The Dead Can't Sue
Serious academics Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher gossip about dead figures from Australian history, uncovering juicy stories about rebels, divas, convicts, heroes, and scoundrels. Each week they bring unfiltered takes and dinner-party-worthy conversations about the nation's past.
Episodes
Alfred Deakin: From seance-loving teenager to self-righteous founding father (part 1)
Alfred Deakin may be known as a father of federation, but as a teenager he loved to commune with the dead. In part one of Deakin's story, Leigh tries to make sense of Deakin's spiritualism (good luck) and grapples with some of the more troubling parts of our second prime minister's legacy. Plus, Leigh reveals a truly withering school report Deakin received, and the scoop on the p
Eddie Mabo: The fight that defined and undermined him (part 2)
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 cross-examination and questions that challenge his very sense of self.Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this episode mentions the name of an
Eddie Mabo: Getting exiled - a rough start to a land rights mission (part 1)
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 make a land claim over? Alecia retraces Eddie Koiki Mabo's life of adventure, heartbreak and determination. From the small island of Mer to the 1950s pearling boats t
Daisy Kwok: From Sydney to Shanghai to shovelling sh*t
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 haunting many episodes of our podcast/Australian history. This week we meet Daisy Kwok, just one Chinese Australian whose life was changed by one of the world's worst immigr
Joh Bjelke-Petersen: The ‘hillbilly dictator’ goes down (part 2)
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 for Joh Bjelke-Petersen's political magic and figure out how he held onto the premiership for decades, despite his truly staggering corruption. Then we dine out on Jo
Joh Bjelke-Petersen: The 40-year-old virgin enters politics (part 1)
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 fail son to peanut farmer, and finally to the highest office in Queensland. Plus... Joh marries a woman named Flo and then begins calling her ‘mum’ (not weird at a
Faith Bandler: Exposing CSR & Australia’s slave trade, aka 'Blackbirding' (part 2)
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 island paradise where her father grew up: Ambrym. What she finds there will spur her on for decades of fighting. Alecia and Leigh get fired up as they retrace Faith’s
Faith Bandler: The ‘gentle’ activist with an ASIO file who changed the constitution (part 1)
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 that Faith is just as important to the fight for racial justice in Australia as Martin Luther King was to the USA. Despite many people’s assumptions, Faith was not a
Nellie Melba: How a facelift downed our diva (part 2)
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 becomes the Kylie Minogue of her time, charming the masses in London's best theatres and touring the world drumming up support for the war effort (with some suspici
Nellie Melba: How the prima donna dodged her sh*tty husband to find fame and fortune (part 1)
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 tomboy to domestic abuse survivor and then global superstar? Leigh dives deep on Nellie’s life of tragedy and drama, worthy of its own opera, and proves to Alecia this
Miles Franklin: Our feminist hero flirts with fascism (part 2)
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 Miles Franklin's story, we see her go from bush girl to political animal. Starting with Miles’s globe-trotting feminist and labour activist days, to her flirtations with
Miles Franklin: The flirty bush girl behind My Brilliant Career (part 1)
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 today (see: the new Netflix adaptation by the same name). Everyone read the book as semi-autobiographical, with its protagonist, Sybylla, standing in for a young, f
Harold Holt: The tragic demise of a people-pleasing PM (part 2)
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 PM included the 1967 Referendum and the start of dismantling the White Australia Policy lose his audience? We tell you how we think it all went down and give you th
Harold Holt: How a kid called 'Puss' conquered Canberra (part 1)
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 after him, but Leigh is more fixated on the less well-known quirks of our dear Harry.For example, did his pretty privilege charm Canberra? Where did his high school ni
William Buckley: How an escaped convict spent 30 years with an Indigenous group
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 England who ends up being adopted by the Wathaurong people in 1800s Victoria. Leigh investigates the legend of Buckley’s survival, what the Wathaurong had to gain fr
Chopper: The Christmas card that changed his life (part 2)
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 reinvent himself from hardened crim to comedian, artist, rapper and… children's book author.Warning: This episode discusses intimate partner violence, racism, transph
Chopper: The making of (part 1)
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. Alecia and Leigh wade through the lies to try to understand how does one become Chopper? How does he get that nickname and that reputation? Featuring failure and medioc
Tilly Devine: 'The Worst Woman in Sydney'
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.Beyond the rivals, razor blades and racketeering, they ask: Was Tilly the original girl (mob) boss? Why did she shoot her fiancé a few months before their wedding? (Ye
Matthew Flinders: The death of a cat daddy (part 2)
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, Trim.
Matthew Flinders: Erotic letter writer (part 1)
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 and Leigh do a literal reading of a seemingly steamy letter, written by Flinders to Bass in 1800, and a (potentially) queer reading of the relationship between these
INTRODUCING — The Dead Can't Sue
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, like … Who really chopped off Chopper's ears? Why did they name a swimming pool after the Prime Minister who drowned? And, did our very own Dame Nellie Melba have a me
