A Participant Reflects

A concise history of the lunchtime Forum at the University of Queensland in the 1960s & 1970s illustrated with photographs. The story is rounded out by a series of personal recollections by those who were there...

During a nation-wide anti-conscription campaign by the National Union of Australian University Students (NUAUS), about 40 University of Queensland students planned to march in support of this initiative on 5th October, 1966.

Forming contradicting identities to men in male-dominated movements (like the anti-war movement), women shaped their own identities in defining women's needs.

In the 1960s, the restless first wave of "baby-boomers" were just learning to spread their adult wings; to be able to vote, and, importantly for some, to drink in Queensland pubs.

Mitch Thompson interviewed by Jim Beatson

As Brisbane prepares to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the watershed 1967 Civil Liberties March, one of the active participants of the time recounts his experiences.

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In October and November 1974, a series of 13 interviews were conducted with prominent representatives of the radical Left movement at the University of Queensland.

All those interviewed responded to a common set of questions.

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders be aware there are references to deceased persons in this section.

Starting in 1972, inner-city residents of the city of Brisbane in Australia struggled against the Queensland Government's plan to build a freeway that would destroy their community. The residents were offered inadequate compensation for their properties and the State government was cold-hearted and dismissive of the community's concerns. As their voice went unheard, the residents decided to change tact and joined together in and effort to make the Government "sit up and take notice" of them.

Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was notoriously known for authorizing the demolition of some sixty city buildings during his time as Premier.

John Woods (1946 - 2001)

John Woods was one of four full-time announcers (supported by a large number of volunteers) when 4ZZZ-FM began broadcasting on 8 December 1975 as Australia's first FM-Stereo rock-music radio station, and Brisbane's first community station. John was the first voice heard on 4ZZZ.

On 31 March, 1965, Merle Thornton and Rosalie Bogner chained themselves to the Regatta Hotel bar rail in Brisbane to protest for women's rights. The two protestors were both mothers of two and married to university lecturers.

by Jennie Harvie

The more things change the more they stay the same eh?

A wide-spread strike took place at the University of Queensland in July/August 1971 in response to the State Government declaring a State of Emergency to "protect" the Springbok rugby tour to Queensland. The article focuses primarily on events on campus and less so on the closely-related events occurring in the city at the same time. The Strike lasted 15 very intense, action-packed days.

At Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, the original koala sanctuary of Australia, they trained young koalas to ride on the backs of german shepherds. The dog carried a koala down to meet the visitors arriving by boat. I don't know if this still happens, because I haven't been there for a long time.

Astor Theatre

Ted Reithmuller

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The Eureka Youth League was a youth organisation associated with the Communist Party. Most influential in the forties and fifties, it engaged in campaigns for peace and rights for young people, as well as organising camps, carnivals and sporting activities.

Written by Connie Healy

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Ian Roberts

The Brisbane music scene from 1964 to 1979 described by Ian Roberts and illustrated with photographs. Originally published in the Cane Toad Times (#7) in 1979. Tragically, Ian Roberts committed suicide the year after writing this article.

An article about the band, Mackenzie Theory, published (circa) February or March, 1973, in Semper Floreat when Alan Knight was the editor. The author is unknown.

A thoughtful investigation into the central premise......can inspirational music be revolutionary?

Stephen Stockwell

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Publication from the women's movement in Brisbane in the 1970s.

Why Women's Liberation Wrote That Pamphlet

Sexism In Schools

BACKGROUND - JOH BJELKE-PETERSEN ERA: From 1968, for well over a decade, Joh Bjelke-Petersen was the leader (Premier) of an authoritarian State Government in tropical Queensland. With a compliant mass media turning a blind eye to his behavior, he in effect operated a police state in which democratic rights to effective free speech and meaningful citizen opposition to his frequent abuses of power were squashed.

Rare colour film footage of Australia's Nimbin Aquarius Festival, the historic event organized by the Australian Union of Students in 1973.

The majority of the images cover only the lead-in period for the festival on the days immediately prior to its official commencement on May 12th. Attendance over the festival period itself was estimated at anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 people.

Impact was the Society for Democratic Action's publication - a key organisation of the anti-war protests. Its outlook joined anti-conscriptionists, socialists, communists, pacifists and the Union of Australian Women: all attempting to criticise the war. No mainstream media outlet would venture into this criticism.

The printed word, in the form of radical pamphlets and news sheets, had always been vital to Brisbane's New Left, and the Cellar also provided a space for the latest incarnation of this tradition. A Young Socialist League newsletter remarked how a spokesman for the paranoid right claimed in the Telegraph that a professional communist agitator had been specifically imported from Monash Uni to disrupt Captive Nations Week (YSL Newsletter).

Gandhi's ideas in action: The fight for civil liberties

Unionists were some of the first to protest against the war in Vietnam.

A Poem "Principles & Particulars

There's alus two sides to every question and recognisn' the principles be easy whilst understnadin' particuar particulars and takin' the appropriate steps calls for mush collective wisdom

Jim Sharpe

The protests against the racially selected Springboks football team's visit to Brisbane led to more Indigenous action, more protests, a University strike and a vicious night assault on protesters outside the footballers' hotel. A government State of Emergency, usually reserved for war and industrial control of large strikes, allowed police to amass and act with even less restraint than usual, and perhaps even contrary to their "superiors" intentions.

Photos

Jim Prentice (cofounder of CRAFT and Epochfuture) reflects on what the past era means for protest now. What can we learn from the 1960s and 1970s?

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