The Dead Can't Sue

Alfred Deakin may be known as a father of federation, but as a teenager he loved to commune with the dead. 

In part one of Deakin's story, Leigh tries to make sense of Deakin's spiritualism (good luck) and grapples with some of the more troubling parts of our second prime minister's legacy. 

Plus, Leigh reveals a truly withering school report Deakin received, and the scoop on the politician's emotional menage-a-trois with his wife and his sister. 

 SOURCES 

Deakin, Alfred. Papers of Alfred Deakin, 1804–1973, principally 1880–1919. MS 1540. National Library of Australia, Canberra. 

Deakin, Alfred. “Aboriginal Natives: Whether Half-Castes to Be Included in Count for Reckoning Population.” Opinion no. 13, August 29, 1901. Australian Government Solicitor.

Deakin, Alfred. From Our Special Correspondent: Alfred Deakin’s Letters to the London Morning Post. Edited by Dianne Heriot. Vols. 1–10. Canberra: Australian Parliamentary Library, Department of Parliamentary Services, 2019–2023. 

Deakin, Alfred. The Federal Story: The Inner History of the Federal Cause, 1880–1900. Edited by J. A. La Nauze. 2nd ed. Parkville, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 1963. Electronic reproduction, University of Sydney Library, 2000. 

Deakin, Alfred. The Crisis in Victorian Politics, 1879–1881: A Personal Retrospect. Edited by J. A. La Nauze and R. M. Crawford. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1957. 

Brett, Judith. The Enigmatic Mr Deakin. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2017.  

Cahir, Fred, and Dan Tout. “‘All That Appears Possible Now Is to Mitigate as Much as Possible the Trials of Their Closing Years’: Alfred Deakin’s Attitudes to Aboriginal Affairs.” Australian Journal of Politics & History 64, no. 2 (2018): 177–93 

Hearn, Mark. “‘Industrial Defence against the Whole World’: Deakinite New Protection as Narrative of Global Modernity.” Journal of Australian Studies 42, no. 3 (2018): 343–56 

Lake, Marilyn. “‘The Brightness of Eyes and Quiet Assurance Which Seem to Say American’: Alfred Deakin’s Identification with Republican Manhood.” Australian Historical Studies 38, no. 129 (2007): 32–51. 

Rickard, John. A Family Romance: The Deakins at Home. Carlton South, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 1996.  

Macintyre, Stuart. “Alfred Deakin.” in Australian Prime Ministers, edited by Michelle Grattan, Sydney: New Holland, 2000. 

IMAGE/VIDEO CREDITS 

Portrait of Bennelong by James Neagle, National Library of Australia, nla.obj-1989529 

• Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
• Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
• Producer: Hannah Jose
• Video producer: Christian Harimanow
• Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
• Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
• Theme: Martin Peralta
• Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves

Eddie Koiki Mabo brings the black-robed and bewigged barristers of the High Court to the remote island paradise of Mer, showing them his claim to... half the island. 

Back on the mainland, Koiki faces days of gruelling cross-examination and questions that challenge his very sense of self.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this episode mentions the name of an Indigenous person who has passed.

Special thanks to ABC's senior cultural advisor Miriam Corowa. 

SOURCES 

Mabo: Life of an Island Man, 1997, directed by Trevor Graham

Noel Loos and Eddie Mabo, Edward Koiki Mabo: His Life and Struggle for land rights, UQP, 1996. 

https://www.mabonativetitle.com/info/eMbMLetter2.htm

https://www.mabonativetitle.com/info/eMBCS.htm

• Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
• Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
• Producer: Hannah Jose
• Video producer: Christian Harimanow
• Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
• Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
• Theme: Martin Peralta
• Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves

The name Mabo is almost synonymous with the phrase 'native title' in the Australian consciousness. But behind his fight for native title, who was Eddie Koiki Mabo? 

And why was he exiled from the island he went on to make a land claim over? 

Alecia retraces Eddie Koiki Mabo's life of adventure, heartbreak and determination. From the small island of Mer to the 1950s pearling boats to the segregated streets of Townsville, in part 1 of his story. 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this episode mentions the name of an Indigenous person who has passed.

Special thanks to ABC's senior cultural advisor Miriam Corowa. 

 SOURCES 

Mabo: Life of an Island Man, 1997, directed by Trevor Graham

Noel Loos and Eddie Mabo, Edward Koiki Mabo: His Life and Struggle for land rights, UQP, 1996. 

Japanese divers in Broome | National Museum of Australia

https://www.mabonativetitle.com/info/eMbMLetter2.htm

https://www.mabonativetitle.com/info/eMBCS.htm

• Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
• Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
• Producer: Hannah Jose
• Video producer: Christian Harimanow
• Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
• Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
• Theme: Martin Peralta
• Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves

HELP! We are doing a listener survey and we want to hear from you. It's your turn to tell us what you really think - click here and complete the short survey.

The White Australia Policy seems to be the spectre haunting many episodes of our podcast/Australian history. This week we meet Daisy Kwok, just one Chinese Australian whose life was changed by one of the world's worst immigration policies.  Born in Sydney in 1909 in the lap of luxury, Daisy and her family leave Australia, fleeing racism but also chasing further riches in Shanghai in the 1920s, the ‘Paris of the East’. 

There Daisy becomes an it-girl of the bustling cosmopolitan boom town before things come crashing down (can you hear the clap of thunder of the communist revolution in the distance?). 

SOURCES 

Kwok, Daisy. Shanghai Daisy: The Autobiography of Daisy Kwok. Edited by Tess Johnston and Graham Earnshaw. Hong Kong: Earnshaw Books, 2019. 

Brown, Jeremy, and Paul G. Pickowicz, eds. Dilemmas of Victory: The Early Years of the People’s Republic of China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. 

Chen, Danyan. Shanghai Princess: Her Survival with Pride & Dignity. New York: Better Link Press, 2010. 

Fitzgerald, Shirley. Red Tape, Gold Scissors: The Story of Sydney’s Chinese. Sydney: Halstead Press, 2008 

Henriot, Christian, and Wen-hsin Yeh  In the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Shanghai under Japanese Occupation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 

Loy-Wilson, Sophie. “Daisy Kwok’s Shanghai: Life in China before and after 1949.” In Locating Chinese Women: Historical Mobility between China and Australia, edited by Kate Bagnall and Julia T. Martínez. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2021. 

Loy-Wilson, Sophie. Australians in Shanghai: Race, Rights and Nation in Treaty Port China. London: Routledge, 2017. 

Listen to the RN Earshot episode about Daisy

• Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
• Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
• Producer: Hannah Jose
• Video producer: Christian Harimanow
• Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
• Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
• Theme: Martin Peralta
• Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves

HELP! We are doing a listener survey and we want to hear from you. It's your turn to tell us what you really think - click here and complete the short survey.

Sharpen your knives and joins us as we dissect the recipe for Joh Bjelke-Petersen's political magic and figure out how he held onto the premiership for decades, despite his truly staggering corruption. 

Then we dine out on Joh’s downfall (could the Fitzgerald Inquiry report be the read of 1987?!), before asking whether Joh really deserves his reputation as Australia's number one political villain. 

Plus, Leigh comes for the fourth estate (hey, that's us!). 

SOURCES 

Bjelke-Petersen, Joh. The Joh Tapes on Leadership. Interviews produced by Richard Lancaster and Barry Martin. Seven-part video oral-history collection. Accession 720849. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane. 

Bjelke-Petersen, Joh. Don’t You Worry about That! The Joh Bjelke-Petersen Memoirs. North Ryde, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1990. 

Queensland. Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct. Report of a Commission of Inquiry Pursuant to Orders in Council. Chaired by G. E. Fitzgerald. Brisbane: Queensland Government Printer, 1989.  

Megarrity, Lyndon. “The Lion and the Fox: Whitlam, Bjelke-Petersen and the Queensland Electorate, 1961–1975.” ANU Historical Journal II, no. 3 (2022): 23–52 

Robinson, Shirleene. “Homophobia as Party Politics: The Construction of the ‘Homosexual Deviant’ in Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Queensland.” Queensland Review 17, no. 1 (2010): 29–45 

Walter, James. “Johannes Bjelke-Petersen: ‘The Populist Autocrat.’” In The Premiers of Queensland, edited by Denis Murphy, Roger Joyce, Margaret Cribb, and Rae Wear, St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 2003. 

Wear, Rae. “‘Never-Ending Story’: Public Accountability and Public Administration Reform in Queensland since 1989.” Queensland Review 18, no. 2 (2011): 175–89 

Wear, Rae. Johannes Bjelke-Petersen: The Lord’s Premier. St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 2002. 

Whitton, Evan. The Hillbilly Dictator: Australia’s Police State. Crows Nest, NSW: ABC Enterprises, 1989. 

Williams, Paul D. “Leaders and Political Culture: The Development of the Queensland Premiership, 1859–2009.” Queensland Review 16, no. 1 (2009): 15–34 

• Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
• Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
• Producer: Hannah Jose
• Video producer: Christian Harimanow
• Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
• Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
• Theme: Martin Peralta
• Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves

Queensland's longest-serving premier is basically the bogeyman of Australian politics, a police-loving proto-Trump 'hillbilly dictator' the Sunshine State is still recovering from. 

This week we retrace Joh’s rise from fail son to peanut farmer, and finally to the highest office in Queensland.  

Plus... Joh marries a woman named Flo and then begins calling her ‘mum’ (not weird at all). 

Also, while you’re here, please do our listener survey.

SOURCES 

Bjelke-Petersen, Joh. The Joh Tapes on Leadership. Interviews produced by Richard Lancaster and Barry Martin. Seven-part video oral-history collection. Accession 720849. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane. 

Bjelke-Petersen, Joh. Don’t You Worry about That! The Joh Bjelke-Petersen Memoirs. North Ryde, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1990. 

Queensland. Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct. Report of a Commission of Inquiry Pursuant to Orders in Council. Chaired by G. E. Fitzgerald. Brisbane: Queensland Government Printer, 1989.  

Megarrity, Lyndon. “The Lion and the Fox: Whitlam, Bjelke-Petersen and the Queensland Electorate, 1961–1975.” ANU Historical Journal II, no. 3 (2022): 23–52 

Robinson, Shirleene. “Homophobia as Party Politics: The Construction of the ‘Homosexual Deviant’ in Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Queensland.” Queensland Review 17, no. 1 (2010): 29–45 

Walter, James. “Johannes Bjelke-Petersen: ‘The Populist Autocrat.’” In The Premiers of Queensland, edited by Denis Murphy, Roger Joyce, Margaret Cribb, and Rae Wear, St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 2003. 

Wear, Rae. “‘Never-Ending Story’: Public Accountability and Public Administration Reform in Queensland since 1989.” Queensland Review 18, no. 2 (2011): 175–89 

Wear, Rae. Johannes Bjelke-Petersen: The Lord’s Premier. St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 2002. 

Whitton, Evan. The Hillbilly Dictator: Australia’s Police State. Crows Nest, NSW: ABC Enterprises, 1989. 

Williams, Paul D. “Leaders and Political Culture: The Development of the Queensland Premiership, 1859–2009.” Queensland Review 16, no. 1 (2009): 15–34 

• Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
• Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
• Producer: Hannah Jose
• Video producer: Christian Harimanow
• Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
• Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
• Theme: Martin Peralta
• Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves

Referendum won, tick. Next up, Faith has a new fight on her hands: one that includes exposing the sugar giants who profited from her father’s abduction and unpaid labour. Watch out. 

But first, she must return to the island paradise where her father grew up: Ambrym. What she finds there will spur her on for decades of fighting. 

Alecia and Leigh get fired up as they retrace Faith’s staggering journey for justice and connect Australia’s 1800s slave history to farming practices still in operation today. 

SOURCES

Marilyn Lake, Faith Bandler, Gentle Activist, Allen and Unwin, 2002  Ryan Butta, Blackbirding, Black Inc, 2026 

Tracey Banivanuar Mar, Stabilising violence in colonial rule: Settlement and the indentured labour trade in Queensland in the 1870s, Liverpool University Press, 2017 

Tracey Banivanuar Mar, Decolonisation and the Pacific: Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of Empire, Cambridge University Press, 2016   Faith Bandler and Len Fox, The Time was ripe: a history of the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship (1956-69), 1983 

Faith Bandler oral history interview by Carolyn Craig, MLOH 307, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales 

Ryan, M. D. J. (2024). ‘A great many of them die’: Sugar, race and cheapness in colonial Queensland. Journal of Agrarian Change, 24(2), e12574.

• Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
• Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
• Producer: Hannah Jose
• Video producer: Christian Harimanow
• Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
• Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
• Theme: Martin Peralta
• Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves

Faith Bandler was the daughter of a slave, who became the face of the 1967 referendum and a celebrity in the process. And she did it all while keeping house and raising kids. 

Few know her name now, yet Alecia argues that Faith is just as important to the fight for racial justice in Australia as Martin Luther King was to the USA. 

Despite many people’s assumptions, Faith was not a First Nations Australian. So how did a South Sea Islander woman, with Indian and Scottish heritage, become the face of one of Australia’s biggest Indigenous causes?   

Special thanks to ABC's senior cultural advisor Miriam Corowa and Waskam Emelda Davis. 

SOURCES

Marilyn Lake, Faith Bandler, Gentle Activist, Allen and Unwin, 2002  Ryan Butta, Blackbirding, Black Inc, 2026 

Tracey Banivanuar Mar, Stabilising violence in colonial rule: Settlement and the indentured labour trade in Queensland in the 1870s, Liverpool University Press, 2017 

Tracey Banivanuar Mar, Decolonisation and the Pacific: Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of Empire, Cambridge University Press, 2016   Faith Bandler and Len Fox, The Time was ripe: a history of the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship (1956-69), 1983 

Faith Bandler oral history interview by Carolyn Craig, MLOH 307, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales 

Faith Bandler, ASIO file: Mitchell Library 3/55. FCAATSI 

• Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
• Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
• Producer: Hannah Jose
• Video producer: Christian Harimanow
• Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
• Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
• Theme: Martin Peralta
• Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves

To rise to stardom, our OG diva needed a rebrand, so she trades her given name - Helen (not exactly giving superstar, no offence to all the Helens) - and takes on Nellie Melba.  

In the second part of her story, Nellie becomes the Kylie Minogue of her time, charming the masses in London's best theatres and touring the world drumming up support for the war effort (with some suspicious accidents along the way). 

But beneath the glamour, Nellie is in a domestic war of her own. Leigh and Alecia try to make sense of how she faced her own battles, and then how she came to her own sudden, somewhat peculiar death. 

Warning: This episode discusses intimate partner violence.

SOURCES

Melba, Nellie. Melodies and Memories. London: Thornton Butterworth, 1925. 

“Melba Remembers—An Interview with Dame Nellie Melba.” The Home: An Australian Quarterly 3, no. 2 (June 1, 1922) 

“Coombe Cottage: Dame Nellie Melba’s Home—Third of a Series of Studies of Notable Australian Homes.” The Australian Home Beautiful: A Journal for the Home Builder 6, no. 6 (June 1, 1928) 

“In Dame Nellie Melba’s Paris Home.” The Home: An Australian Quarterly 11, no. 7 (July 1, 1930) 

Campbell, Rachel M. “Dame Nellie Melba: Celebrity and the Portrait.” Context: A Journal of Music Research, no. 40 (January 2015): 69–79. 

Modjeska, Drusilla, Susan Dermody, and John Docker, eds. Nellie Melba, Ginger Meggs and Friends: Essays in Australian Cultural History. Malmsbury: Kibble Books, 1982. 

Blainey, Ann. I Am Melba: A Biography. Melbourne: Black Inc., 2008. 

Wainwright, Robert. Nellie: The life and loves of Dame Nellie Melba. Allen and Unwin: Sydney, 2021 

Davis, Richard. Nellie Melba: The legend lives. Mile End: Wakefield Press, 2025

• Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
• Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
• Producer: Hannah Jose
• Video producer: Christian Harimanow
• Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
• Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
• Theme: Martin Peralta
• Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves

Opera star Dame Nellie Melba is the face of our $100 note, and the inspiration for the famous Peach Melba dessert. In short she’s an icon – one of Australia’s original divas. But how did she go from young Melbourne tomboy to domestic abuse survivor and then global superstar? 

Leigh dives deep on Nellie’s life of tragedy and drama, worthy of its own opera, and proves to Alecia this diva is a little saltier than the sweet pudding named in her honour. 

Plus, we explore the origins of long service leave and how Nellie falls flat on her face during her first audition in Europe. 

Warning: This episode discusses intimate partner violence.

Melba, Nellie. Melodies and Memories. London: Thornton Butterworth, 1925. 

“Melba Remembers—An Interview with Dame Nellie Melba.” The Home: An Australian Quarterly 3, no. 2 (June 1, 1922) 

“Coombe Cottage: Dame Nellie Melba’s Home—Third of a Series of Studies of Notable Australian Homes.” The Australian Home Beautiful: A Journal for the Home Builder 6, no. 6 (June 1, 1928) 

“In Dame Nellie Melba’s Paris Home.” The Home: An Australian Quarterly 11, no. 7 (July 1, 1930) 

Campbell, Rachel M. “Dame Nellie Melba: Celebrity and the Portrait.” Context: A Journal of Music Research, no. 40 (January 2015): 69–79. 

Modjeska, Drusilla, Susan Dermody, and John Docker, eds. Nellie Melba, Ginger Meggs and Friends: Essays in Australian Cultural History. Malmsbury: Kibble Books, 1982. 

Blainey, Ann. I Am Melba: A Biography. Melbourne: Black Inc., 2008. 

Wainwright, Robert. Nellie: The life and loves of Dame Nellie Melba. Allen and Unwin: Sydney, 2021 

Davis, Richard. Nellie Melba: The legend lives. Mile End: Wakefield Press, 2025 

Woollacott, Angela. To Try Her Fortune in London: Australian Women, Colonialism, and Modernity. Oxford University Press USA, 2001. 

• Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
• Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
• Producer: Hannah Jose
• Video producer: Christian Harimanow
• Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
• Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
• Theme: Martin Peralta
• Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves