Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast

Around the world last year, the cost of storms and cyclones alone was more than $400 billion US. In 2024 the planet was hit by 58 weather disasters with damages totalling more than a billion dollars. Not only are these events becoming more destructive and more expensive, they are increasingly happening back-to back in a phenomenon known as “weather whiplash”. And numerous insurance companies are either folding or limiting what they will insure. So who pays for the damage?GUEST: Paula Jarzabkowski, Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Queensland and as a Member of the OECD High Level Advisory Board for the Financial Management of Catastrophic Risks.PRODUCER: Catherine Zengerer

Welcomes to Country have become commonplace at all sorts of cultural and ceremonial events around Australia. But where did the modern ceremony begin? And why are some politicians pushing back against the custom?GUEST: Rhoda Roberts AO, Australian theatre and arts director, Widjabul woman of the Bundjalung nation

In the early seventies two Melbourne feminists hatched an idea to set up their own publishing house. Diana Gribble was a socialite working in advertising and Hilary McPhee a novice editor. McPhee Gribble Publishing was born. And soon authors like Tim Winton, Dorothy Hewett and Helen Garner were knocking at their door.  But in 1989 it all came to an end when they were swallowed up by Penguin.  GUEST: Hilary McPhee, founder and former Publisher at McPhee Gribble and Chair of the Australia Council from 1993 – 96. PRODUCER: Catherine Zengerer

A growing number of Catholic Church leaders have criticised US President, Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Bishop Mark Seitz in El Paso, Texas, says that many of the changes go against the tenets of his religionGUEST: Bishop Mark Seitz, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration. PRODUCER: Ali Benton

Are those written blurbs on the front of books more about an author's connections in the literary world than real praise? Simon and Schuster, a major publishing house have banned the practice claiming it's part of an " incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem".GUEST: Ross Wilson, Professor of History and Theory of Criticism, Faculty of English, University of CambridgePRODUCER: Ali Benton 

The earthquake that hit Vanuatu the week before Christmas has taken the disaster-prone nation to a new level of despair and anxiety, with ongoing aftershocks and cyclones rattling people’s nerves. For the local Red Cross, the disaster hit in the middle of a post-cyclone celebratory Christmas lunch.Guests: Dickinson Tevi, Secretary General of the Vanuatu Red Cross Society, Tess Newton Cain, Pacific analyst with the Pacific Hub at Griffith University, BrisbaneProducer: Ann Arnold

Donald Trump has posted ‘he who saves his country does not violate any laws’ on Truth Social. Meanwhile his administration is being challenged by numerous court rulings on USAID funding, the DOGE's access to Treasury files and other information with national security implications and members of Congress are wondering whether the President will simply ignore the courts and and precipitate a constitutional crisis. GUEST: Bruce Shapiro, Contributing Editor for The Nation; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia UniversityPRODUCER: Jack Schmidt

150 years ago, the SS Gothenburg - a sturdy coastal steamship - left the Port of Darwin in the Northern Territory on its final tragic voyage. When the ship hit Old Reef off Townsville in cyclonic conditions, over 100 people died. Just 22 survived. The disaster devastated the fledgling community of Darwin (then called Palmerston). Judges, doctors, bureaucrats, prisoners, women and children were all lost. It was said that every house in the northern colony lost a loved one. Guest: Toni Massey, Senior Curator of Maritime Archaeology, Queensland MuseumProducer: Jack Schmidt

The US has paused a significant amount of foreign assistance in the form of USAID to Georgia, putting media organisations and journalists critical of Russia at risk. Meanwhile mass protests in the capital Tbilisi continue as the ruling Georgian Dream party put talks of joining the European Union on ice.  GUEST: Ivane Chkhikvadze, European Union (EU) Integration Program manager at Open Society Foundation Georgia.PRODUCER: Catherine Zengerer

The latest polling shows the Coalition is best placed to form a government, though likely in minority, currently falling two seats short of a majority. Labor has teamed up with the Coalition to place caps on political spending, which cross-bench MPs and senators say is a "stitch up" to stifle competition.  So what role could the independents play in a Coalition minority government?GUEST: Laura Tingle, Chief Political Correspondent, 7.30PRODUCER: Catherine Zengerer