Podcasts · History · Society & Culture

The Dead Can't Sue

ABC Australia

20 episodes

Serious academics. Dead subjects. A bit of gossip.

More about the show

Is it appropriate for historians to gossip about the dead? Associate Professors Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher aren't afraid to find out. In The Dead Can't Sue, they poke around in the entrails of Australian history, dishing up the best dirt and juiciest scoops on our nation's dead.

Each week, you'll join us for the best dinner party conversations you've ever overheard, as Alecia and Leigh bring you their unfiltered takes.

There'll be big names you'll get to know in new ways, as well as names you've never heard of, with jaw-dropping stories. Rebels, divas, convicts, heroes, scoundrels and everything in between.

Episodes

  1. Eddie Mabo: The fight that defined and undermined him (part 2)

    · 41 min

    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…

  2. Eddie Mabo: Getting exiled - a rough start to a land rights mission (part 1)

    · 46 min

    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…

  3. Daisy Kwok: From Sydney to Shanghai to shovelling sh*t

    · 38 min

    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…

  4. Joh Bjelke-Petersen: The ‘hillbilly dictator’ goes down (part 2)

    · 43 min

    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…

  5. Joh Bjelke-Petersen: The 40-year-old virgin enters politics (part 1)

    · 39 min

    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…

  6. Faith Bandler: Exposing CSR & Australia’s slave trade, aka 'Blackbirding' (part 2)

    · 39 min

    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…

  7. Faith Bandler: The ‘gentle’ activist with an ASIO file who changed the constitution (part 1)

    · 42 min

    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…

  8. Nellie Melba: How a facelift downed our diva (part 2)

    · 40 min

    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…

  9. Nellie Melba: How the prima donna dodged her sh*tty husband to find fame and fortune (part 1)

    · 37 min

    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…

  10. Miles Franklin: Our feminist hero flirts with fascism (part 2)

    · 44 min

    While the blokes were off on the frontlines of WWI, Miles Franklin used writing as her weapon for changing the world. But was our much-loved matriarch of Australian literature a tad fascist? In the second part of…

  11. Miles Franklin: The flirty bush girl behind My Brilliant Career (part 1)

    · 41 min

    Miles Franklin’s name is inseparable from Australian literature. She’s a late 1800s bush girl who told a bold story of marriage rejection (My Brilliant Career) that went global. And it continues to captivate audiences…

  12. Harold Holt: The tragic demise of a people-pleasing PM (part 2)

    · 38 min

    Yes, the undercurrent tragically killed our 17th Prime Minister, but were his days in office already numbered? Leigh argues that Holt was sinking (politically) before he died. So how did the man whose brief tenure as…

  13. Harold Holt: How a kid called 'Puss' conquered Canberra (part 1)

    · 41 min

    It's fair to say for a lot of Australians, Harold Holt has become more of a meme than a man, let alone Australia's 17th Prime Minister. Yes, he drowned in mysterious circumstances and it's weird there's a pool named…

  14. William Buckley: How an escaped convict spent 30 years with an Indigenous group

    · 42 min

    Perhaps you're familiar with the phrase "Buckley's chance!". Well, it's thought that it originates from William Buckley, a man who defied all odds to escape his fate as a convict. Buckley was a brickie from Northern…

  15. Chopper: The Christmas card that changed his life (part 2)

    · 39 min

    Chopper loses his ears but gains an unexpectedly popular literary career, after becoming (sort of) pen pals with crime writer John Silvester. This week, we finish the Chopper tale, figuring out how Chopper managed to…

  16. Chopper: The making of (part 1)

    · 36 min

    Mark Brandon ‘Chopper’ Read (1954-2013) was a notorious Melbourne underworld figure who admitted to murdering four people, right before he died. But as Alecia and Leigh soon discover, he was also a massive liar.…

  17. Tilly Devine: 'The Worst Woman in Sydney'

    · 36 min

    Tilly Devine (1900-1970) was a founding mother of Sydney's underbelly, and, as NSW police commissioner Norman Allan simply said: "She was a villain, but who am I to judge her?" Luckily Leigh and Alecia love to judge.…

  18. Matthew Flinders: The death of a cat daddy (part 2)

    · 37 min

    Alecia and Leigh sail into the muddy waters of naval history, exploring the key role Indigenous explorer Bungaree played in Matthew Flinders circumnavigation of Australia. Oh, and Flinders's undying love for his cat,…

  19. Matthew Flinders: Erotic letter writer (part 1)

    · 32 min

    Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) is best known as the first white guy to circumnavigate (and name!) Australia. But could he perhaps also have been circumnavigating the towering physique of ship surgeon George Bass? Alecia…

  20. INTRODUCING — The Dead Can't Sue

    · 1:32

    Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher are historians, which means they are uniquely qualified to gossip about the dead. They're asking big, nosy questions about the lives of the people who shaped or misshaped Australia,…

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