Late Night Live — Full program podcast · ABC Australia

The new Nationals' front bench, where Saudi Arabia sits in the Middle East war, and meet veteran protestor Mag Merrilees

·54 min·18 clips

David Marr starts the program with Australian politics before the conversation shifts to the Middle East. Anna Henderson joins him from Canberra to talk through the Nationals and where they seem to be headed now. The exchange is brisk and a little teasing, but it keeps circling back to the same question: what shape is the party in, really? From there, the program turns to Saudi Arabia and its difficult place in the regional war. Simon Mabon is pressed on the kingdom's position between Iran and the United States, and on the shifting logic of alignment in the region. The conversation is wary of official language and keeps asking what is going on beneath the slogans. It stays patient with complexity. It also makes room for the idea that old geopolitical scripts do not explain everything now unfolding. The tone is measured, but the stakes are not softened. The point is not just to narrate events. It is to test the stories governments tell about them. Marr then changes pace and meets Margaret Merrilees, a lesbian activist of Adelaide whose long life has been spent, as she puts it, fixing the world. The interview leans into character as much as history. Merrilees comes across as funny, shrewd, and unafraid of being in the thick of things. Marr clearly enjoys the encounter and lets her voice carry the segment. Her book, Scared, Angry, Laughing, or How to Fix the World, is presented as a short, vivid work that fits the directness of the conversation. The result is a program that moves easily between institutions, war, and a life of activism. It does not rush toward a grand conclusion. It lets the pressure points build. The hour feels alert to public argument and to the stubbornness of people who keep showing up. The mood is dry, curious, and wary of easy certainty. That gives the episode its shape.

As heard by us

Canberra politics, Middle East conflict, and Margaret Merrilees, with dry late-night energy.

Late Night Live ranges from Canberra politics to the war in the Middle East, then on to Margaret Merrilees, and that sweep gives the hour a wide field of view.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want Canberra politics, Middle East geopolitics, and an activist who has spent a life fixing the world.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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