Late Night Live — Full program podcast

When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was elected he promised to address a gap in federal anti-discrimination law which allowed faith-based schools to sack gay kids and teachers, but he has thus far failed to do so. Now Independent MP for Wentworth, Allegra Spender, has introduced a bill to end the right of religious schools and universities to punish gay and trans pupils and staff. Plus, as AI reshapes society, what does it mean to be human? Father Paolo Benanti, advisor to the Holy Sea on AI Ethics is in Australia to examine the moral questions posed by artificial intelligence.
Guests:
Allegra Spencer, Member for Wentworth
Father Paolo Benanti, Professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University, in Rome, and advisor to the Holy Sea on AI Ethics

Two writers investigate two mysteries from 19th Century Australia. 
Kate Grenville uncovers a bundle of letters in the archives about the NSW country school teacher Joseph Connor, accused of beating his students. Was he a monster or the victim of a small-town vendetta? And Sally Young solves Australia's strangest political crime: the theft of the ceremonial mace from Victoria's state parliament in 1891.
Guests:
Kate Grenville, author, 'The Country Schoolmaster: A Mystery in 88 Letters'
Sally Young, author, 'The Curious Case of the Stolen Mace: Solving Australia's Strangest Political Crime'

The Lord of the Rings made J.R.R. Tolkien one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. But who was the obsessive, conservative and often difficult man behind Middle-earth? And Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, has a new and equally remarkable true story to tell. In 1942 in Nazi-occupied Paris, the Nazis arrest a Jewish family, but their 11-year-old daughter escapes to her piano teacher, Andrée Levallois. Andrée is secretly a French Resistance operative who risks everything, including her own family, to hide the child.  
Guests: 
DJ Taylor, author of The King under the Mountain
Heather Morris, author of The Piano teacher of Montparnasse
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Our regular US political commentator on the Cornell University sexual assault case, the failed execution of Christa Pike, and the dire outlook for the Republicans, four weeks before the midterms.
Valerie Trouet, a paleo-climate scientist, compares tree rings from living trees with historical and archaeological wood to reconstruct climate patterns going back thousands of years. It enables her to look at how climate has influenced wars, empires and natural disasters.
Guests:
Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine and Director of the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma
Valerie Trouet, professor in the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. Book 'Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings'

We revisit two memorable LNL conversations from recent times: Simon Winchester's cultural history of the wind, and Australian writer Lech Blaine's astonishing account of his beautiful, terrifying childhood - growing up in Queensland pubs stalked by Christian fanatics. 
Guests: 
Simon Winchester, journalist and author of The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind
Lech Blaine, author of Australian Gospel