Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast

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...

Anguilla's .ai domain name is an internet jackpot

16 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every time someone buys a web domain ending in .ai, the tiny island nation of Anguilla gets a fee. In the same way that .au is for Australia and .uk ...

UN report finds Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

16 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, according to a report by a United Nations Commision of Inquiry. The Commission, established by the UN Human Ri...

Ian Dunt's UK: Mandelson gone, far right protests and Donald Trump's UK visit

16 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Keir Starmer has sacked Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US over his association with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the far right takes t...

Why do we use the QWERTY keyboard?

15 Sep 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...

Bruce Shapiro on the fall-out from the Charlie Kirk assassination

15 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

US correspondent Bruce Shapiro looks at the fall-out from the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, including ...

Anna Henderson's Canberra: climate targets, and tackling Islamophobia

15 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As Australia's first climate risk report is released, Anna Henderson looks at the challenge in uniting the Coalition around net zero targets, as Libe...

The woman who solved crimes with birds

11 Sep 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...

What's behind Germany's Gaza protest crackdowns?

11 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In a new documentary for Al Jazeera, Jewish-Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein return to his ancestral home, Germany, to investigate how the co...

The power of collective memory

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Collective memory is storytelling on a massive scale. Every nation, every community, has a master narrative—the ‘official’ story about who they...

The rise of the Chinese far-right in America

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The San Gabriel Valley on the outskirts of LA is the largest 'ethnoburb' of the Chinese diaspora in the United States. Long beset by poverty, issues ...

What does the end of Meanjin say about Australian culture?

09 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After 85 years, Melbounre University Publishing has shut down Meanjin on "purely financial grounds". The decision sees the end of the platform and pu...

Papua New Guinea, 50 years after gaining independence from Australia

09 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Papua New Guinea was an Australian territory until 16 September 1975, when the country gained independence. Few Australians even know that we were th...

Bruce Shapiro's USA: Trump's "Department of War" takes on drugs, Harvard's court win, and grand jury dissent

09 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After Trump sent federal forces into Washington, DC, those troops and police began to charge individuals with federal crimes. But an extraordinary so...

Gaelic was a dead language in early Australia; why?

08 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Since Europeans first landed in Australia, the country has been a net importer of languages. Not all of those languages make it, and Gaelic was one o...

Modi's move: why India is the key to China’s global leadership ambitions

08 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time on Chinese soil in seven years at the recent Shanghai Coo...

Anna Henderson's Canberra: Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and the non apology, ISIS brides and the jetsetting Albanese

08 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price's comments on migration continue to cause headaches for the Coalition. Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is in damage control, an...

Abolishing terra nullius: the legacy of Chief Justice Gerard Brennan

04 Sep 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 ...

Oxford's librarian on Donald Trump's war against knowledge

03 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump is fighting a war against knowledge. In his second term, he has fired the Librarian of Congress and the Archivist of the United States, ...

'Australia is safer now': Behrouz Boochani on listing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation

03 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last week PM Albanese announced Australia plans to list Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation after ASIO revealed link...

Metal, money, myth: why does gold still fascinate?

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Gold means power, and has since the beginning of time. But why? What is it about the shiny yellow metal that so fascinates us humans? And why are gol...

Gaza: The deadliest warzone on earth for journalists

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

International law, under the Geneva Conventions, clearly mandates the protection of journalists as civilians in conflict zones. However, in the ongoi...

Ian Dunt's UK: Nigel Farage and populism in Britain

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ian Dunt looks at the political forces that have shaped Reform leader, Nigel Farage and his recent scare campaign on migration in the UK GUEST: Ian ...

Was the flamboyant dandy a working-class rebel?

01 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dandyism is often associated with flamboyantly-dressed 19th Century figures like Oscar Wilde, Baudelaire and Lord Byron - artistic types who reproach...

Anna Henderson's Canberra: Liberal party division over the March for Australia and secretive new Nauru deal

01 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Divisions within the Liberal party as Country Liberal Senator and frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price supported the weekends' anti-immigration pr...

Conservative US think tank describes Harbour Bridge march as a 'pro Hamas type rally'

01 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The conservative US think tank Heritage Foundation describes its 'Project Esther' initiative as a campaign to combat antisemitism in the United State...

Liberal Party lost: can the party of Menzies recover?

28 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The 2025 federal election marked the most significant electoral defeat in the history of the Liberal–National Coalition, with the party reduced to ...

Why does Silicon Valley love this old French philosopher?

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Some of the most powerful figures in America – from Silicon Valley to the White House - are enamoured with a dead French philosopher by the name of...

Robyn Williams on 50 years hosting the Science Show

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Robyn Williams has been the voice of ABC Radio National's Science Show for fifty years and along the way he’s written ten books, survived at least ...

Snapped! The history of street photography

26 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Before the days of Instagram, personal cameras, and privacy laws, street photographers set themselves up around Sydney. The industry peaked between t...

Mahmoud Abbas and the future of Palestinian politics

26 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The current leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is nearly 90, and deeply unpopular. As more countries — including Australia — agr...

Bruce Shapiro's USA: an FBI raid, and 20 years after Hurricane Katrina

26 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The unfortunate face of Trump's deportations is is Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, who is now facing a threatened deportation to Uganda. Former Trump...

Where is our poet laureate?

25 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

August marks Poetry Month in Australia - a series of talks and events celebrating the country's flourishing scene, including a countdown of the best ...

Sudan is in a death spiral

25 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

While all eyes have been on the starving people of Gaza, over in Sudan the world’s biggest humanitarian disaster is unfolding.  25 million people ...

Anna Henderson's Canberra: the push to repeal net zero targets

25 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As pressure mounts for Opposition Leader Sussan Ley to formally ditch their net zero target, the Nationals' Barnaby Joyce introduced a bill to repeal...

Fleeced: a story of wool and warfare

21 Aug 2025

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...

Palestinian psychiatrist Dr Samah Jabr on dealing with trauma in Gaza

21 Aug 2025

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...