

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

Nov 19, 2025 • 55min
Bruce Shapiro's USA, climate and slavery justice for Jamaica and feral foxes
Bruce Shapiro looks at why Donald Trump has finally agreed to release the Epstein files. After being devastated by yet another hurricane, Jamaica is seeking reparations for both climate havoc and the impact of slavery. And how foxes colonised Australia.

Nov 18, 2025 • 55min
Helen Garner on Erin Patterson's trial and a lifetime of keeping diaries
Author Helen Garner sat through the trial of Erin Patterson, who was convicted of murdering members of her family with deadly mushrooms. She reflects on coming face to face with a murderer, her love of the courts, her faith and what happens when people have to face the consequences of their actions. Guest: Helen Garner, co-author of The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations about a Triple Murder Trial, with Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein, published by Text. And How to end a story — collected diaries 1978 to 1998Note: Erin Patterson is appealing her convictions, claiming there was a "substantial miscarriage of justice" during her trial.

Nov 17, 2025 • 54min
Anna Henderson's Canberra, inside Myanmar's civil war, and traffic jams in space
After the Liberal Party joined the Nationals in ditching net zero, what is the fate of remaining Liberal Party moderates in city seats? A new documentary reveals the brutality of Myanmar's civil war, as an election looms. Plus, with evermore man-made materials in orbit, how is traffic managed in space?

Nov 13, 2025 • 55min
Gareth Evans: Australia should do more on nuclear control, plus Joseph Stiglitz warns of 'inequality emergency'
As Russia and the US both threaten resume nuclear testing and China has tripled its stock of nuclear arms, former foreign minister Gareth Evans says Australia should lead a new arms control push. Plus economist Joseph Stiglitz is warning we are facing an “inequality emergency.”

Nov 12, 2025 • 55min
Henry Reynolds turns Australian history upside-down
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 of Capricorn paints a vastly different picture of this country, its people, politics and ambitions. Guest: Henry Reynolds, historian and author of Looking from the North: Australian History from the Top Down

Nov 11, 2025 • 55min
Ian Dunt's UK, police brutality in Brazil, and Australia's earliest computer
What caused the latest drama at the BBC, and what does it say about the state of British media? Ian Dunt explains. As Brazil tries to present its best side to the world during COP30, unrest is stirring in Rio de Janeiro. Rio's governor is undertaking a violent crackdown on gangs in the city's favelas, with a death toll in the hundreds. Then, on a happier note, Australia owns the oldest surviving computer in the world, CSIRAC, and the University of Melbourne is celebrating 70 year since computing classes were first taught on the machine.

Nov 10, 2025 • 55min
Anna Henderson's Canberra, Sudan's genocidal gold rush and the missing dismissal footage mystery
The Liberal Party looks likely to drop their net zero policy this week, but what will that do for their base? At the heart of the genocide in Sudan is a fight for control of the country's gold mines, which is making the leader of the rebel forces very rich. Plus the mystery of the missing footage of the Whitlam government dismissal in 1975.

Nov 6, 2025 • 54min
Do modern Liberals still back Whitlam's dismissal? Plus, the courageous life of 'Weary' Dunlop
50 years since the Governor-General sacked sitting Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, do modern Liberal MPs still back the Dismissal? Plus, Peter Fitzsimons pays tribute to the heroic war surgeon, Ernest 'Weary' Dunlop.

Nov 5, 2025 • 55min
Bruce Shapiro on Mamdani's victory, Trump's ballroom blitz, plus an author's win over AI
New Yorkers have shaken the United States's political establishment and delivered 34-year-old socialist Zohran Mamdani a thumping victory in the city's contentious mayoral election. Bruce Shapiro breaks down the early results. And US President Donald Trump said he wouldn't touch the East Wing of the White House. It's now been flattened, and there are plans for a new ballroom to be built. Plus Andrea Bartz, the Queer thriller writer who took on an AI company and won.

Nov 4, 2025 • 55min
The legacy of U Thant plus what Australia's earliest photographs can tell us
U Thant went from being a Buddhist teacher to playing a pivotal role in resolving some of the most dangerous international crises of his time as UN Secretary-General, so why has his legacy been over-looked? Plus what Australia's first photographs can tell us about early colonial life - and what they left out.


