all away
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Patagonia is an outdoor clothing retailer than has grown into a global giant with a hundred stores around the world and an enormous online business, ...
Humiliation — the "nasty edge" of politics
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Many emotions drive politics and culture: ambition, greed, altruism, anger. But what about humiliation? An Australian anthropologist makes the case t...