Afternoon Light

• Augustine Meaher on the Singapore strategy & Australia's failure to arm itself ahead of WW2: "It's always easy to blame the British"

  How difficult is it to get politicians to invest in defence spending, even when a war is looming? On Afternoon Light #191 Georgina Downer speaks with Augustine Meaher about the predictability of the fall of Singapore, how it embodied Australia's overreliance on great powers for defence, and reluctance to invest in re-arming itself ahead of World War II. A conversation replete with haunting lessons for today. Dr. Augustine Meaher is a professor of National Security Studies at the USAF's Air University. His main areas of interest are European History and Politics with an emphasis on military history and politics. He is presently researching the United States military in Northern Ireland during the Second World War. He teaches Military History at the University of North Georgia. He has a PhD from the University of Melbourne, and is the author of The Australian Road to Singapore: The Myth of British Betrayal. The views he expresses in this interview are his own.

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• Richard Davis on Dame Nellie Melba: "A Wonderful Queen of Song"

  How does a singer become famous enough to feature on the $100 note? On Afternoon Light #190 Georgina Downer speaks with Richard David about Dame Nellie Melba. Australia's first global superstar who sang for Kings, Queens & Tsars, her stage name paid tribute to marvelous Melbourne, helping to put it and Australia on the map. Richard Davis is an internationally acclaimed writer specialising in biographies. He's written a series devoted to the lives of famous Australian musicians, including Close to the Flame: The life of Stuart Challender and Wotan's Daughter: The life of Marjorie Lawrence, published by Wakefield Press, as well as biographies of pianists Geoffrey Parsons and Eileen Joyce. These have enjoyed international critical success and earned Richard the Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge Award for the Arts. His latest book is Nellie Melba: The Legend Lives.

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• Alistair Thomson on the Ten Pound Poms: "Implicitly assumed they weren't migrants"

  Why don't the British figure in narratives of post-war migration, when for decades they were still the largest migrant group? On Afternoon Light #189 Georgina Downer speaks with Alistair Thomson about the 10 Pound Poms. Whose complex migrant stories provided us with plenty of Aussie rock icons, but also gradually revealed that Australia was not quite as British as either they or we assumed. Alistair Thomson is Professor of History at Monash University in Melbourne, and was previously Professor of Oral History at the University of Sussex in England. His books include Anzac Memories: Living With the Legend (1994), The Oral History Reader (1998 and 2006, with Rob Perks), Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (2005, with Jim Hammerton), Moving Stories: an intimate history of four women across two countries (2011) and Oral History and Photography (2011, with Alexander Freund).

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• Michael Easson on Depression era PM James Scullin: "Trying to hold the place together"

  Who was Australia's unluckiest Prime Minister? On Afternoon Light #188 Georgina Downer speaks with Michael Easson about James Scullin, the PM sworn in the week of the Wall Street Crash. His 1931 electoral defeat was the last time an Australian federal government failed to win a second term; a record Anthony Albanese is desperate to avoid. Michael Easson AM is a businessman, company director, former union leader and Labor historian. Thirty years ago, he was Secretary of the Labor Council of NSW [now called Unions NSW], a Vice President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions; and Senior Vice President of the NSW ALP. He published Connor Court's Whitlam’s Foreign Policy as well as In Search of John Christian Watson: Labor’s First Prime Minister. His latest book is the Australian Biographical Monograph on James Scullin.

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• David Lowe on the 75th Anniversary of the Colombo Plan: "Opened a lot of Australian eyes"

  How did Australia develop its reputation as an exporter of higher education? On Afternoon Light #187 Georgina Downer speaks with David Lowe to mark 75 years since the meeting that spawned the Colombo Plan. An innovative and enduring foreign aid program that helped our 'near north' neighbours to economically develop, winning 'hearts and minds' during the Cold War and inadvertently shifting Australian hearts and minds against the White Australia Policy. David Lowe is the Chair in Contemporary History at Deakin University and has extensively published on Australia's involvement in wars, including its role during the Cold War, as well as aspects of Australia's foreign policies in the 1940s and 1950s. His notable works include Menzies and the 'Great World Struggle': Australia's Cold War 1948-1954 (UNSW Press, 1999), Ministers, Mandarins and Diplomats: Australian Foreign Policy Making 1941-1969 (co-authored with Joan Beaumont, Chris Waters, and Garry Woodard, MUP, 2003), Australia Between Empires: The Life of Percy Spender (Pickering and Chatto, 2010), and Remembering the Cold War (co-authored with Tony Joel, Routledge, 2013).

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