Late Night Live — Full program podcast

Anna Henderson discusses falling house prices, One Nation's superannuation policy and Nationals' leader Matt Canavan's controversial 'feminisation of the curriculum' statement. Italian political analyst Lorenzo Pregliasco on how prime minister Giorgia Meloni has stayed in power for four years. Plus meet Alexander von Humboldt, the German philosopher who started the ecology movement. 

Guests: 

• Anna Henderson, chief political correspondent, SBS
• Lorenzo Pregliasco, political analyst, Adjunct Professor, University of Bologna, Italy
• Dalia Nassar, Professor of Philosophy at The University of Sydney,

By now lab-grown meat was supposed to be a tasty, affordable, ethical food option, reducing the harms of industrial livestock farming. But these hi-tech ventures have failed to deliver on the hype. Plus, revelations from archaeological work at the old campsites of Queensland's notorious Native Mounted Police.

Guests: 

• Erin Somers, writer, essayist, critic and novelist. Author of 'Where's the beef', the cover story of the September edition of Harper's Magazine.
• Heather Burke, co-author with Lynley Wallis and Bryce Barker of 'Buried: Archaeology, frontier conflict and the QLD Native Mounted Police' (Sydney University Press)

Corporations can cause enormous harm, yet the law often struggles to hold them to account. Law professor Penny Crofts argues that horror helps us understand the scale of corporate wrongdoing. Plus how a British art dealer looted Cambodia’s ancient treasures during the Khmer Rouge era, and sold them to the world’s most prestigious museums and collectors.

Guests:

• Penny Crofts, Professor of Law at UTS, co-author of Corporate Harm: A Horror Story with Honni van Rijswijk
• Matthew Campbell, author The man who stole the gods

There's been a big Tory reshuffle, a bloody one. Our UK politics commentator Ian Dunt analyses what's behind it. And Jeff Sparrow on the radical, socialist, unionist life of Australian poet and writer Lesbia Harford. 

Guests: 

• Ian Dunt, columnist with i-news; co-host of the Origin Story podcast
• Jeff Sparrow, journalist, writer, editor, author of the biography 'Somewhere Here the Future's Hid - the Extraordinary Life of Lesbia Harford’ (Monash University Publishing)

Anna Henderson looks at One Nation's historic win in Western Australia, securing its first lower house seat in the state. In oil-rich Alberta, a growing separatist movement is asking a once unthinkable question: should the province leave Canada and become an independent country? Plus, how GPS (Global Positioning System) now underwrites everything from rideshares to traffic light systems, international banking and supply chains.

Guests:

• Anna Henderson, Chief Political Correspondent, SBS
• Andrea Lawlor, Associate Professor in political science, at McMasters University, Ontario, Canada
• Katherine Dunn, author, Little Blue Dot: How the Global Positioning System Shaped the Modern World 

Yale Professor Samuel Moyn argues that the old in the United States have hoarded wealth and power, and that something needs to give. Plus, Australian historian Tom Griffiths corroborates the extraordinary encounters of a 1900s white cattle station girl, Alice Duncan-Kemp, who learned from Indigenous Mithaka people in outback Queensland. 

Guests:

• Samuel Moyn, Professor of Law and History at Yale University, author of 'Gerontocracy in America: how the old are hoarding wealth and power - and what to do about it' (2026)
• Tom Griffiths, historian and author of 'Alice's dreaming' (2026)

Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore traces 125 years of war, revolution, upheaval and revival in the Middle East. From the final days of the Ottoman Empire to to the current Iran-US conflict, Simon's new book The Cauldron examines the forces, characters and calamities that have shaped the region.

• Guest: Simon Sebag Montefiore, writer and historian
• Producer: Ali Benton

Bruce Shapiro asks if US President Donald Trump has betrayed American cattle farmers, after he eased tariffs on foreign beef. Australia sells weapons to the United Arab Emirates, but could those weapons be ending up in Sudan? Plus, the story of the first camera that made it to colonial Australia in May 1841. 

Guests:

• Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor for The Nation, executive director of the Global Centre for Journalism and Trauma
• Andrew Bartlett, President of Australians for War Powers Reform and former Democrats and Greens Senator for Queensland
• Elisa DeCourcy, writer and curator, author of Early Photography in Colonial Australia, Melbourne University Press

One Nation is mopping up after new MP David Farley's 'rookie mistake' on his party's net migration target. Veteran Jerusalem correspondent examines the work of the Israeli ambassador to Australia Hillel Newman, after an IDF report found that no one would be held criminally liable for the death of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and her colleagues in Gaza in 2024. Plus, composer and host of The Music Show Andrew Ford ponders the musical qualities of our names and nicknames.

Guests:

• Anna Henderson, chief political correspondent, SBS
• Irris Makler, freelance journalist, veteran Jerusalem correspondent
• Andrew Ford, composer and host of The Music Show on Radio National

John Cameron Mitchell, American actor, playwright, and film director, directed some of the more outrageous movies of the 2000s, like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Shortbus. He argues that punk is as relevant than ever, and it is much more than a look. Plus, in the first half of the 20th century, up on the far north coast of WA, Wyndham Native Hospital incarcerated and treated Aboriginal people, because they were not allowed to be treated at the Wyndham District Hospital, known as the 'white' hospital.

Guests: 

• John Cameron Mitchell, American punk icon and multimedia artist
• Annabel (A.M.) Stafford, former journalist, teacher, author of 'The wanted and the unwanted' (MUP)