

Late Night Live — Full program podcast
ABC listen
Incisive analysis, fearless debates and nightly surprises. Explore the serious, the strange and the profound with David Marr.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 18, 2025 • 55min
Questions over the Australian War Memorial literary prize, and trouble for the CIA
The Australian War Memorial has overruled a decision to award a military history literary prize to Chris Masters’ book, Flawed Hero: Truth, Lies and War Crimes about the alleged war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith. According to the memorial chair, the rules prevent established authors from being considered. And the troubled history of the CIA since 9/11.

Sep 17, 2025 • 55min
The politics of humiliation and billionaire giveaway
Australian anthropologist Hassan Gage makes the case that humiliation and its counterpart, dignity, are overlooked motivators of politics, both locally and globally. Plus why billionaire founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, gave his fortune away to save the planet.

Sep 16, 2025 • 55min
The UN's report on genocide in Gaza, Donald Trump heads to the UK, and Anguilla's internet jackpot
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, according to a report by a United Nations Commision of Inquiry. One of the key authors of that report, Australian human rights lawyer Chris Sidoti, joins Late Night Live just hours after its release. Meanwhile, the United Kindgom is preparing for a visit from Donald Trump. But America has already affected UK politics, with the sacking of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US over his connections with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Last, to Anguilla, where their domain name .ai has turned into a digital jackpot thanks to the frenzy around artificial intelligence.

Sep 15, 2025 • 55min
Anna Henderson's Canberra, Bruce Shapiro on the killing of Charlie Kirk, plus why are we keeping QWERTY?
Anna Henderson on why both Labor and the Coalition are still grappling with climate targets when our first risk assessment shows urgent action is needed. Bruce Shapiro looks at the fall-out from the Charlie Kirk killing and why we keep the QWERTY keyboard, when other layouts are so much more efficient.

Sep 11, 2025 • 55min
Germany's Gaza protest crackdown plus solving crimes using feathers
A new film investigates how Germany's desire to never to repeat the horrendous anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust has resulted in the suppression of any criticism of Israel and its actions in Gaza. Plus how an ornithologist helped solve murders and hate crimes, with her expert knowledge of feathers.

Sep 10, 2025 • 55min
The rise of the Chinese right wing in the US and how memory shapes geopolitics
The growing appeal of Donald Trump to the right wing Chinese community in the US, and the hidden war for collective memory - how narratives about nationhood shape politics.

Sep 9, 2025 • 55min
Bruce Shapiro's USA, 50 years of independent Papua New Guinea, and the closure of Meanjin
Trump's soon-to-be-renamed "Department of War" killed 11 people on a boat, saying they were Venezuelan drug smugglers. As Bruce Shapiro says, the killings were a brazenly extrajudicial act. Closer to home, Papua New Guinea will celebrate 50 years as an independent nation next week, a status it achieved when it separated from the ruling colonial power — Australia. We revisit the history of Papua New Guinea, and why so many Australians forgot (or never learned) that it was once our territory. Then to Australian literature, and the demise of the 85-year-old literary magazine, Meanjin.

Sep 8, 2025 • 54min
Anna Henderson's Canberra, Modi's pivot to China and the death of Aussie gaelic
Anna Henderson discusses the fall-out from Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price's comments on Indian migration, India's PM Narendra Modi wants a closer relationship, with China, but what does China want from India? And how the Gaelic language lived and died in Australia.

Sep 4, 2025 • 54min
Abolishing terra nullius: the legacy of Chief Justice Gerard Brennan
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 several landmark cases, including the famous Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) decision. This case overturned the concept of "terra nullius" (land belonging to no one) and recognised the native title rights of Indigenous Australians for the first time under Australian law. His son Frank Brennan has collected his father's speeches in Gerard Brennan’s Articles and Speeches, Vol 2: Law in Accord with Justice

Sep 3, 2025 • 55min
Behrouz Boochani on Iran's Revolutionary Guard, plus why Trump is targeting libraries
Behrouz Boochani was locked in Naura for more than half a decade after fleeing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). Now, that group will be designated a terrorist organisation by the Australian government. Meanwhile, in the United States, the Trump administration is sacking librarians and deleting public archives. Oxford librarian Richard Ovenden, is the author of "Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge under Attack".