Late Night Live - Separate Stories Podcast

Next month is the 100th anniversary of the CWA – the Country Women’s Association - which was formed in NSW.  Its reputation for scones and handcrafts belies its many other activities, which were sometimes radical for their times, and often in support of the greater needs of the nation.

Professor Carl Rhodes argues corporations are appropriating progressive causes for their own benefit, creating a polity increasingly dominated by corporate interests, ultimately standing in the way of social progress, economic equality and sovereignty of the people.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces criticism after comparing the invasion of Ukraine to Brexit, and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is freed after being detained for six years in Iran, only to face attacks from online trolls following her first press conference.

Harmony Week was developed out of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March, but many people from diverse backgrounds think the reframing around "harmony" is taking the focus off their experience of racism. Sukhjit Khalsa is a slam poet, playwright and director who has developed work around growing up as a Sikh Australian. She is developing a new rap on this issue of reframing and the pigeonholing of people from diverse backgrounds. 

There's a lithium boom, and the two biggest sources of lithium are Australia and Chile. We look at the very different industries in the two countries, and what's at stake for both.

The Supreme Court confirmation hearings are underway for Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is set to make history as the first black woman to be appointed to the US Supreme Court in 233 years. Plus, Ukrainian asylum seekers at the border with Mexico add pressure on the Biden administration to change restrictive Trump-era policies.

The leaders of the East German state encouraged all the population to write and set up writing groups in factories and government departments across the country. One of the most surprising was a poetry circle established within the Stasi - the secret police who were monitoring the population's every move. Their goal was to bring down capitalism through verse. Philip Oltermann has dug through the Stasi archives to find this incredible true story.

As indiscriminate bombings continue and the number of civilian casualties grows, there is hope that Ukraine and Russia might reach a negotiated peace agreement that brings the war to a halt. If that fails, how likely is it that President Putin will be removed from power by the Russian elites themselves?

Labor wins a landslide election in SA, with women leading the way, but One Nation is also on the rise.

Wendy McCarthy chats with Phillip about her life as an activist, a campaigner and a board member - starting from her days with the Women's Electoral Lobby in the 1970s to the recent decriminalisation of abortion in NSW.

As countries like Australia and America struggle with racism within their countries, Chandran Nair wants us to start recognising the global white privilege which manifests in geopolitics, climate change, education, culture and even sport.

The writer Alice Pung says that ‘literature is a good place for us to share our feelings, our language, our inner lives. ‘Literature is a refuge.’  And yet, she says, when marginalised people write books, the treatment of those books can miss much of the nuance that other authors might enjoy.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outlines disruption and decline in agricultural production and increased stress in rural communities in Australia.

Sarah Collard reports on the trial of Zachary Rolfe for the murder of Kumanjayi Walker and what the not guilty verdict means for the family of Kumanjayi Walker and for the community of Yuendemu.

We think of ourselves as superior to the rest of the animal kingdom. But Dr Ashley Ward argues that in an increasingly polarised world, there is a lot we can learn from observing the behaviours of social creatures, from elephants to Antarctic krill.

What can be done to support Australia's struggling arts sector?

We preface Ukrainian President Zelensky's address to Congress and the pressure it will put on the President Biden to provide more assistance to Ukraine. Plus, on the domestic front a troubling wave of anti-abortion legislation is cropping up in various states.

Language expert Simon Horobin muses on the changing meaning of words, phrases, and punctuation.

Over the next few months, we'll be discussing some of the economic choices and challenges facing Australia, drawing on themes discussed in Satyajit Das' new book Fortune's Fool: Australia's Choices. This month, we take a look at the social and economic faultlines that have been exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, and some of the trends that we're seeing in the domestic economy as a result of several challenging headwinds.

Flood fury, petrol pain and defending Defence, Laura Tingle takes a look at the week in politics.