Late Night Live — Full program podcast

Former NSW Premier and former Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Bob Carr and his wife Helena were almost inseparable. When she suddenly died, while they were in Vienna on an opera and galleries tour of Europe, Bob was bereft. Back in Sydney, he took to walking the streets late at night.His memoir 'Bring back yesterday' pays tribute to Helena, born to Chinese and Tamil parents in Taiping. Bob Carr reflects on their life together, and on the work and politics that they both, and separately, have been involved in.Guest: Bob CarrProducers: David Marr/Ann Arnold

Our US political commentator Bruce Shapiro has watched the (very long) State of the Union address.  The High Court has found the Catholic Church is liable for the actions of a priest who abused a boy in the 1960s in NSW. Lawyer and victim advocate Judy Courtin analyses what this decision might mean for the Church. Plus dams and desalination plants: will they supply sufficient amounts of water to cities in an extreme drought? 

Richard Ackland discusses the scope and ambitions of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, and the challenges facing the enquiry. On the high seas, a major treaty aims to protect marine life from overfishing, climate change, shipping, and deep-seabed mining. Why hasn't Australia ratified it yet? Plus, Sir Douglas Mawson kept extensive diaries, which have taken the South Australian Museum 20 years to transcribe. What do Mawson's diaries reveal about one of Australia's greatest explorers?

Chief political correspondent for SBS, Anna Henderson, on the ongoing political wrangling over people who do or do not reflect 'Australian values'.And former New Zealand Prime Minister and former head of the United Nations Development Programme, Helen Clark, says it is high time the UN's top job went to a woman.

Ronan McCrea, author and constitutional scholar who critiques contemporary gay rights, and Peter Mares, migration and housing researcher who analysed the PALM labour scheme. They discuss problems and reforms in the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility program, worker welfare and employer-tied visas. They also examine rising opposition to gay rights, shifts in public support, corporate retreats and strategic rethink for the movement.

Ian Dunt, i paper columnist on UK politics and asylum coverage; Michaela Kufner, Deutsche Welle chief political editor on German defence renewal; Toby Ralph, political strategist on spin and media tactics. They discuss Keir Starmer's position, Germany's military rebuild and rearmament timeline, and six clever techniques politicians use to dodge awkward questions.

Christian Slattery, democracy campaigner exposing how gambling money buys access to politicians. Dr Luis Martinez-Fernandez, historian on Cuba’s politics and US ties, assesses instability and military risks. Hannah Gould, cultural anthropologist studying funerary practices, probes environmental claims of green burials. They dissect lobbying loopholes, Cuba’s crisis dynamics, and the real costs behind eco-funeral marketing.

Conny Aerts, asteroseismology pioneer who turns stellar vibrations into sound to study star interiors. Anthony Dapiran, Hong Kong analyst and author tracking political crackdowns and Jimmy Lai’s sentencing. Anna Henderson, political correspondent parsing the Liberal Party’s leadership struggle and shifting policy priorities. They discuss leadership strategy, Hong Kong’s shrinking freedoms, and how stars are sonified to reveal inner physics.

Trump flies over a US city in a jet, dumping excrement on protesters; welcome to the era of government-endorsed AI slop videos. Charlie Warzel from The Atlantic joins the show to talk about the US's experiment in government-by-meme. Plus: psychologist Steven Pinker argues that what drives society is knowing that what we know is widely know — in his term, "common knowledge". But what if our beliefs about everyone else's inner thoughts turn out to be wrong?

Gaza is today in ruins, with over seventy thousand dead and buildings everywhere rendered rubble by the onslaught from Israel since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. Many argue the war on Gaza began at this point, but historian Julie Norman has traced the history of both the land, its people and the terrible wars that have plagued what was once a beautiful and prosperous place for a century and destroyed the dreams of the Palestinian people. Guest: Julie M. Norman, Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at University College London, and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. Author of Gaza: The Dream and the Nightmare, co-authored with Maia Carter Hallward, Director of the PhD Program in International Conflict Management and Professor of Middle East Politics at Kennesaw State UniversityProducer: Catherine Zengerer