Afternoon Light

Brian O'Malley on James 'King O'Malley' Malley | Larrikin, Maverick, and "Accused Murderer"

This week on Afternoon Light, we cover the turbulent and theatrical story of 'How James Became King' as detailed by author and historian, Brian O'Malley.James 'King' O'Malley (of no relation to his biographer) is known to history as a larrikin and maverick politician, member of the first Australian Federal Parliament and Federal Minister, whose political career spanned two decades.Arriving from America in the late 1880s he quickly drew attention through his public shenanigans; his theatrical storytelling, fashionable accoutrements, and 'larger than life' Yankee persona.However, his past remained shrouded in mystery. On the other side of the Pacific another mystery remained unresolved. Following the notorious 1882 New Haven, Connecticut, trial and acquittal of James Malley, main suspect in the death of Jennie Cramer, Malley disappears from official records in the north east United States, and the saga begins.

Thea Gardiner, ‘Her main duty in life was to give back’ The Mab Grimwade Story

Mab Grimwade was one of the most important philanthropists in Australian history, yet like many female figures, she seldom appears in the history books. That was until our guest, Thea Gardiner, authored a new biography which reveals the story of Mab and the fascinating world in which she lived. Learn how this amazing woman was able to work within the confines of gender roles to make an enormous contribution to the arts, horticulture and early education in Australia.
Thea Gardiner researches and writes on the place of women in Australian historical memory. She is a PhD candidate in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and is a historian at the archaeology and cultural heritage company Dr Vincent Clark & Associates. She is the author of The World of Mab Grimwade.

Saul Eslake, ‘A distinctive part of life in Australia’ The Declining Dream of Homeownership

Arguably one of the most profound ways in which Sir Robert Menzies shaped modern Australian was by helping to lift homeownership rates from 53% to 71%. Defying a Labor Party that decried the creation of ‘little capitalists’ Menzies forged a property owning democracy where the middle class he championed grew so large that Labor had to reorientate itself to court its votes. But since the 1960s, government at federal, state and even local level have adopted policies which have exaggerated demand and strangulated supply in the housing market. To unpack the historical origins of Australia’s housing crisis and what we can do to fix it, we are joined by Saul Eslake.
Saul Eslake is one of Australia’s best-known economists. He’s been following, analysing and offering commentary and advice on the Australian and other economies for more than 40 years. Since 2015 Saul has been running his own independent economics advisory and consultancy service, Corinna Economic Advisory, from Hobart, Tasmania. Saul does keynote addresses at public and private conferences; participates in panel discussions; presents to boards, investment and asset allocation committees; undertakes customized analyses and reports for corporate, investor, not-for-profit and government clients; has given testimony to Parliamentary Committees; and appears frequently on radio and TV and in the print media in Australia and other countries.

David W. Cameron, ‘We punched well above our weight’ Australians in the Battle of Kapyong, Korea

25 April is eternally associated with the Gallipoli landings, but there is another ferocious battle fought by Australian troops on that date which deserves to be better remembered. That battle is the Battle of Kapyong, waged in the so-called ‘forgotten war’, the Korean War. Between 23-25 April 1951, with exceptional valour, fewer than 1,200 Australian and Canadian infantrymen, supported by New Zealand artillery and 15 American Sherman tanks, held the line against a Chinese Division of over 6,000, significantly thwarting the formidable Chinese August offensive and helping to save Seoul. Hear the incredible story from David W. Cameron, author of Let the Bastards Come reveals: The Battle for Kapyong Korea.
David W. Cameron is a Canberra-based author who has written numerous books on Australian military and convict history, as well as human and primate evolution, including over sixty internationally peer-reviewed papers for various journals and book chapters. He received First Class Honours in Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Sydney and later went on to complete his PhD in palaeoanthropology at the Australian National University. He is a former Australian Research Council (ARC) Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Australian National University (School of Archaeology) and an ARC QEII Fellow at the University of Sydney (Department of Anatomy and Histology). He has participated and led several international fieldwork teams in Australia, the Middle East (Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates), Europe (Hungary) and Asia (Japan, Vietnam and India) and has participated in many conferences and museum studies throughout the world.

Peter Brune, ‘Totally Bipartisan’ How post-war immigration transformed Australia

When World War Two revealed that Australia needed to ‘populate or perish’, Menzies and the Labor Government were in lock step agreement about the need to broaden the sources of Australian immigration beyond the British Isles. But the political leadership faced a far harder task in bringing the nation, which had long been indoctrinated in the dogma of White Australia, along with them. That they succeeded is one of the greatest political and logistical miracles in our history, and one which has forever changed Australia. Joining us on the Afternoon Light Podcast is Peter Brune, author of Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The First Wave of Post-War Australian Immigrants 1945-66.
Want to learn more? Read how Menzies was able to raise homeownership rates while our population boomed past 10 million.
Peter Brune is one of Australia's leading military historians. He is author of the bestselling and highly acclaimed A Bastard of a Place: The Australians in Papua, as well as Those Ragged Bloody Heroes: From the Kokoda Trail to Gona Beach 1942, The Spell Broken: Exploding the Myth of Japanese Invincibility and We Band of Brothers: A Biography of Ralph Honner, Soldier and Statesman and is co-author with Neil McDonald of 200 Shots: Damien Parer and George Silk and The Australians at War in New Guinea.

Stephen Dando-Collins, ‘He was Unrelenting’ The Astonishing Life of Sir Henry Parkes

Sir Henry Parkes has been dubbed the ‘Father of Federation’, but how much do you know about him? Fleeing poverty in England to seek opportunity in Australia, he found immense political success, that went hand in hand with repeated financial failure. The ‘Grand Old Man’ of New South Wales politics, he was tremendously charismatic and became notorious for marrying much younger women, who fathered him a total of 17 children. However, such indiscretions can be forgiven of a man who helped found not just our nation, but also our system of universal primary education. Joining us to discuss Parkes’s remarkable story is biographer Stephen Dando-Collins.
Stephen Dando-Collins is the award-winning author of 45 books, including histories, biographies and even children’s novels. The majority of his works deal with military history ranging from Greek and Roman times to American 19th century history and World War I and World War II. His book Sir Henry Parkes: The Australian Colossus was published ahead of the 200th anniversary of Parkes’s birth in 2015.

Lauren Samuelsson, ‘We don’t have a cuisine, but we do have a food culture’ The history of what Aussies eat

Many people assume that before the advent of multiculturalism Australia had little in the way of food culture. But while things certainly weren’t as diverse, in their own way they were interesting, unique and constantly evolving. In the ‘working man’s paradise’ people prided themselves on being able to eat meat three times a day, while our recent penchant for TV cooking competitions is arguably just an outgrowth of trying to win ‘best scone’ at the local agricultural show. The heart of Australia’s evolving food culture from the 1930s was the Australian Women’s Weekly, which per capita was the most read such publication in the world. By 1944 it was already teaching Australians how to make ‘Mock Chicken Chow Mein’, in which the chicken was rabbit and soy sauce could be substituted for Worcestershire. Joining us to discuss Australia’s fascinating culinary history is food historian Dr Lauren Samuelsson.
Dr Lauren Samuelsson is a food historian who did her PhD thesis researching the way that the Australian Women's Weekly influenced Australian food culture from the 1930s through to the 1980s. She has had articles published in History Australia, Australian Historical Studies, and The Conversation. She received the Ken Inglis Postgraduate Prize (2018) and received a high commendation in the 2020 Jill Roe Prize.

Peter Job, ‘Shrewdly Compromised’ Australia’s Brutal Sell-out of East Timor

When Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 under the pretext of intervening in an existing civil war, Australia publicly defended their actions. But the terrible reality was that Australia’s leaders and diplomats knew the truth; that Indonesia had instigated the conflict for their own advantage, and moreover the Australians had been actively complicit in the turn of events which soon escalated into major atrocities. Both sides of politics must share the blame for one of the most shameful episodes in the history of our handling of foreign affairs. Joining us on the Afternoon Light Podcast is Dr Peter Job, who has spent many years exhaustively researching A Narrative of Denial.
Dr Peter Job is the author of A Narrative of Denial: Australia and the Indonesian violation of East Timor. He was involved in the East Timor support movement during the Indonesian occupation, including working on the radio link to Fretilin in 1978. He has a PhD in International and Political Studies from the University of New South Wales in Canberra.

Jennifer Clark, ‘There’s Sputnik, what’s your answer?’ Revolutionising Australian science education

When the Soviet satellite Sputnik entered Earth’s orbit in October 1957 it caused panic throughout much of the West. This ‘beeping bauble’ was seen as an existential threat, that exposed democracies as being too preoccupied with consumer luxuries over scientific endeavour. In response, both Eisenhower and Menzies resolved calmly but resolutely to fix their nation’s systems of science education, to first compete with the Russians and then prepare for the future. Our guest Professor Jennifer Clark tells the untold story behind Menzies’s 1964 advent of Commonwealth funding for secondary schools, which was about more that the headline sectarian issue of ‘state aid’.
Want to learn more? Read about how the Menzies Government helped America win the space race.
Professor Jennifer Clark is a Professor of History at the University of Adelaide. Holding a PhD from the University of Sydney, she was a Harkness Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and, most recently, a Redmond Barry Fellow to State Library of Victoria. She was until recently Head of the School of Humanities, University of Adelaide.

Ross McMullin, ‘Yes Mr. Watson’ Our First Labor PM

Did you know that Australia was home to the first labour national government in the world? As the first Labor PM and first Federal leader of the ALP, Chris Watson is seldom remembered as more than the answer to a trivia question. Yet this should not be the case, as he has a remarkable story that reveals the Labor perspective on the emergence of our enduring party system. Hear how a humble boy born in odd circumstances off the coast of Chile ended up rising to the highest position in our nation. Joining us this week on the Afternoon Light Podcast is Watson’s biographer Ross McMullin. 
Want to learn more? Listen to the other side of the story from Watson’s contemporary & Liberal Prime Minister Joseph Cook.
Ross McMullin is an award-winning historian, biographer, and storyteller. His biographies include Pompey Elliott, which won multiple awards, and Will Dyson: Australia’s radical genius, and he also assembled Elliott’s extraordinary letters in Pompey Elliott at War: in his own words. His political histories comprise The Light on the Hill and So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the world’s first national labour government. His book Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History.