People's History of Australia

In contemporary Australian mass culture, it’s hard if not impossible to find any representation of life as it’s lived by the majority of the population. Few movies, plays, TV shows or documentaries reflect what it’s like spending most of your waking life working to make a boss rich, struggling to keep up with bills, or dealing with sexism, homophobia, racism, and other oppressions – and practically none depict things like going on strike or opposing fascism. With all major media and cultural production owned either by the government or huge corporations, this situation has prevailed throughout virtually the entire post-invasion history of Australia. In the 1930s, though, a massive experiment was launched to create culture by and for ordinary working people – the New Theatre. Under the slogan ‘Art is a weapon’, the New Theatre put on thousands upon thousands of performances about and for ordinary working-class people, aiming to reflect and validate their lives and struggles, and encourage political activism. Its plays were about workers’ strikes, about protest movements, about fighting the far right, and about taking on racism, sexism and other oppressions. Rather than confining themselves to the halls of physical theatre buildings, New Theatre performers – who operated on a miniscule budget and were almost all unpaid – put on plays in factories, in parks, in people’s homes, inside coal mines, and on street corners. They used avant-garde theatrical techniques, pioneered egalitarian gender relations within their productions, and put on some of the most well-attended plays in Australian history. And yet despite this, the New Theatre has virtually vanished from Australian history. In this episode, we chat with Lisa Milner, an academic and researcher of working-class cultural production, on her new book on the New Theatre. We discuss the extraordinary popularity and success of their productions, the efforts by the state to repress the New Theatre, and the ways that culture can help build and sustain radicalism and movements for change. You can buy Lisa’s book on the New Theatre here. Sign up to our Patreon now to have the chance to get a free copy of Lisa’s book and support our podcast! Opening and closing music courtesy of Glitter Rats. People’s History of Australia logo design courtesy of Nissenbaum Design design.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, a powerful and radical new movement arose in Australia challenging the widespread oppression that women faced across the country – the women’s liberation movement. Women in Australia in this era had plenty to fight about. It was illegal to get an abortion, and divorce was extremely difficult to obtain. Married women were barred from holding jobs in the public service, and were officially and unofficially excluded from a huge range of industries and occupations. Paid parental leave didn’t exist, and there was no support for single parents. Women weren’t even allowed in pubs – if women wanted to drink, they had to go and sit in a segregated “ladies’ lounge” out the back. Some things however were perfectly legal. It was completely legal for a husband to rape or sexually assault his wife, since marriage was taken to automatically imply consent at all times forever. It was also entirely legal for employers to pay women less than men for doing the same job – ads for jobs would display the male rate of pay for the position, and then the female rate of pay for the position, which was 75% of the male rate. Added to this was a pervasive everyday culture of public sexism and misogyny that touched all areas of life. Fortunately, tens of thousands of women across the country stood up and fought back, fighting for both reforms and for a new kind of society. In this episode, we chat with Janey Stone, who was involved in the women’s liberation movement both in the US and Australia, about this incredible era. You can check out Interventions, the Australian radical publishing house which is led by Janey, here, as well as the Interventions book in which Janey mentions, Rebel Women, here. You can read some of Janey’s other recent writings here, while you can watch a short interview with Janey’s mother Rose about her life and activism here. Check out our upcoming full-day festival on 15 March 2025, Radical Sydney!, here. We now also have a new Patreon account and you can subscribe to support us here! Opening music courtesy of Glitter Rats, closing music courtesy of the Victorian Trade Union Choir. People’s History of Australia logo design courtesy of Nissenbaum Design.

Throughout Australia's history, racism has proven to be a remarkably effective weapon in dividing different groups from each other, despite them sharing the same common enemies and the same interests. Vicious anti-Aboriginal racism was deeply rooted in Australian culture from an early stage, and during the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, there is minimal history of joint struggle between white workers and Aboriginal people. In the 1930s, however, dramatic changes began to take shape. For the first time ever, mass meetings of predominantly white union members began passing motions declaring their solidarity with Aboriginal resistance. White unemployed workers fought alongside unemployed Aboriginal workers. And a huge campaign took shape across the country, with the participation of thousands of white workers, against frontier massacres and violence. At the same time, radical left-wing theory began arguing that Aboriginal people and every other working-class person in Australia had a shared interest in opposing racism and waging united struggles together. To talk about this incredible history and how such a remarkable change took place, we're joined in this episode by Paddy Gibson, an activist, academic and historian, who discusses socialist anti-racist theory in the 19th century, its flaws and how it was modified and challenged by the Communist Part of Australia during 20th century, and the amazing campaigns led by the Communist Party against anti-Aboriginal racism during the 1920s and 1930s. Find full show notes and links for this episode at our website - www.peopleshistory.com.au Support us on Patreon here - www.patreon.com/peopleshistoryofaustralia

In mid-2016, the University of Sydney abruptly announced that it would be closing down its Sydney College of the Arts campus. Within the space of a few months, the internationally-renowned arts school, which had produced scores of famous graduates and offered an almost unique education in visual and fine arts, would be gone, and its students shunted off to another university. Fortunately, students at SCA had other ideas, and waged an epic mass campaign to keep the college open that saw huge meetings, strikes and a student takeover of SCA's administration building. In this episode we interview Kelton Muir, an activist at SCA who's written an honours thesis about the campaign. Find full show notes and links for this episode at our website - www.peopleshistory.com.au Support us on Patreon here - www.patreon.com/peopleshistoryofaustralia

When the British Empire invaded and colonised Australia in 1788, the new ruling class had a problem - there was no pre-existing working class in Australia waiting around to work for them. Their solution was to bring tens of thousands of convict prisoners here against their will as a labour force. Despite often horrendous working conditions and a brutal regime of punishment, convicts fought back, frequently going on strike, rioting, rebelling, escaping to become bushrangers, and engaging in hundreds of thousands of acts of collective and individual resistance. In this episode, we interview Michael Quinlan, UNSW academic and author of new book 'Unfree Workers', about this inspiring history. Find full show notes and links for this episode at our website - www.peopleshistory.com.au Support us on Patreon here - www.patreon.com/peopleshistoryofaustralia

In 1996, newly elected politician Pauline Hanson swept to national prominence after making an extraordinarily racist and inflammatory maiden speech in federal parliament. Capitalising on her notoriety, Hanson announced plans to form a new political party, One Nation, with local branches and a mass membership, and polls indicated she would win widespread support. Anti-racists, however, had other ideas. Huge anti-Hanson rallies were organised in towns and cities across the country, and every attempt to run a public meeting featuring Hanson or build a local party branch was met with large and militant protests that disrupted and often shut her meetings down. Support for One Nation dwindled and by late 1998 the party had collapsed. In this episode we chat with Vashti Fox about the extraordinary movement to defeat Pauline Hanson and prevent the formation of a mass, racist party in Australia. Find full show notes and links for this episode at our website - www.peopleshistory.com.au Support us on Patreon here - www.patreon.com/peopleshistoryofaustralia

In early 1973, over a thousand predominantly Aboriginal workers rose up on strike against their employers in the cotton fields of rural NSW, where they were paid pitiful wages, pushed to work for over ten hours a day, denied rest breaks, and even doused with toxic pesticides as planes sprayed it over fields while workers were still in them. The strike took place at the height of the cotton season and threatened to ruin the entire year’s crop, and within days the petrified cotton-growers had capitulated and granted instant pay rises of almost 50%. In this episode, we're joined by Jordan Humphreys to learn more about this inspiring story. Find full show notes and links for this episode at our website - www.peopleshistory.com.au Support us on Patreon here - www.patreon.com/peopleshistoryofaustralia

The Pilbara is one of the remotest and most economically significant regions not just in Australia, but in the world, with almost indescribably huge quantities of iron ore. In this episode, we chat with Alexis Vassiley about the epic story of Pilbara unionism, from the rise of mining unionism in the 1960s, to the peak of union power in the 1970s when the Pilbara was one of the most militant union strongholds in Australia, through to the total annihilation and destruction of Pilbara unionism in the late 1980s and 1990s. Find full show notes and links for this episode at our website - www.peopleshistory.com.au Support us on Patreon here - www.patreon.com/peopleshistoryofaustralia

In June 1973, the Ford Motor Company's factory in Broadmeadows, Melbourne, exploded with protest. Thousands of migrant workers, who were subject to brutal working conditions and racist company management, staged a 12-week strike, and when their own union officials attempted to force them back to work, they rioted and smashed up the factory - in the process winning huge wage increases and basic respect. In this episode, we speak with Frank Argondizzo, who took part in the strike and was a union activist at Ford for 25 years. Find full show notes and links for this episode at our website - www.peopleshistory.com.au Support us on Patreon here - www.patreon.com/peopleshistoryofaustralia

In May 1969, Clarrie O’Shea, the secretary of the Victorian branch of the tram workers’ union, was jailed for refusing to pay fines his union had been hit with. Within days, over 1,000,000 workers across Australia had gone on strike, O'Shea was released from prison, and the repressive 'Penal Powers' laws he was jailed under, which made strikes illegal, had been rendered dead. Strike rates exploded across Australia, wages skyrocketed, and workers made gains which we still enjoy today. In this episode we chat with Katie Wood, a union delegate and archivist at the University of Melbourne, about the 1969 general strike and what it means for us today. Find full show notes and links for this episode at our website - www.peopleshistory.com.au Support us on Patreon here - www.patreon.com/peopleshistoryofaustralia

In 1971, a Trotskyist revolutionary was elected as the mayor of Leichhardt Municipal Council in Sydney - one of the most unusual developments in Australian political history. This Trotskyist revolutionary was Nick Origlass, who over the course of his life fought the fascist New Guard in the streets of Kings Cross, led thousands of Balmain ironworkers on strike against their own union's policy of sacrificing wages and conditions during World War Two, and then attempted to turn Leichhardt Council into a directly democratic campaigning body that pioneered environmental activism in the 1960s and 1970s. In today's episode, we cover Nick's remarkable life and activism. Find full show notes and links for this episode at our website - www.peopleshistory.com.au Support us on Patreon here - www.patreon.com/peopleshistoryofaustralia

In 1929, the world plunged into the most catastrophic economic crisis in modern history – the Great Depression. With unemployment in Australia standing at over 33% of the workforce by the early 1930s, we look at how unemployed workers across Sydney organised on a massive scale and fought, in the face of vicious police and government repression, for the right of all people to have access to housing, food and the necessities of life irrespective of whether they could afford them or not. In this episode, we chat with author an historian Nadia Wheatley, who carried out pathbreaking research on the Unemployed Workers' Movement in Sydney. Find full show notes and links for this episode at our website - www.peopleshistory.com.au Support us on Patreon here - www.patreon.com/peopleshistoryofaustralia