History Lab

By the early 1990s, AIDS had reached its devastating peak in Darlinghurst. Obituaries filled the pages of the Star Observer, funerals became routine. Sickness and loss touched almost every friendship and street in the neighbourhood.

In this episode, we move inside the hospitals, hospices and homes where nurses, carers and volunteers supported a generation of young men facing terminal illness. Beyond the wards, grief and anger spilled into public life — through candlelight vigils, the AIDS Memorial Quilt, and growing activism demanding faster access to life-saving drugs.

Then, in 1996, combination therapies changed the course of the epidemic. Soon, for the first time in a decade, the Star Observer ran without a single obituary. But survival came with a new question: how do you rebuild a life — and a community — after so much loss?

This episode explores the final grueling years of the crisis and its aftermath — and the complex and unruly legacies it left for generations to come.

Voices

Narrator: Regina Botros

Historian: Leigh Boucher

Interviewees: Pierre Touma, Lizzie Griggs, Bill Patterson, Frank McCabe, Billy Kokkinos, Tim Vincent, Sara Lubowitz, Bruce Carter, Tess Ziems, Scott Petrie and Ian Innes.

Archive voice actors: Sam David Harris and Michael J Ryan.

Radio news and current affairs archive from Gaywaves, 2SER.

Credits

This special History Lab Original series was created on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.

Produced, written and narrated by Regina Botros, in collaboration with Macquarie University historian Leigh Boucher.

Story development by Leigh Boucher and Michelle Ransom-Hughes.

Interviews by Leigh Boucher.

Research assistance from Eli Branagh.

Story and script editing by Sarah Gilbert.

History Lab is a UTS Impact Studios production, in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS.

Support

This podcast was made with the support of the support of the Paul Ramsay Foundation and is part of the Foundation's Darlinghurst Public History Initiative, a collaboration with UTS' Australian Centre for Public History and Impact Studios.

Thanks to Macquarie University for its support of this series.

A special thanks goes to the staff and management of City Gym, Darlinghurst, for their generous hospitality. Heartfelt thanks also to Anni Turnbull at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney for her time and expertise, and to the Australian Queer Archives.

Thanks also to the National Library of Australia, the State Library of New South Wales, ACON and the Pride History Group Sydney.

Further reading

To learn more about the history and complex legacies of AIDS in Darlinghurst, read these articles by Leigh Boucher:

Reciting the names of the dead: how Australia's response to HIV/Aids was emotionally - and politically - powerful, Guardian Australia, 1 Dec 2025.

What have we lost with 2026's Mardi Gras Parade after party cancellation?, Star Observer, 13 Feb 2026.

By the mid-1980s, the epidemic had taken hold in Darlinghurst. Fear was rising, homophobia was intensifying, and uncertainty shaped everyday life. Who had the virus? What did a positive test mean? And could the state be trusted with that information?

In this episode, historian Leigh Boucher moves into the heart of the crisis as the neighbourhood marshals every last drop of queer energy, love, creativity and strength to hold back the tide. Safe sex campaigns and innovative health responses proliferate – in bars, on dance floors and among squat racks.

For Peter Vincent and his friends, the party is far from over, even as they face the stark reality of a disease without a cure and the homophobic judgment beyond the gaybourhood. This is Darlinghurst – dancing as fast as it can.

Voices

Narrator: Regina Botros

Historian: Leigh Boucher

Interviewees: Bill Patterson, Lizzie Griggs, Frank McCabe, Tim Vincent, Pierre Touma, Bruce Carter, Scott Petrie and Sara Lubowitz.

Archive voice actors: Sam David Harris and Michael J Ryan.

Radio news and current affairs archive from Gaywaves, 2SER.

Credits

This special History Lab Original series was created on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.

Produced, written and narrated by Regina Botros, in collaboration with Macquarie University historian Leigh Boucher.

Story development by Leigh Boucher and Michelle Ransom-Hughes.

Interviews by Leigh Boucher.

Research assistance from Eli Branagh.

Story and script editing by Sarah Gilbert.

History Lab is a UTS Impact Studios production, in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS.

Support

This podcast was made with the support of the support of the Paul Ramsay Foundation and is part of the Foundation's Darlinghurst Public History Initiative, a collaboration with UTS' Australian Centre for Public History and Impact Studios.

Thanks to Macquarie University for its support of this series.

A special thanks goes to the staff and management of City Gym, the Albion Centre and ACON's Needle and Syringe Program for their generous hospitality.

In the late 1970s and early 80s, Sydney’s Darlinghurst was the place to be for queer fun, sex and joy – all bubbling alongside a measure of danger.

Packed bars, late-night gyms, house music, new friendships and the thrill of seeing and being seen. For many, this was the place to connect, to belong, to “grow up under the mirror ball.”

In the first episode of this three-part series, historian Leigh Boucher steps into that world of parties, cruising, chosen families and hard-won freedom — a queer neighbourhood alive with possibility.

But as the music plays and the nights stretch on, whispers of a mysterious illness begin to circulate.

To understand how that powerful, fragile world of Darlinghurst felt and moved, Leigh talks to ordinary people who lived there and built the “gaybourhood” from the ground up.

How might their stories help us to a fresh understanding of a history we think we know?

Voices

Narrator: Regina Botros

Historian: Leigh Boucher

Interviewees: Pierre Touma, Sara Lubowitz, Bruce Carter, Gary Dunne, Lizzie Griggs, Tess Ziems and Frank McCabe.

Archive: Dr Jim Curran and Dr Ron Penny (courtesy of Gaywaves, 2SER)

Archive voice actors: Sam David Harris and Michael J Ryan.

Radio news and current affairs archive from Gaywaves, 2SER.

Credits

This special History Lab Original series was created on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.

Produced, written and narrated by Regina Botros, in collaboration with Macquarie University historian Leigh Boucher.

Story development by Leigh Boucher and Michelle Ransom-Hughes.

Interviews by Leigh Boucher.

Research assistance from Eli Branagh.

Story and script editing by Sarah Gilbert.

History Lab is a UTS Impact Studios production, in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS.

Support

This podcast was made with the support of the support of the Paul Ramsay Foundation and is part of the Foundation's Darlinghurst Public History Initiative, a collaboration with UTS' Australian Centre for Public History and Impact Studios.

Thanks to Macquarie University for its support of this series.

A special thanks goes to the staff and management of City Gym, Darlinghurst, for their generous hospitality.

Australia’s response to HIV and AIDS is often remembered as a national success story — one shaped by public health policy, activism and community action.

But how does that history change when you zoom in close?

Darlinghurst’s AIDS Crisis is a three-part History Lab Original series with historian Leigh Boucher. Focusing on the Sydney neighbourhood at the centre of the epidemic, the series traces how the crisis was lived day by day — through friendships and care networks, and in the hospital wards, gyms, bars and streets of Darlo.

Hearing the stories of ordinary people, many of them sharing their stories for the first time, you'll discover how their voices help us revisit this familiar history, and make it anew.

Episode 1 lands on Thursday, February 19, so subscribe to History Lab now.

Voices

Narrator: Regina Botros

Historian: Leigh Boucher

Interviewees: Sara Lubowitz, Pierre Touma, Frank McCabe and Lizzie Griggs.

Archive voice actor: Sam David Harris

Credits

This special History Lab Original series was created on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.

Produced, written and narrated by Regina Botros, in collaboration with Macquarie University historian Leigh Boucher.

Story development by Leigh Boucher and Michelle Ransom-Hughes.

Interviews by Leigh Boucher.

Research assistance from Eli Branagh.

Story and script editing by Sarah Gilbert.

History Lab is a UTS Impact Studios production, in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS.

Support

This podcast was made with the support of the support of the Paul Ramsay Foundation and is part of the Foundation's Darlinghurst Public History Initiative, a collaboration with UTS' Australian Centre for Public History and Impact Studios.

Thanks to Macquarie University for its support of this series.

Professor Heather Goodall was a pioneering historian whose research transformed understandings of Indigenous history, both in her field and in the broader community. Her work demonstrated a deep personal and professional commitment to social and environmental justice. In this episode we pay tribute to her and celebrate her legacy.

Heather died peacefully on 29 January 2026, aged 75. In this special episode, we hear her reflecting on her life’s work — more than five decades of historical research, teaching and community engagement.

Across two in-depth conversations with UTS historian Anna Clark, Heather traces the intellectual, political and personal threads that connect her work: oral history, Aboriginal land rights, rivers and environments, Indian Ocean networks, labour activism and the ethics of historical practice.

This is a conversation about history as activism, about place and belonging, and about the long afterlives of colonial power — but also about resilience, curiosity, and the joy of intellectual work done in company with others.

In Heather’s own words, “Scholarship can sit alongside activism, relationships and responsibility — it doesn’t have to be separate from life.”

From the Darling River to Salt Pan Creek, from Indian seamen in wartime Australia to the Battle of Surabaya and Indonesian independence, Heather’s scholarship consistently centred on people whose histories were ignored, dismissed, or actively erased — and asks what historians owe to the communities whose stories they tell.

To learn more about Professor Goodall, see her obituary published by the Royal Society of New South Wales,

Guests

Professor Heather Goodall was an Australian historian whose work spanned Aboriginal history, labour history, environmental history, Indian Ocean studies, and public history.

A leading figure in oral history and community-based research, she worked closely with Aboriginal organisations, activists, educators and communities for decades, helping to reshape how history is researched, written and shared in Australia.

Her publications include influential studies of the Darling River, Aboriginal land rights, Indian seamen and soldiers, and the Georges River, among many others. In 2025, she was awarded the History Council of NSW’s Annual Citation for fifty years of historical research and community engagement. Her book Invasion to Embassy won the 1996, NSW Premier Prize for Australian History. Over a long career at UTS, Goodall became a leading figure in Australian historiography, recognised through major ARC grants and influential publications. She was appointed Emeritus Professor on her retirement in 2016.

Associate Professor Anna Clark is an historian and public commentator based at the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS. Her book, Making Australian History, was published by Penguin in 2022 and was longlisted for a Walkley Award and an NIB Literary Award. I'm also the creator of the successful podcast for primary schools, Hey History!

Credits

Executive Producer, Sarah Gilbert. Mixed by Siobhan Moylan

Find more episodes of History Lab wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of History Lab Live, historians and political analysts step back from the daily churn to review the May 2025 Australian federal election through a long lens: a decisive Labor victory built on an historically low primary vote, a further erosion of the major-party duopoly, and a growing sense that Australian politics is both shifting, and hollowing out.

Is this a genuine realignment, or an old pattern repeating under new conditions?

Our guests track the election’s deeper storylines: the long decline of two-party dominance, the changing geography of power, the rise of “anti-politics”, and the way class, gender and asset ownership are now reshaping who votes for whom.

Hosted by Dr Emily Foley, this thoughtful, historically informed conversation brings together George Megalogenis, Frank Bongiorno, Ben Spies-Butcher and Elizabeth Humphreys to reflect on where Australian democracy has been — and where it may be headed.

Guests

George Megalogenis has thirty years’ experience in the media, including over a decade in the federal parliamentary press gallery. His book The Australian Moment won the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-fiction and the 2012 Walkley Award for Non-fiction. He is also author of Faultlines, The Longest Decade, Australia’s Second Chance, The Football Solution and three Quarterly Essays.

Frank Bongiorno is an Historian at the Australian National University. Author of "Dreamers and Schemers: A Political History of Australia" (November 2022)

Ben Spies-Butcher teaches Economy and Society in the School of Communication, Society and Culture. He is Deputy Director of the Macquarie University Housing and Urban Research Centre and co-director of the Australian Basic Income Lab.

Elizabeth Humphreys is a political economist of labour and work, and the Head of Discipline of Social and Political Sciences at UTS. Her book, How Labour Built Neoliberalism, was described in the Sydney Review of Books as a ‘tremendously important’ contribution to understanding economic change in Australia’s recent past.

Credits

This episode was introduced by Tamson Pietsch and mixed by Siobhan Moylan.

History Lab is an impact studios podcast. Its Executive Producer is Sarah Gilbert.

In this episode of History Lab Live, we bring you a conversation about the joys and challenges of translating Australian history to television.

Writer and academic Julianne Schultz joins director Benjamin Jones and producer Darren Dale to discuss the process of adapting her book, The Idea of Australia, into a four‑part documentary series for SBS. Their exchange highlights the creative decisions, editorial tensions and narrative strategies that are all part of turning big, sometimes challenging historical ideas into entertaining and informative television.

Recorded live at Gleebooks and hosted by the ABC’s Cassie McCullough, the discussion explores:

• how the team mined Australia’s vast screen archive to build a visual language for the series
• the responsibility of telling national stories that deal with both pride and pain
• the challenge of engaging the TikTok generation while doing justice to complex histories
• how they used the medium to explore the contradictions at the heart of Australia's history and self-mythology
• the translation process from page to screen: what is lost, what is gained, and what surprised them

If you haven’t watched the series yet, all four episodes — hosted by actor Rachel Griffiths — are still available on SBS On Demand.

This episode is brought to you in partnership with our friends at Gleebooks. Head to the Gleebooks events page to discover more great history events featuring some of Australia’s best and best known authors.

Credits

This episode was introduced by Tamson Pietsch, and mixed by Siobhan Moylan.

History Lab is an Impact Studios podcast. Its executive producer is Sarah Gilbert.

History Lab Live presents the 2025 David Scott Mitchell Oration, delivered by Kim Williams at the State Library of New South Wales.

A passionate advocate for the arts, media, and public institutions, Williams—currently Chair of the ABC—offers a sweeping and deeply personal reflection on the role of libraries and memory institutions in preserving truth, fostering democracy, and inspiring creativity.

The episode is brought to you in partnership with the State Library of New South Wales. Williams delivered his oration at the Library, on Gadigal land, on 25 June, 2025.

Kim Williams AM has had a long involvement in the arts, entertainment and media industries here and overseas and has held various leadership positions since the late 1970s, including as Chief Executive at News Corp Australia, Foxtel, Fox Studios Australia, the Australian Film Commission, Southern Star Entertainment and Music Viva Australia.

History Lab is an Impact Studios podcast, made in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS.

Caribbean Convicts weaves together the story of the Caribbean men who arrived in Sydney onboard the convict ship the Moffatt on August 30, 1836. Most had been enslaved, including William Buchanan, a Jamaican man transported for participating in the Christmas Day slave uprising in Jamaica in 1831-32.

Join historical novelist Sienna Brown as she explores the diverse fates of Buchanan and the other men who arrived that day. As they fanned out across the country, some became bushrangers, others stalwarts of the community, but they all worked hard to make a new home for themselves.

Voices

Cassandra Pybus is a FAHA Fellow and specialises in historical narratives about people who have been marginalised, forgotten or written out of history. An award-winning author she has published 13 books including Black Founders: The Unknown Story of Australia’s First Black Settlers and the bestselling biography, Truganini. She has held research professorships at the University of Sydney, Georgetown University in Washington DC, the University of Texas and King’s College London.

Elizabeth Wiedemann is a local historian in Inverell, NSW.

Marg Young is a relative through marriage of Dick Holt, Richard Holt’s Son who is featured in the program.

Felix Cross is a composer, director and producer whose work has been performed nationally and internationally. From 1996 to 2015, he was the Artistic Director of Nitro/Black Theatre Co-op in England, developing and producing new musical-theatre from a black British perspective. He also worked as a composer for a number of major theatre companies in England. In 2012, he was awarded an MBE for services to Musical Theatre. In 2013 he moved with his family to Australia, working as a freelance director and composer. In 2025, he’s living back in London, while studying for a PhD at Western Sydney University.

Michael St George is one of the most unique performance artists to have emerged from Jamaica. Of Maroon heritage, he’s a poet/singer/songwriter who has worked with national and international artists and dedicates his work to equity, justice and universal love. St George uses poetry and music to dismantle borders, celebrate the power of diversity and self-elevation. The Ontario Federation of Labour presented St. George with the Art and Culture Award for outstanding contribution to his field.

Archival documents read by Scott Cumming and Christian Price

Credits

This series was produced on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and Burramatagal people of the Dharug nation.

Narrator, writer, and producer: Sienna Brown

Sound recordist, writer, and producer: Ben Etherington

Supervising producer: Jane Curtis, UTS Impact Studios

Executive producer: Sarah Gilbert, UTS Impact Studios

Sound designer and engineer: John Jacobs

An earlier version of this episode was made for the ABC Radio National's History Listen programme, with Michelle Rayner as Executive Producer.

Support

The research for this series was funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project Creole Voices in the Caribbean and Australia: Poetics and Decolonisation (DP220101256).

We are also grateful to the Writing and Society Research Centre and School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University for their generous support in the production of this series.

In this special episode of Caribbean Echoes, series producers Ben Etherington and Sienna Brown are in conversation with star Jamaican-Australian actress Zahra Newman and acclaimed playwright Alana Valentine.

They discuss the making of the series and how performance emerged as a key theme across it. Zahra reflects on being a Black Caribbean-Australian actor today, and the persistence of the racial politics that afflicted earlier generations of Caribbean immigrants.

Alana takes us through the joys of bringing Nellie Small, the subject of History Lab episode 33, back to the stage in her cabaret Send for Nellie! And we hear about Nellie’s solidarity with Indigenous performers.

The panel also talks bloopers and highlights from their performing careers in this conversation recorded in a packed room at the Abercrombie Hotel in Sydney on October 23, 2025.

Guests

Zahra Newman was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, and moved to Australia at age 14. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Newman has an extensive list of credits in theatre, television, and film. Notable works include her performance as Nabalungi in the original Australian cast of The Book of Mormon, and her lead role in the adaptation of Maxine Beneba Clarke’s memoir The Hate Race. She has received a Green Room Award, a Sydney Theatre Award, and multiple Helpmann Award nominations. Newman played all 23 characters in the Sydney Theatre Company’s recent one-person production of Dracula.

Alana Valentine is a librettist, playwright, and director who has had a long and celebrated career. One highlight is working with acclaimed First Nations performer, Ursula Yovich, on Barbara and The Camp Dogs, which toured nationally, was the recipient of four Helpmann Awards including Best Original Score and Best Musical and four Green Room Awards in Melbourne. She’s collaborated with the First nations choreographer and director Stephen Page on eight works including the multi-award winning Bennelong and the Opera ceremony Baleen Moondjan, which has just played the Brisbane Festival in 2025. Her cabaret Send For Nellie, which repositioned vaudeville legend Nellie Small in the Queer cultural firmament, debuted at the Sydney Festival in 2024.

Jamaican-born Sienna Brown writes historical fiction that centres on the Caribbean Experience in Australia. Her novel Master of My Fate (2019), won the MUD Literary Prize at Adelaide Writers Week for the best debut novel and was shortlisted for the ARA Historical Novel Prize. In 2021, she was commissioned by ABC Radio National to create Caribbean Convicts in Australia. Since 2022, she's been a Research Associate at Western Sydney University as part of the ARC Discovery Project Creole Voices in the Caribbean and Australia.

Ben Etherington is an associate professor at Western Sydney University. His teaching and critical work centres on literary decolonisation and he’s currently writing a history of poetry in West Indian Creole languages from the end of slavery to independence. Ben has produced a number audio features including a documentary for ABC Radio National on Gangallida activist Clarence Walden, which he co-produced with Waanyi author Alexis Wright. His book Literary Primitivism (2018) won the Australian University Heads of English prize for literary scholarship and, from 2026, he will be an Australian Research Council Future Fellow working on the project The Decolonisation of Literary Culture.

Credits

This series was produced on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and Burramatagal people of the Dharug nation.

Writer and producer: Ben Etherington

Producer: Sienna Brown

Supervising producer: Jane Curtis

Executive producer: Sarah Gilbert

Sound designer and engineer: Simon Branthwaite

The research for this series was funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project Creole Voices in the Caribbean and Australia: Poetics and Decolonisation (DP220101256). We are also grateful to the Writing and Society Research Centre and School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University for their generous support in the production of this series.

When citing this episode, please use this reference:

Brown, S., Etherington, B., & Curtis, J. (2025, September 26). Caribbean Echoes. In History Lab. UTS Impact Studios. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18218321