History Lab

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.

In this episode of History Lab Live, we bring you a conversation about the joys and challenges of translating Australian history to television.
Writer and academic Julianne Schultz joins director Benjamin Jones and producer Darren Dale to discuss the process of adapting her book, The Idea of Australia, into a four‑part documentary series for SBS. Their exchange highlights the creative decisions, editorial tensions and narrative strategies that are all part of turning big, sometimes challenging historical ideas into entertaining and informative television.
Recorded live at Gleebooks and hosted by the ABC’s Cassie McCullough, the discussion explores:
how the team mined Australia’s vast screen archive to build a visual language for the series
the responsibility of telling national stories that deal with both pride and pain
the challenge of engaging the TikTok generation while doing justice to complex histories
how they used the medium to explore the contradictions at the heart of Australia's history and self-mythology
the translation process from page to screen: what is lost, what is gained, and what surprised them

If you haven’t watched the series yet, all four episodes — hosted by actor Rachel Griffiths — are still available on SBS On Demand.
This episode is brought to you in partnership with our friends at Gleebooks. Head to the Gleebooks events page to discover more great history events featuring some of Australia’s best and best known authors.
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.

History Lab Live presents the 2025 David Scott Mitchell Oration, delivered by Kim Williams at the State Library of New South Wales.
A passionate advocate for the arts, media, and public institutions, Williams—currently Chair of the ABC—offers a sweeping and deeply personal reflection on the role of libraries and memory institutions in preserving truth, fostering democracy, and inspiring creativity.
The episode is brought to you in partnership with the State Library of New South Wales. Williams delivered his oration at the Library, on Gadigal land, on 25 June, 2025.
Kim Williams AM has had a long involvement in the arts, entertainment and media industries here and overseas and has held various leadership positions since the late 1970s, including as Chief Executive at News Corp Australia, Foxtel, Fox Studios Australia, the Australian Film Commission, Southern Star Entertainment and Music Viva Australia.
History Lab is an Impact Studios podcast, made in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS.

Caribbean Convicts weaves together the story of the Caribbean men who arrived in Sydney onboard the convict ship the Moffatt on August 30, 1836. Most had been enslaved, including William Buchanan, a Jamaican man transported for participating in the Christmas Day slave uprising in Jamaica in 1831-32.
Join historical novelist Sienna Brown as she explores the diverse fates of Buchanan and the other men who arrived that day. As they fanned out across the country, some became bushrangers, others stalwarts of the community, but they all worked hard to make a new home for themselves.
Voices
Cassandra Pybus is a FAHA Fellow and specialises in historical narratives about people who have been marginalised, forgotten or written out of history. An award-winning author she has published 13 books including Black Founders: The Unknown Story of Australia’s First Black Settlers and the bestselling biography, Truganini. She has held research professorships at the University of Sydney, Georgetown University in Washington DC, the University of Texas and King’s College London.
Elizabeth Wiedemann is a local historian in Inverell, NSW.
Marg Young is a relative through marriage of Dick Holt, Richard Holt’s Son who is featured in the program.
Felix Cross is a composer, director and producer whose work has been performed nationally and internationally. From 1996 to 2015, he was the Artistic Director of Nitro/Black Theatre Co-op in England, developing and producing new musical-theatre from a black British perspective. He also worked as a composer for a number of major theatre companies in England. In 2012, he was awarded an MBE for services to Musical Theatre. In 2013 he moved with his family to Australia, working as a freelance director and composer. In 2025, he’s living back in London, while studying for a PhD at Western Sydney University.
Michael St George is one of the most unique performance artists to have emerged from Jamaica. Of Maroon heritage, he’s a poet/singer/songwriter who has worked with national and international artists and dedicates his work to equity, justice and universal love. St George uses poetry and music to dismantle borders, celebrate the power of diversity and self-elevation. The Ontario Federation of Labour presented St. George with the Art and Culture Award for outstanding contribution to his field.
Archival documents read by Scott Cumming and Christian Price
Credits
This series was produced on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and Burramatagal people of the Dharug nation.
Narrator, writer, and producer: Sienna Brown
Sound recordist, writer, and producer: Ben Etherington
Supervising producer: Jane Curtis, UTS Impact Studios
Executive producer: Sarah Gilbert, UTS Impact Studios
Sound designer and engineer: John Jacobs
An earlier version of this episode was made for the ABC Radio National's

In this special episode of Caribbean Echoes, series producers Ben Etherington and Sienna Brown are in conversation with star Jamaican-Australian actress Zahra Newman and acclaimed playwright Alana Valentine.
They discuss the making of the series and how performance emerged as a key theme across it. Zahra reflects on being a Black Caribbean-Australian actor today, and the persistence of the racial politics that afflicted earlier generations of Caribbean immigrants.
Alana takes us through the joys of bringing Nellie Small, the subject of History Lab episode 33, back to the stage in her cabaret Send for Nellie! And we hear about Nellie’s solidarity with Indigenous performers.
The panel also talks bloopers and highlights from their performing careers in this conversation recorded in a packed room at the Abercrombie Hotel in Sydney on October 23, 2025.
Guests
Zahra Newman was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, and moved to Australia at age 14. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Newman has an extensive list of credits in theatre, television, and film. Notable works include her performance as Nabalungi in the original Australian cast of The Book of Mormon, and her lead role in the adaptation of Maxine Beneba Clarke’s memoir The Hate Race. She has received a Green Room Award, a Sydney Theatre Award, and multiple Helpmann Award nominations. Newman played all 23 characters in the Sydney Theatre Company’s recent one-person production of Dracula.
Alana Valentine is a librettist, playwright, and director who has had a long and celebrated career. One highlight is working with acclaimed First Nations performer, Ursula Yovich, on Barbara and The Camp Dogs, which toured nationally, was the recipient of four Helpmann Awards including Best Original Score and Best Musical and four Green Room Awards in Melbourne. She’s collaborated with the First nations choreographer and director Stephen Page on eight works including the multi-award winning Bennelong and the Opera ceremony Baleen Moondjan, which has just played the Brisbane Festival in 2025. Her cabaret Send For Nellie, which repositioned vaudeville legend Nellie Small in the Queer cultural firmament, debuted at the Sydney Festival in 2024.
Jamaican-born Sienna Brown writes historical fiction that centres on the Caribbean Experience in Australia. Her novel Master of My Fate (2019), won the MUD Literary Prize at Adelaide Writers Week for the best debut novel and was shortlisted for the ARA Historical Novel Prize. In 2021, she was commissioned by ABC Radio National to create Caribbean Convicts in Australia. Since 2022, she's been a Research Associate at Western Sydney University as part of the ARC Discovery Project Creole Voices in the Caribbean and Australia.
Ben Etherington is an associate professor at Western Sydney University. His teaching and critical work centres on literary decolonisation and he’s currently writing a history of poetry in West Indian Creole languages from the end of slavery to independence. Ben has produced a number audio features including a documentary for ABC Radio National on