Afternoon Light

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. 

William Coleman, ‘Australia’s Sham Federation’ The flawed process which produced our Commonwealth

Was federation a mistake? While many can find flaws in the workings of our federal system, few have had the gall to question the triumphal tone of our founding narrative. That was until the recent publication of the provocative and iconoclastic book Their Fiery Cross of Union: A Retelling of the Creation of the Australian Federation, 1889-1914. In this week’s Afternoon Light podcast, we are joined by its author William Coleman, who argues that we should be wary of automatically revering our political inheritance. 
Want to learn more? Read the papers from the 2019 ‘Demytholigising Australia’s Federation Episode’ Conference, published in Agenda.
William Coleman is a Reader in the School of Economics at ANU. He is widely published in the History of Economic Thought and contemporary economic controversies. He was the convenor of the ‘Demythologising Federation’ Conference held at Fremantle in 2019, and is the author of Their Fiery Cross Of Union: A Retelling of the Creation of the Australian Federation, 1889-1914. 

Frank Bongiorno, ‘A vision of the good society’ The Dreamers & Schemers of Australian political history

Distilling the essence of Australia’s political history is an incredibly complex task. To understand the full picture, you certainly cannot begin in 1901, nor can you focus on events purely at the Commonwealth level. One of Australia’s leading historians has recently attempted the great feat of writing a single volume political history of our nation, and the story he tells will help you gain a greater insight into your own country. Joining us on the Afternoon Light podcast is Professor Frank Bongiorno, author of Dreamers and Schemers: A Political History of Australia.
Want to hear more from Frank? Watch him give a paper at our first annual conference in 2021.
Frank Bongiorno is professor of history at the Australian National University and president of the Australian Historical Association. One of Australia’s most respected historians, he is the author of several award-winning histories, including The Eighties: The Decade That Transformed Australia and The Sex Lives of Australians.

Ryan Cropp, ‘The world that he was renouncing’ Donald Horne & the Lucky Country

Donald Horne’s The Lucky Country is one of the most iconic books ever written on Australia. While many people miss the ironic nature of the title, the work helped to establish the stereotype of the 1950s and early 60s as a dull and suffocating period in which nothing much happened in our nation. But who was Horne, and what caused him to have such cynicism about the state of his country? Joining us to unpack Horne's fascinating story is biographer Ryan Cropp.
Dr Ryan Cropp, writer and historian, is a Research Fellow at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Donald Horne: A Life in the Luck Country. His writing has appeared in Australian Book Review, Overland and Inside Story.

Summer Series 2023-4 Part 6: Stephen Wilks, Lyndon Megarrity & Gregory Melleuish

In this special summer series of the Afternoon Light podcast you can enjoy the presentations delivered at our November 2023 conference entitled ‘The Menzies Ascendency: Implementing a Liberal Agenda and Consolidating Gains 1954-1961’. This sixth episode features Stephen Wilks’s paper ‘Falling Dully On His Ears: Menzies, Bolte, and the Travails of Australian Federalism’, Lyndon Megarrity’s paper ‘Menzies, Queensland and the 1961 Election’ (begins 23:26), and Greg Melleuish’s paper ‘Was Menzies Lucky?’ (begins 44:25).
Dr Stephen Wilks studied economic history at Monash University before embarking on a mixed career in government based in Canberra and overseas. This was leavened by a shadow career writing reviews and articles on Australian history and much else, prior to returning to study in the School of History at ANU. He is now a Lecturer in the ANU’s National Centre of Biography, and is author of ‘Now is the Psychological Moment’: Earle Page and the Imagining of Australia (ANU Press, 2020). He recently completed a project funded by the Department of the House of Representatives, published by ANU Press as ‘Order, Order!’: A Biographical Dictionary of Speakers, Deputy Speakers and Clerks of the Australian House of Representatives, and is now researching the Bolte premiership.
Dr Lyndon Megarrity is adjunct lecturer at James Cook University in Townsville and teaches history and political science. His research interests include Queensland, Northern Australia, and overseas student policy. He is also the author or co-author of several books, including Northern Dreams: The Politics of Northern Development in Australia, which won the 2019 Chief Minister’s Northern Territory History Book Award. With Carolyn Holbrook and David Lowe, he co-edited Lessons from History (NewSouth, 2022), a collection of essays on contemporary issues and debates informed by history. Megarrity’s forthcoming book will be the first ever biography of Dr Rex Patterson, Minister for Northern Australia in the Whitlam Government.
Professor Gregory Melleuish is a Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong, where he teaches, among other things, Australian politics. He has written widely on Australian political thought, including Cultural Liberalism in Australia (1995) and Despotic State or Free Individual (2014), and is considered one of the leading experts on Australian liberalism and conservatism. He co-wrote The Forgotten Menzies (2021) with Stephen Chavura and has also published peer-reviewed journal articles discussing Menzies.