Speakola

'Give me your children ' is one of the most harrowing and disturbing speeches in history, It was delivered by Chief Elder and Nazi appointed representative of the Jews in the Lodź ghetto, Chaim Rumkowski. In the speech, Rumkowski announces that children under ten, the elderly, and the sick and infirm will be handed over to the Nazis to fulfill deportation demands, in order to save the rest of the...

The great actor and activist Uncle Jack Charles died in Melbourne on the 13th of September 2022 of a stroke. Five weeks earlier, Speakola's Tony Wilson recorded a chat with him during filming of their AFL Finals promo. Tony had written the words. Jack delivered the voice. During Jack's break, Tony chatted to him about life and career highlights. It was just recorded on a phone, so doesn't have the...

Ted Baillieu was the 46th Premier of Victoria, elected in November 2010. In this episode he talks about this speech he delivered as Leader of the Liberal Party Opposition in February 2009 at a Day of Mourning ceremony for the Black Saturday bushfire victims at Rod Laver Arena.  Mr Baillieu is an excellent speechwriter and orator, and he shares tips and anecdotes gleaned across a long illustrious c...

Author James Button's 2008 eulogy for his politician father John Button was one of the first speeches ever added to Speakola. It's a beautiful speech , full of stories about one of Australia's most significant Labor politicians. It's also a eulogy that has an honesty to it, it talks about John Button's moodiness, his taciturn nature, his absences. But it also demonstrates his intelligence, wit and...

Peter Malinauskas is the 47th Premier of South Australia. He gave a terrific victory speech on election night, 19th March 2022, one described by The Australian's literary critic as having 'flawlessly controlled momentum' and reaffirming a belief in democracy. The Premier is a wonderful interviewee and talks about how he wrote the speech, and the importance of victory and concession speeches in the...

Lou 'The Lip' Richards was an icon of Australian football in the latter half of the twentieth century. He was an excellent player, playing 250 games for Collingwood between 1941 and 1955, including captaining the 1953 premiership. But he found fame in his home town of Melbourne as a columnist, television wit, and play by play commentator. He died in 2017, and was honoured at a state funeral. Frien...

A speech described by The New York Times in the days after delivery as 'the greatest speech since Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address'. Jimmy Reid's speech was reprinted in full and praised around the world.  In this episode, Jimmy Reid biographer and Westminster MP Kenny MacAskill (member for East Lothian in Scotland since 2019) talks about this famous speech, as well as 'no bevvying' shipyard a...

Gabriel Sterling speech and interview re-release. Republican electoral official Gabriel Sterling was a witness called before the January 6 committee this week to give evidence into what went on in the days leading up to the attack on the Capitol. This is a Speakola interview released as episode 23 in August 2021, during the Olympics. Sterling talks about the art of off the cuff speech making, as w...

Terrific episode on Winston Churchill, his prodigious skills as a rhetorician, and in particular his speech to a joint sitting of US Congress on Boxing Day, 1941 . Our guest is Richard Cohen, founder of the popular Winston Churchill facebook group and a legal scholar who has immersed himself in all things Churchill. He was a proof reader of Andrew Roberts 'Churchill: Walking with Destiny' biograph...

Wendy Harmer is a legend of Australian media, and comedy, a mainstay since 'running away to join the circus' and the standup scene in the mid 1980s. She talks about those years at the Last Laugh and Le Joke, and also the shows that established her, 'The Big Gig' and 'World Series Debating' on the ABC. where she captained a comedy debate team each episode against Andrew Denton (who has also been a...

On the eve of her wedding in India, The Outer Sanctum's Rana Hussein got a birds and the bees talk from her devout, hijab wearing, doctor, mother. She told the story at Comedy Republic's 'Stranger than Fiction' night, in hilarious and excruciating detail. The story is about two firsts, and as funny as the birds and the bees bit is, it's heartbreaking to hear about the other first that finishes thi...

A different style of episode we're calling 'Speakola Reads' On 4th March 2022, Shane Warne, Australia greatest ever bowler, died of a heart attack in Thailand. This episode is Tony reading a tribute he wrote for Shane Warne in 2011. The piece was titled 'The Mile Wide Spin Club' and was included in a coffee table book called 'Australia: Story of a Cricket Country' (Hardie Grant, 2011, ed. Chris Ry...

Jahmal Cole is running for Illinois' First Congressional District in 2022 as a Democrat. He's a community activist and founder of My Block, My Hood, My City , which is an after school program that offers disadvantaged kids broader city wide experiences beyond their neighbourhoods in Chicago. 'it's not regular' is a brilliant speech that was delivered at a Martin Luther King jr. Day Interfaith Brea...

John Doyle is one of Australia's greatest comedy performers, as the Rampaging Roy Slaven half of 'Roy and HG'. On October 7th 2005 he delivered this Andrew Olle media lecture for the ABC, which was a wide ranging speech discussing sensationalism in news, opinion, War in Iraq, 9-11, journalistic integrity, the ABC and fistfights at the Walkleys. It's very funny in parts, serious in others, and all...

For the fourth year running, Tony awards his speeches of the year on Triple R's 'The Grapevine' with Kulya Coulston and Dylan Bird. Categories include sports, arts, issue, historical significance, young speaker, and pandemic related speech of the year. Tony has a new website for the books he has written. Speakola has a Patreon page which you can join If you want to offer regular support for as lit...

This isn't a regular interview + speech episode. Tony thanks the 15 guests who have appeared on the podcast in 2021, and shares a story from episode 26 guest Martin Flanagan about his journey into the Tarkine wilderness in Tasmania, with a Sherrin and six friends from his university football days to protest against the construction of a dam. The piece originally appeared in Footyology , and Martin...

Adam Elliot won the Academy Award for Best Short Animation in 2004 for his film 'Harvie Krumpet'. His nomination rocketed him to celebrity status in Australia, and the country celebrated as he received the gold statue with his producer Melanie Coombs beside him. His speech was short, and did the job of some important thank yous. In this episode, we talk about the experience of being nominated for...

Isra Mohammed's speech to her school in Newcastle, UK, went went around the world in December of 2015. She was a 15 year old student at Kenton School, Newcastle, and she'd been subjected to racist and Islamophobic taunts after the ISIS attacks on Paris, that killed 130 people and injured hundreds more. When her brother and sister were targeted, Isra decided she had to do something, and so arranged...

John Safran is an author and satirist who recently wrote the book ' Puff Piece, How Phillip Morris Set Vaping Alight and Burned Down the English Language'. He chats to Tony about a corporate message from Phillip Morris CEO Jacek Olczak , which is focused on 'unsmoking the world', 'ending the problem of smoking' and Phillip Morris ambitions to become smoke free. John explains the contradictions at...

Martin Flanagan is a much loved Australian sportswriter, known for his lyrical phrase and passion for stories that intertwine sport and culture. In 2018 he delivered a monologue in praise of Melbourne Football Club legends, and also ordinary supporter and officials. It is a majestic piece, 'Thinking about you, Ron Barassi' and it first aired during Preliminary Final week, 2018 on radio station SEN...

In 2016, Julian Leeser was elected as the Liberal member for Berowra, an electorate comprising suburbs and bush north of Sydney. His maiden speech to parliament delivered 14th of September 2016 was shared around the world, as it told the story of the death of his father to suicide. He spoke about the tragedy of that day, and also what needs to be done in Australia on the suicide prevention and men...

In June 2011, Emily Rowe lost her husband Matthew Carney to a cardiac arrest, caused by his chemotherapy medication. In the tragic aftermath, Emily Rowe[ delivered a stunning eulogy, extolling Matt's philosophy of living in the present, and making the most of each moment. IN the period since, Emily became a grief coach in order to help other people overcome the pain of loss and sadness. For this e...

Gabriel Sterling was voting system implementation manager for his home state of Georgia during the heated aftermath of the 2020 election. President Trump and his supporters were claiming the election had been stolen, and were not accepting facts as provided by Sterling and other Republicans in the Georgia  administration. When a 20 year old employee and his family received death threats, an a...

Bob Hawke was the 23rd prime minister of Australia and the most electorally successful Labor politician in Australian history. He delivered a speech on 9th June 1989, five days after the tanks and 27th Army rolled into Tienanmen Square and massacred  students gathered there. Hawke delivered this speech in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra, which was largely written by speechwrite...

Jessie Street was a pioneering feminist in Australia, who fought for women's rights, equal pay, reproductive rights, as well as indigenous rights during an amazing 81 year life. She was one of the activists behind the changes in the 1967 referendum. Dr Lenore Coltheart is a historian who was employed by the Street family to update Jessie's autobiography and is now writing the first full blown biog...