Radical Australia

Mars on Earth. That's where this week's guest has been and she joins us to talk all about it. Sally ventured to Antartica this year, prompted by her deep concern for sea-level rise, having lived her whole life by the water. She got to see a lot of cold, blue water, icebergs, penguins and seals on her epic voyage across the Roaring Forties with 350 other intrepid travellers and scientists down to a...

We sure wish Duff would write a book about his stay in an abandoned resort behind Cape Tribulation and his cosying-up with a cassowary. We might have to settle for his sci-fi, end of the earth epic about 4 blokes who return from the forest to find they are the last humans alive. In Warrnambool. Those old enough may know Duff as the fella who pie-faced himself then kissed Premier Stephen Bracks at...

Serial pest, Leon Zembekis, joins us on the show this week. He is our newly-appointed elder guest wrangler and we are so happy to welcome him to the Radical Australia team. Leon has always respected his elders and the wisdom they impart. He has worked for the Greens for a long time and grew up with a staunch Greek mum who knew how to keep the council officers at bay when they came knocking on thei...

What a treat to have Gus Nossal on the show this week. He joined us on the phone from his home at the last minute. What a trooper. For the uninitiated, Gus is an Australian legend who has been bestowed with many titles and was on the telly all the time back in the day as scientific public intellectual. Gus says that public communication is vital. He was born and raised in Vienna during the 1930s b...

Don Sun is a proud Sunshine boy from the 50s and has been around the community radio scene for decades. He penned the Admin Watch column in Farrago, University of Melbourne's student magazine, back in the day when he studied political philosophy and saw student unionism up close. He roadied for Lou Richards at Channel 7 and turned the quarter lights on at Waverley when the TV broadcasts resumed af...

What are they like - these two muggins. These oafs. These silly sausages. Diggaling deep, shovelling the cash, doing what they can for their beloved 3CR. A hold-tight-to-your-seats thrill ride as these two oompalompas freestyle for your heartfelt pledge to keep the door open to anyone and everyone who has ever done anything good for the wider world. For those that take a political stand for justic...

Sue Bolton is almost peerless when it comes to having clear working memory and deep knowledge of Australian politics the last 40 years. She can tell you the details of so many leftist campaigns, what the issues were that were being caused by government and business, and key decisions that were made. Her knowledge is really quite astounding. We return to Sue this week for our second chat. We take u...

Rowland G Schultz entertains us muchly this week with his poetry and one of his flamenco guitar tracks. He called in on the phone from Sydney and entertained us with many poems. Rowland acquired a brain inury through a transport accident some years ago and this precipitated a very difficult period of his life. We talk about what it is like to lose everything, to be affected by a traumatic injury,...

These days, this week's guest, Ron Guy, is an artist activist for the cause of Western Sahara, the last colony of Africa. Earlier, he supported the cause of East Timor before it gained independence. Ron has been a union delegate for the AWU and was the OH&S officer at Dow Chemicals. He has had a long interest in the trade union movement, starting when he had to endure living with plenty of mice in...

Arborist and life-long rock star. That's this week's guest, Andrew Matters, calling in from Adelaide. Andrew has been shaping, saving, planting and assessing trees for over 20 years. He loves planning and planting gardens and is currently crushing on the Crepe Myrtle tree. He spent his young adulthood in Sydney with a panel van and a band - Neptune Lolly Shoppe. The spectre of illness hung over hi...

Jeannie Erceg was one of 5 residents who resisted the demolition of their homes on the Barack Beacon public housing estate in Port Melbourne just a little while ago and says 'They can't make me disappear. I can say what I want'. Jeannie says the estate had a 'friendly feeling' and it was a 'wonderful community'. Like every resident on the estate, Jeannie found out her home was due to be demolished...

Greg returns on the blower from Queensland to the Radical Australia studio talking about his new research on West Papua and its shady colonial history. Definitely one for the enthusiasts and for anyone wanting to enlighten themselves about colonial wars on the doorstep of our nearest neighbour. Freedom for West Papua.

I want to lead the way in having difficult conversations says this week's guest, Ruth Clare. Ruth is perhaps best known either for her acting job in a genital herpes commercial or for her memoir about growing up with her returned serviceman father. One lighthearted and one serious fact about Ruth and we straddle both ends in our conversation with her this week. Ruth is a Rocky girl and went to Roc...

Pauline Klemm is the woman behind the social media juggernaut, The Baba Desi Story, on Facebook, where she has taken some stunning pictures of Belgrave wizard, Baba Desi. She has been taking pictures for the last 6 years after coming to care for her brother's camera when it came into her possession. It was a sliding door moment and Pauline learnt there is another life in front of the camera. It ha...

Antoinette Pitt used to roadie for 73 Bob Bob and was Australia's first female wrestling referee. She is a woman of many surprises. Antoinette is a nurse and an executive for Australian Progressives who have 6 pillars of E's: Ethics + Empathy + Evidence + Equality + Engagement + Empowerment. Learn all about Antoinette's goth phase in Lilydale and her time as an apprective spray painter. Antoinette...

This week's guest, Ribke Ovide, is a volunteer at the the West Papua Office in Docklands. She has been living in Australia for the last couple of years, coming here on a scholarship to further her studies in aviation mechanics. Ribke hails from Timika in West Papua and speaks 4 languages. She was born in 200. Her faith is very important to her, as is her family, along with her dream to become an a...

This week's guest, Tim Hollo, is kind of like Green royalty in Australia. He heads The Green Institute, a think tank focussed on transformative issues in the green space, he founded Green Music Australia, he was the communications director for Christine Milne, and he has been at the environmental game since university in the 90's. His first love, however, was the violin. He's been playing it since...

In case you missed it - here is the second part to our talk with Kutcha Edwards. Kutcha is a legend of 3CR, steering our annual Beyond the Bars NAIDOC prison broadcasts for many a year. In this chat, we are taken on a trip down the memory lane of aboriginal Fitzroy of the 1990s. From the MAYSAR/ Fitzroy Stars Youth Club gymnasium and Uncle Herbert Jock Austin, to singing opera while on homebrew ou...

We are thrilled to broadcast a couple of chats we recently had with the mighty Kutcha Edwards. This week, we learn the origins of Kutcha's name and some things about his early life. Kutcha tells us that he was born before The Referendum and politics has played a big part in his life. Kutcha went to high school in Taralgon before moving to the city to be with brothers and sisters. He went to Koori...

A life full of mentors and a-ha moments. That has been the story of this week's guest, Rob Brown, a big tall Scotsman indeed. Rob was born in 1960 in the Gorbals, tenement housing in Glasgow, sharing one toilet among five families. That's just how things were. Rob's mother scrubbed the steps of the school on her hands and knees with a brush. That's where he says he probably got his work ethic from...

We spoke with this week's guest, University of Sydney Professor of Law, Simon Butt, on Indonesia's Presidential Election Day. Simon came on to talk about some of the legal infrastructure in Indonesia, during the pre-1998 Suharto era and now. On paper, Indonesians have more legal rights than Australians, but corruption runs right through the system. Simon did a big job researching this during COVID...

The only left-winger in the family. That's Sue Bolton, well-known to many in Melbourne's left and socialist communities, long-standing councillor at Merri-Bek. Sue is always standing up for what is right, for people's rights, in her community. Sue hails from Western Queensland and says the class divide was really vivid in the bush. After boarding school she went and studied psychology for a little...

This week's guests, Mecedes Zanker and Joe Lorback, are members of the Renegade Solidarity Audio Force crew who have been involved in all kinds of local radical activism, from #freeassange, to Melbourne's Palestinian motorcades, the Park Hotel protest actions and every Sunday Palestine rally to date. Joe joined us from his weekend at the Women's tennis finals where he delivered a pro-Palestine ver...

This week's guest, Alexandra, has had an interesting life so far, most of that spent in England with radical collectives. She is a dancer who grew up in Canberra. Alexandra is currently our Wednesday afternoon reception volunteer and has an interesting story to tell. Thanks for being with us, Alex.

A fashion brand for people who give a shit. That's how this week's guest, Nick Savaidis, decribes his label, Etiko, winner of an Australian Human Rights Award and the most ethical fashion brand in the country. Nick started making sports balls under the label before branching into clothing. He has always had a thing for the underdog and has used this feeling for some good deeds. Nick introduced No...