History Lab

By the mid-1980s, the epidemic had taken hold in Darlinghurst. Fear was rising, homophobia was intensifying, and uncertainty shaped everyday life. Who had the virus? What did a positive test mean? And could the state be trusted with that information?
In this episode, historian Leigh Boucher moves into the heart of the crisis as the neighbourhood marshals every last drop of queer energy, love, creativity and strength to hold back the tide. Safe sex campaigns and innovative health responses proliferate – in bars, on dance floors and among squat racks.
For Peter Vincent and his friends, the party is far from over, even as they face the stark reality of a disease without a cure and the homophobic judgment beyond the gaybourhood. This is Darlinghurst – dancing as fast as it can.
Voices
Narrator: Regina Botros
Historian: Leigh Boucher
Interviewees: Bill Patterson, Lizzie Griggs, Frank McCabe, Tim Vincent, Pierre Touma, Bruce Carter, Scott Petrie and Sara Lubowitz.
Archive voice actors: Sam David Harris and Michael J Ryan.
Radio news and current affairs archive from Gaywaves, 2SER.
Credits
This special History Lab Original series was created on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.
Produced, written and narrated by Regina Botros, in collaboration with Macquarie University historian Leigh Boucher.
Story development by Leigh Boucher and Michelle Ransom-Hughes.
Interviews by Leigh Boucher.
Research assistance from Eli Branagh.
Story and script editing by Sarah Gilbert.
History Lab is a UTS Impact Studios production, in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS.
Support
This podcast was made with the support of the support of the Paul Ramsay Foundation and is part of the Foundation's Darlinghurst Public History Initiative, a collaboration with UTS' Australian Centre for Public History and Impact Studios.
Thanks to Macquarie University for its support of this series.
A special thanks goes to the staff and management of City Gym, the Albion Centre and

In the late 1970s and early 80s, Sydney’s Darlinghurst was the place to be for queer fun, sex and joy – all bubbling alongside a measure of danger.
Packed bars, late-night gyms, house music, new friendships and the thrill of seeing and being seen. For many, this was the place to connect, to belong, to “grow up under the mirror ball.”
In the first episode of this three-part series, historian Leigh Boucher steps into that world of parties, cruising, chosen families and hard-won freedom — a queer neighbourhood alive with possibility.
But as the music plays and the nights stretch on, whispers of a mysterious illness begin to circulate.
To understand how that powerful, fragile world of Darlinghurst felt and moved, Leigh talks to ordinary people who lived there and built the “gaybourhood” from the ground up.
How might their stories help us to a fresh understanding of a history we think we know?
Voices
Narrator: Regina Botros
Historian: Leigh Boucher
Interviewees: Pierre Touma, Sara Lubowitz, Bruce Carter, Gary Dunne, Lizzie Griggs, Tess Ziems and Frank McCabe.
Archive: Dr Jim Curran and Dr Ron Penny (courtesy of Gaywaves, 2SER)
Archive voice actors: Sam David Harris and Michael J Ryan.
Radio news and current affairs archive from Gaywaves, 2SER.
Credits
This special History Lab Original series was created on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.
Produced, written and narrated by Regina Botros, in collaboration with Macquarie University historian Leigh Boucher.
Story development by Leigh Boucher and Michelle Ransom-Hughes.
Interviews by Leigh Boucher.
Research assistance from Eli Branagh.
Story and script editing by Sarah Gilbert.
History Lab is a UTS Impact Studios production, in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS.
Support
This podcast was made with the support of the support of the Paul Ramsay Foundation and is part of the Foundation's Darlinghurst Public History Initiative, a collaboration with UTS' Australian Centre for Public History and Impact Studios.
Thanks to Macquarie University for its support of this series.
A special thanks goes to the staff and management of City Gym, Darlinghurst, for their generous hospitality.

Australia’s response to HIV and AIDS is often remembered as a national success story — one shaped by public health policy, activism and community action.
But how does that history change when you zoom in close?
Darlinghurst’s AIDS Crisis is a three-part History Lab Original series with historian Leigh Boucher. Focusing on the Sydney neighbourhood at the centre of the epidemic, the series traces how the crisis was lived day by day — through friendships and care networks, and in the hospital wards, gyms, bars and streets of Darlo.
Hearing the stories of ordinary people, many of them sharing their stories for the first time, you'll discover how their voices help us revisit this familiar history, and make it anew.
Episode 1 lands on Thursday, February 19, so subscribe to History Lab now.
Voices
Narrator: Regina Botros
Historian: Leigh Boucher
Interviewees: Sara Lubowitz, Pierre Touma, Frank McCabe and Lizzie Griggs.
Archive voice actor: Sam David Harris
Credits
This special History Lab Original series was created on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.
Produced, written and narrated by Regina Botros, in collaboration with Macquarie University historian Leigh Boucher.
Story development by Leigh Boucher and Michelle Ransom-Hughes.
Interviews by Leigh Boucher.
Research assistance from Eli Branagh.
Story and script editing by Sarah Gilbert.
History Lab is a UTS Impact Studios production, in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS.
Support
This podcast was made with the support of the support of the Paul Ramsay Foundation and is part of the Foundation's Darlinghurst Public History Initiative, a collaboration with UTS' Australian Centre for Public History and Impact Studios.
Thanks to Macquarie University for its support of this series.

Professor Heather Goodall was a pioneering historian whose research transformed understandings of Indigenous history, both in her field and in the broader community. Her work demonstrated a deep personal and professional commitment to social and environmental justice. In this episode we pay tribute to her and celebrate her legacy.
Heather died peacefully on 29 January 2026, aged 75. In this special episode, we hear her reflecting on her life’s work — more than five decades of historical research, teaching and community engagement.
Across two in-depth conversations with UTS historian Anna Clark, Heather traces the intellectual, political and personal threads that connect her work: oral history, Aboriginal land rights, rivers and environments, Indian Ocean networks, labour activism and the ethics of historical practice.
This is a conversation about history as activism, about place and belonging, and about the long afterlives of colonial power — but also about resilience, curiosity, and the joy of intellectual work done in company with others.
In Heather’s own words, “Scholarship can sit alongside activism, relationships and responsibility — it doesn’t have to be separate from life.”
From the Darling River to Salt Pan Creek, from Indian seamen in wartime Australia to the Battle of Surabaya and Indonesian independence, Heather’s scholarship consistently centred on people whose histories were ignored, dismissed, or actively erased — and asks what historians owe to the communities whose stories they tell.
To learn more about Professor Goodall, see her obituary published by the Royal Society of New South Wales,
Guests
Professor Heather Goodall was an Australian historian whose work spanned Aboriginal history, labour history, environmental history, Indian Ocean studies, and public history.
A leading figure in oral history and community-based research, she worked closely with Aboriginal organisations, activists, educators and communities for decades, helping to reshape how history is researched, written and shared in Australia.
Her publications include influential studies of the Darling River, Aboriginal land rights, Indian seamen and soldiers, and the Georges River, among many others. In 2025, she was awarded the History Council of NSW’s Annual Citation for fifty years of historical research and community engagement. Her book Invasion to Embassy won the 1996, NSW Premier Prize for Australian History. Over a long career at UTS, Goodall became a leading figure in Australian historiography, recognised through major ARC grants and influential publications. She was appointed Emeritus Professor on her retirement in 2016.
Associate Professor Anna Clark is an historian and public commentator based at the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS. Her book, Making Australian History, was published by Penguin in 2022 and was longlisted for a Walkley Award and an NIB Literary Award. I'm also the creator of the successful podcast for primary schools, Hey History!
Credits
Executive Producer, Sarah Gilbert. Mixed by Siobhan Moylan
Find more episodes of History Lab wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of History Lab Live, historians and political analysts step back from the daily churn to review the May 2025 Australian federal election through a long lens: a decisive Labor victory built on an historically low primary vote, a further erosion of the major-party duopoly, and a growing sense that Australian politics is both shifting, and hollowing out.
Is this a genuine realignment, or an old pattern repeating under new conditions?
Our guests track the election’s deeper storylines: the long decline of two-party dominance, the changing geography of power, the rise of “anti-politics”, and the way class, gender and asset ownership are now reshaping who votes for whom.
Hosted by Dr Emily Foley, this thoughtful, historically informed conversation brings together George Megalogenis, Frank Bongiorno, Ben Spies-Butcher and Elizabeth Humphreys to reflect on where Australian democracy has been — and where it may be headed.
Guests
George Megalogenis has thirty years’ experience in the media, including over a decade in the federal parliamentary press gallery. His book The Australian Moment won the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-fiction and the 2012 Walkley Award for Non-fiction. He is also author of Faultlines, The Longest Decade, Australia’s Second Chance, The Football Solution and three Quarterly Essays.
Frank Bongiorno is an Historian at the Australian National University. Author of "Dreamers and Schemers: A Political History of Australia" (November 2022)
Ben Spies-Butcher teaches Economy and Society in the School of Communication, Society and Culture. He is Deputy Director of the Macquarie University Housing and Urban Research Centre and co-director of the Australian Basic Income Lab.
Elizabeth Humphreys is a political economist of labour and work, and the Head of Discipline of Social and Political Sciences at UTS. Her book, How Labour Built Neoliberalism, was described in the Sydney Review of Books as a ‘tremendously important’ contribution to understanding economic change in Australia’s recent past.
Credits
This episode was introduced by Tamson Pietsch and mixed by Siobhan Moylan.
History Lab is an impact studios podcast. Its Executive Producer is Sarah Gilbert.