Late Night Live — Full program podcast

The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu may come up against a rightwing-centrist super coalition in elections later this year, after two of his biggest political rivals - former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid - combined forces to form a new party. Plus, the Australian writer Nadia Wheatley's new book sheds light on the ordeals experienced by prisoners liberated from the Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen in April 1945. 

Guests:

• Irris Makler, veteran Middle East correspondent
• Nadia Wheatley, writer and historian, author of Strange New World: Belsen's first year of freedom (Monash University Press)

Our regular US commentator looks at recent political attempts to use defamation law to silence American media. 2SER, a Sydney community radio station with a long history of training professional broadcasters, is under threat. And descendants of the Bounty mutineers, who lived on Pitcairn Island in the Pacific, crowdfunded to get an important document returned to them from London. 

Guests: 

• Bruce Shapiro, Contributing Editor at the Nation, Executive Director of the Global Centre for Journalism and Trauma
• Chris Nash, founding Professor of Journalism at Monash University, Former Director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) at UTS in Sydney
• Jon Bisset, CEO of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia
• Helen Mears, Head of Curatorship & Research at Royal Museums Greenwich
• Dr Pauline Reynolds, Chair, Norfolk Island Museums Trust

Anna Henderson on the Japanese PM's visit and the tragedy of Kumanjayi Little Baby's death in Alice Springs. Plus 2020 wasn’t a good year for North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un - there were reports he was seriously ill, and speculation ran wild about his future. But nearly six years later, Kim has defied the doubters, exploiting global instability, drawing closer to both Putin and Xi, and testing the limits with South Korea. Also, were ancient marble statues actually painted?

Guests: 

• Anna Henderson, SBS World News Chief Political Correspondent | National Press Club Director
• Dr Jung H. Pak, historian and analyst, former officer with the CIA and the US State Department, author of Becoming Kim Jong Un
• Mark Bradley, Professor of Classics at the University of Nottingham 

David Malouf, who died last week at 92, was a hugely influential figure in Australian culture. A novelist, poet, teacher, arts advisor and board member, 'Boyer lecturer, and enormously generous mentor to many other writers. His friends and peers pay tribute.

Guests: 

• Peter Goldsworthy, Adelaide-based poet
• Nicholas Jose, Adelaide-based novelist
• Kate Grenville, Melbourne-based novelist
• Omar Sakr, western Sydney-based poet

The one David Malouf book our guests would recommend reading

Kate Grenville: Johnno

Omar Sakr: An Open Book

Nicholas Jose: 12 Edmonstone Street

Peter Goldsworthy: Ransom

Ian Dunt looks at King Charles' address to US Congress and the subtle anti-Trump messages within it. Plus, a new biography details the life of Richard 'Dick' Meagher - a talented young Australian solicitor with political ambitions in Federation-era Australia, who was embroiled in scandal for his handling of a high-profile murder trial. For the rest of his life, Meagher worked to scrub this stain from his reputation. 

Guests: 

• Ian Dunt, columnist with i-news; co-host of the Origin Story podcast
• Patrick Mullins, author of The Stained Man: a crime, a scandal, and the making of a nation, published by Scribe

Why is Pakistan the new deal broker in the US-Iran war? And what do cryptocurrency and critical minerals deals have to do with their new-found role? And the ethics of media coverage of mass shootings, or attempted shootings, as with President Trump over the weekend.

Guests: 

• Dr Farzana Shaikh, Associate Fellow with the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House, author of MAKING SENSE OF PAKISTAN (2018)
• Dr Glynn Greensmith, senior lecturer in journalism at Curtin University (WA); former ABC broadcaster, author of Mass Shootings, Media and Motive – How Changing Coverage Can Change Lives (2026)

Indigenous soldiers who fought in WW felt betrayed when they returned, then formed the first radical Aboriginal political organisation. And, before the Pacific War, Australia had a strong business relationship with Japan. But were there spies in the mix? 

Guests:

• John Maynard, historian, author, Emeritus Professor at Newcastle University. Contributor to the book ‘Challenging Anzac: stories that don’t fit the legend’ (NewSouth) 
• Nick Hordern, author, former diplomat, former policy advisor, former journalist. New book ‘Loyalty: Australians, Japanese and Espionage, on the eve of the Pacific War’ (Australian Scholarly Publishing)  

How the British elite see themselves is not what the data reveals. An historian of medicine, who's mother had polio, is revisiting the experiences of polio for thousands of people, via archival records. And a brief tribute to the Australian writer David Malouf.

Guests:

• Professor Sam Friedman, a sociologist of class and inequality at the London School of Economics
• Professor Catharine Coleborne, historian of health and medicine at the University of Newcastle, NSW

New Zealand PM Christopher Luxon survives a no confidence vote, but how long can he hang on to the leadership? Plus why the Musician's Union of Australia put an end to the career of popular 1930's Jewish jazz band, The Weintraubs' Syncopators.

Guests: 

• Henry Cooke, Deputy political editor, The Post, based in Wellington
• Albrecht Duemling, historian and author of From Berlin to Sydney: The Weintraubs Syncopators’ Jazz Legacy (1924–1940)

Trump contemplates his next move on Iran as the ceasefire deadline looms, while at home his administration is dealing with yet more scandal, this time in the FBI. 40 years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,  the Exclusion Zone has become a thriving wildlife refuge. Plus the story of Australians most daring convict escape on the whaling ship Catalpa, which sailed from America to pick up six Irish convicts in Fremantle. 

Guests: 

• Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine and Director of the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma. 
• Germán Orizaola, Associate Professor in Zoology, Department of Biology of Organisms and Systems, University of Oviedo.
• Tony Moore, Professor of Media and Communications, Monash University, and author of ‘Death or liberty: rebels and radicals transported to Australia 1788 – 1868'.