Join host Dee Madigan for a wild ride through the golden days of Australian advertising. When TV arrived in Australia in 1956, it brought American ad agencies, international sophistication and the rise of the cultural cringe.
In this bonus episode Jan Fran and historian Dr Geraldine Fela discuss how the waterfront dispute has shaped the way we work in Australia today. 27 years later work is more precarious – casual and fixed term jobs have grown, the kind of work we do has changed and employers now have more power over employees. Politics and industrial relations were also changed by the dispute and unions have learned to fight in a very different way.
Was the Howard government the puppet master of the Waterfront dispute? Host Jan Fran reveals new evidence that provides some answers to questions that’ve dogged Australian politics for 27 years.
After Patrick Stevedores sacks its 1,400 maritime union workers the waterfront dispute turns into a courtroom drama as the legal teams battle it out in the Federal Court before heading all the way to the High Court.
The Maritime Union knows Patrick Stevedores is building up to a dramatic move. But it’s shocked when the company sends in balaclava-clad security guards and dogs to forcibly lock out workers in the dark of night. The union's lawyers take the company to the Federal Court where Patrick drops a bombshell on day one of the hearing.
After the collapse of the Dubai plan Patrick Stevedore's boss Chris Corrigan turns to Plan B, training fresh-faced farmers to work as wharfies. The MUA suspect the farmers will take their jobs and so create chaos at the gates of Patricks’ Webb Dock to stop the farmers getting through. Meanwhile the heat remains on Corrigan to fess up to his masterminding of Dubai.
After the collapse of the Dubai plan Patrick Stevedore's boss Chris Corrigan turns to Plan B, training fresh-faced farmers to work as wharfies. The MUA suspect the farmers will take their jobs and so create chaos at the gates of Patricks’ Webb Dock to stop the farmers getting through. Meanwhile the heat remains on Corrigan to fess up to his masterminding of Dubai.
When the Opposition Labor Party breaks the news in Parliament about a secret group of ‘industrial mercenaries’ training in Dubai to take over the wharfies' jobs some big questions are asked: who exactly is behind the training operation, and is the government involved?
When Patrick Stevedores locks out and fires 1400 wharfies overnight on April 8, 1998, it divides the country. But behind all this is a story of high drama and political intrigue, a complex web of double dealing and high-stakes leaks. It's no secret that the Howard government wants waterfront reform but what role is it playing in Patrick owner Chris Corrigan's "revolution"?
On 8 April 1998 Australians woke up to the startling news that dogs and men in balaclavas were invading the docks around the country, locking out workers. This is a story of political intrigue, of lies, double dealing, high stakes leaks and high stakes finances. And guns. It takes us from Queensland’s Ettamogah pub to the ports of Dubai, from low-rent motel rooms to the highest court in the land. And all the way to the Prime Minister. In this six-part investigation into the waterfront dispute be...
In the final episode of Anzac Massacre, Black Sheep podcast host William Ray delves into the unanswered questions surrounding the killings at Surafend, Southern Palestine by the Anzac Mounted Division in December 1918. What motivated this brutal act?
Radio New Zealand podcast Black Sheep brings us the story of the Surafend massacre of December 1918, an event described by one historian as the worst war crime ever committed by New Zealand and Australian military personnel.
The story of the Surafend massacre of December 1918, an event described by one historian as the worst war crime ever committed by New Zealand and Australian military personnel.
Come on a wild ride through the extraordinary story of the Big Day Out; the festival which, for over two decades, was a summertime rite of passage for music lovers around Australia. Was it really a victim of its' own success?
We''ve got news! The History Listen has been given a makeover. Our new show, ABC Rewind , is still your home for gripping audio storytelling, and still the podcast where you'll hear true stories told by the people who lived through them. Come on a deep dive into the past on Rewind.
Come on a wild ride through the extraordinary story of the Big Day Out; the festival which, for over two decades, was a summertime rite of passage for music lovers around Australia
It's 1865 in remote central west NSW. A police office is fatally shot by a man he believes is a Chinese bushranger. The story of Sam Poo is a bushranging tale with a twist
At the height of the Cold War a New Zealand teenager is sent to a hospital in the Soviet Union to grow new fingers on her left hand. Sounds like fiction? This actually happened to Miranda Jakich and in this episode she tells her tale.
Was he Australia's greatest con artist? That was the title given to John Friedrich, the former head of the Victorian Division of National Safety Council of Australia. Back in the 1980s, he famously made $293 million of investors’ money disappear. When his fraud was uncovered, he went missing himself for sixteen days, prompting a nationwide manhunt and a media storm that reported both facts and the fictions. Guests: Barry Whitehead - former NSCA operations manager Frank Bongiorno - professor of h...
When Bill Garner began exploring his family history, a puzzling gap in the family tree led him to discover a most extraordinary ancestor: Fanny Finch . Finch was a well-known and controversial figure during the Victorian gold rushes. A London-born woman of African heritage, she pushed a wheelbarrow from Melbourne to the goldfields in 1852, where she became a sly grogger and restaurateur. She actively resisted police corruption , supported women and children against domestic violence and in 1856,...
Laya Semler was the last Jew sent to a concentration camp from Wennigsen, Germany, in 1945. Her non-Jewish husband Adolf was sent to slave labour for not denouncing her. Both survived. Now, Wennigsen has invited their Australian family back, to commemorate Laya and Adolf’s incredible story of courage and love. In Part 1, their great-grandchildren discovered a town perhaps finally ready to accept the extent of its role in the Nazi regime. In Part 2, they will experience that history face-to-face....
In 1945, Laya Semler became the last Jew sent to a concentration camp from Wennigsen, Germany. Her non-Jewish husband Adolf chose slave labour rather than abandon her. They both survived. In 2022, the village of Wennigsen invited their Australian family back to commemorate Laya and Adolf’s bravery. Told by their great-grandchildren, Laya and Adolf’s story is testament to the power love has to bridge even the greatest differences. But it’s also the story of a town only just coming to terms with t...
Fifty years ago, in the early hours of Christmas Day 1974, Cyclone Tracy killed 66 people and decimated the city of Garramilla/Darwin. Afterwards more than 30,000 residents were evacuated, many never returning to Darwin. Writing down memories of the event helped some survivors of the cyclone process the experience. Hear a handful of these stories, set in crumbling houses, airborne cars, a busy restaurant and an overcrowded hospital, all set to the terrifying real-life soundtrack of Cyclone Tracy...
It’s the early 1900s and a gang of men moves through the gritty streets of inner-city North Melbourne: they dress sharp and inspire fear wherever they go. This gang, the Crutchy Push ruled the streets of North Melbourne over a ten year period, from late 1890s. And the reason for their curious name? All the members of this gang were amputees: mostly one-legged, and they used a crutch - and not just for walking! To mark the International Day for People With Disability, Melbourne-based writer and d...
It’s March 25th, 1999, and Australia’s most remarkable prison escape has just taken place, after a helicopter hovers above the recreation grounds at the Silverwater maximum security prison, in Sydney. In the blink of an eye, a prisoner runs towards the chopper, climbs onboard, and is on his way to freedom. This is the story of that airborne escapee, John Killick, a man who spent much of his life leading the authorities on a merry dance. Somehow he survived his dangerous escapades and many prison...
In a shocking and brutal end to a colourful life, Australian wallpaper designer Florence Broadhurst was murdered in her Paddington studio on the 15th of October, 1977. So who was suspected of this crime and why is the case still unsolved to this day? Please listen with care - this episode contains graphic content. Guests: Tony Russell – Former NSW Police officer Helen O’Neill – Journalist and author, Florence Broadhurst: her secret and extraordinary lives Mark Whittaker – Journalist and author, ...
She’s one of Australia’s most prolific and popular designers, and yet not many people know her name, let alone her audacious life story. Florence Broadhurst was from regional Queensland but people who met her later in life, thought she was English aristocrat. She reinvented herself many times throughout her life. Today she’s known for her wallpaper designs that cemented her in Australian design history. But a shadow lingers over her legacy; her unsolved murder in 1977. Guests: Helen O’Neill – Jo...
When superannuation pioneer Mavis Robertson was in her seventies, she was showered with awards and honours. But something was missing from the life story shared with the public at this time: the more than 30 years she spent as a leading member of the Communist Party of Australia. Historian Alice Garner and Mavis's son Peter Robertson delve into this part of his mother's life, including her extensive ASIO security file.
An entire school is kidnapped at gunpoint. 9 students and their teacher are taken hostage by a prison escapee who demands a ransom of 7 million dollars, the release of 17 prisoners, 100 kilos of cocaine, automatic weapons, and an escape vehicle.
After World War Two, around 650 Japanese war brides crossed once enemy lines to make a home in Australia, at a time when the White Australia Policy still held sway. But 50 years on, how do the grandchildren of the Japanese war brides understand their family story?
