"Postcode wars" refers to violent territorial disputes and gang rivalries where conflict lines are drawn by neighborhood boundaries or postal codes. These feuds, often centered around train stations and suburban shopping centers, frequently escalate to deadly stabbings and shooting. The phenomenon is notoriously prevalent across Sydney (such as conflicts between groups in Western Sydney) and Melbourne, where teenage gang violence has tragically claimed young lives.
A brutal conflict is playing out on the streets of Sydney, and the battle lines are drawn between postcodes.
Teens from across the western suburbs are being drawn into its violence, sometimes with deadly consequences.
Four Corners and Background Briefing go inside a powerful and dangerous criminal hierarchy, revealing how it stretches from the kids in the postcode gangs, into the lyrics of drill, and all the way up to some of Australia’s most notorious crime families.
Here's the entire Oils on the Water concert from Goat Island in Sydney Harbour from 1985. I was 16 when this was broadcast. I had been listening to Midnight Oil for over a year. I had been introduced to them by a girl I had a brief thing with, and we went on to become lifelong friends (its been over 40 years now anyway). Midnight Oil changed reality for me. Prior to hearing their music I was a good little colonial boy. When I was 12 I wrote a 10 page essay on Winston Churchill, from an admiration. When I was 15 I won a school writing prize for a story about nuclear war being conducted like a cricket match. That change was largely due to the 1982 Midnight Oil album 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. Songs like US Forces taught a generation of Australians about the history of their nation that was not being taught in school. I was told in school that Aboriginal Australians were an "evolutionary dead end" and they would die out. It was only a matter of time. My discovery of Midnight Oil was the beginning of my awareness. It was shown on national television and broadcast in stereo simulcast on Radio JJJ - it was the 10th birthday for the station. Enjoy and think of Rob Hirst the drummer who died yesterday.
Nickel Queen is a 1971 Australian comedy film starring Googie Withers and directed by her husband John McCallum. The story was loosely based on the Poseidon bubble, a nickel boom in Western Australia in the late 1960s, and tells of an outback pub owner who stakes a claim and finds herself an overnight millionaire.
Meg Blake is the widowed owner of a pub in a small desert town in Western Australia. Corrupt American mining executive Ed Benson starts the rumour of a nickel discovery to sell shares to gullible investors. Meg heads the rumour and stakes the first claim. Benson promotes her as the "Nickel Queen".
Hippie Claude Fitzherbert (played by the late John Laws) follows Meg into Perth high society and becomes her lover. Benson is exposed as a fraud, Fitzherbert deserts Meg and runs off with Benson's wife and Meg is reunited with an old suitor from her hometown.
Blackfella Charlie is out of sorts. The intervention is making life more difficult on his remote community, what with the proper policing of whitefella laws now. So Charlie takes off, to live the old way, but in so doing sets off a chain of events in his life that has him return to his community chastened, and somewhat the wiser.
David Gulpilil was a legendary Yolngu actor, a First Nations person of Northern Australia, born around 1953. The local missionaries gave him his birthdate of July 1, 1953, just as they gave him his Christian name David, although he admits he liked that name from the start. His last name, Gulpilil, was a totem, the kingfisher. He'd never seen a white person until he was 8 when he visited the mission school, but he never really allowed them to teach him anything. David died in 2021. He will never be forgotten.
The inmates and guards of a modern, clean and efficient maximum security wing are slowly and increasingly brutalised until they erupt in violence. Dark and macabre, and based in truth, the story is told in a traditional dramatic style combined with telephone interviews and narration.
More than ever, this dark postindustrial vision of the cacereal society, where one man is imprisoned in order to lock up the minds of the entire world, is relevant. The cruel and brutal inevitability of the prison system, where boys are mutilated into men, with violence and fear, power and intimidation. Everything has a price, and a cost. In this savage account of an isolated maximum security prison in the Central Australian desert that is in lockdown. Pressure is building in the facility and the weak will not survive what is coming. It is almost like the screws are making it happen. Boiling the pot hotter and hotter, until it boils over. And it will.....Welcome to Hell.
Ghosts... of the Civil Dead is a 1988 Australian drama-suspense film directed by John Hillcoat. It was written by Hillcoat, Evan English, Gene Conkie, Nick Cave, and Hugo Race. It is partly based on the prison diaries of Jack Henry Abbott.
The story is set in Central Industrial Prison, a privately run maximum security prison in the middle of the Australian desert. An outbreak of violence within the prison has resulted in a total lockdown. A committee is appointed by the prison's governors to investigate the cause of the outbreak, but their findings are in stark contrast to the facts behind the riot.
It is revealed that both the prisoners and the guards are slowly and deliberately brutalised, manipulated and provoked into the forthcoming eruption of violence by the government and the private company that runs the prison, in order to justify the construction of a new and more "secure" facility.
The script was based on the book In the Belly of the Beast by Jack Henry Abbott and research done with David Hale, a former prison guard at Marion, Illinois. who features as a character in the film.
Inner city Sydney in the 1980s and 90s was a very special place. I first spent extended amounts of time in Newtown from 1991. The creativity and energy of the community was amazing. Music, art, performance and writing as well as dancing, singing, sculpting and raving were happening everywhere. Large loft-style warehouse spaces could be rented for a few hundred dollars a week and large groups could live in them too. I moved permanently to Sydney in late 1992 and the city was my base late 1999. The city has changed a lot since then and on my first and only visit back since, in 2023, it was almost unrecognisable.
This is the story of Bryan Cook. A local inner city photographer and Australian independent music lover who captured some of the most unique, unseen photos around the inner city pubs like The Hopetoun, The Vulcan, The Sydney Trade Union Club The Evening star, The Strawberry Hills Hotel and more.
His love of film and digital photography inadvertently captured a music scene that was never given a lot of attention or documented by the mainstream press. Dr Gregory Ferris, an esteemed academic from the UTS, discovered Cookie's extensive, extraordinary and rarely seen photos and exhibited them at the Powerhouse Museum in an interactive display that recreated the Hopetoun Hotel. Cookie has confirmed that the total number of photographs taken over the years exceeded 80,000, a monumental achievement.
This video was the concept of Ed Garland and Nick Bleszynski, who were determined to expose to the world the amazing photography of Bryan (Cookie) Cook and his accidental documentation of a unique time in Australian music history.
Interviews:
Clyde Bramley (Hoodoo Gurus)
Jon Roberts (The Barbarellas)
Geoff Datson (Samurai Trash)
Susie Beauchamp (Box the Jesuit)
Dr Gregory Ferris (UTS Academic)
Ed Garland (Waxworks)
Credit to Nick Bleszynski for footage at the Moshpit Newtown and the scene with Dr Ferris.
Turkey Shoot is a 1982 Australian dystopian future movie where ordinary people are thrown into camps and hunted by the rich.
In the near future, after an unspecified holocaust, survivors are herded into prison camps. There, they are hunted for sport by the leaders of the camp. Paul, one of the newest prisoners, is determined not to go down as quietly as the others.
Cast: Steve Railsback, Olivia Hussey, Michael Craig
Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith
The film features rape, cannibalism, torture, gun violence, mutilation and some pretty bad acting. Filmed on location near Cairns, Turkey Shoot underwent a troubled production as a result of a budgetary shortfall that reduced the shooting schedule; this also necessitated multiple scenes being rewritten or cut entirely, extensive simultaneous second unit photography directed by executive producer David Hemmings, and use of stock footage during post-production.
Widely considered to be a seminal example of the Ozploitation cycle, the film is notable for its extreme depictions of graphic violence and sadism; Time Out declared that the film "makes modern day grindhouse imitations such as Machete and Planet Terror seem like anaemic shadows in comparison". Despite receiving negative reviews from such Australian critics as David Stratton and Phillip Adams, Turkey Shoot is recognised as a cult film
The famous Les Girls 'All Male Review' in the heart of Sydney's Kings Cross since 1963 was still going strong in the 1990s, headed up by the performer Carlotta. Capitalising on the sudden success of the feature film 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' (Stephan Elliott, 1994), Les Girls went on tour, leaving their night club vacant. Sean O'Brien, and his fellow filmmaker colleague Robert Herbert took advantage of the vacant Sunday night spot at Les Girls (2a Roslyn Street Kings Cross) to run their own fun spot.
Tender Trap was for the emerging scene of easy listening, lounge, cocktail, exotica, and incredibly strange music experiencing an enormous international resurgence in the mid 1990s. With the filmic by-line, 'A celebration of cocktail culture at its most sophisticated and savage', O'Brien and Herbert developed a narrative arc to each evening evening – 'First the cocktails and sophisticated conversation, then the live performance, then the wild dancing shall begin'. The sleaze, gangs and drugs of 1990s Kings Cross were left outside the doors of Tender Trap. Soft, pastel lighting, a very vintage sound system, and hand-made stage designs for the cabaret acts all gave Tender Trap the feeling of an oasis in the centre of the Cross, for those who were seeking it. (I attended several events there, including a performance by Japanese ambient noise legend K.K. Null in 1995).
After running Tender Trap for eight years, in January 2000 the club had its final night, as the historic Les Girls building was shut down for major renovations, becoming yet another inner-city hotel.
This film by Sean O'Brien is a portrait of the twilight world of the Sapphire Room, the last of Sydney’s legendary cabaret nightclubs. The film blends candid footage of local “exotic” cabaret artists with a dramatic plot which follows the characters and actions over one eventful night at the club. It features Johannes K. Drinda, the World's Greatest Whistler, who performed his unusual repertoire outside the Sydney Opera House for many years. Filmed on location at the Tender Trap club, in the Les Girls building, during the mid 1990s.
Writer/Director: Sean O'Brien
Camera: Simon Von Wolkenstein, Tristan Milani, Sean O'Brien
Editor and sound design: Nick Meyers
Cast: Rowan Woods, Sauly Saul, Sasha Madaluno, Ali Higson, and a scintillating line-up of Sydney's cabaret stars.
Mad Max 2 (released as The Road Warrior in the United States) is a 1981 Australian post-apocalyptic dystopian action film directed by George Miller. It is the second installment in the Mad Max franchise, with Mel Gibson reprising his role as "Mad" Max Rockatansky. The film's tale of a community of settlers moved to defend themselves against a roving band of marauders follows an archetypical "Western" frontier movie motif, as does Max's role as a hardened man whose decision to assist the settlers helps him rediscover his humanity. Filming took place in locations around Broken Hill, in the Outback of New South Wales.
The film was released on 24 December 1981 to widespread critical acclaim, with particular praise given to Gibson's performance, the musical score, cinematography, action sequences, costume design and sparing use of dialogue. It was also a box office success, and the film's post-apocalyptic and punk aesthetics helped popularise the genre in film and fiction writing. At the 10th Saturn Awards, the film won Best International Film and was nominated for five more awards: Best Director, Best Actor for Gibson, Best Supporting Actor for Bruce Spence, Best Writing, and Best Costumes for Norma Moriceau. Mad Max 2 is widely hailed as both one of the greatest action movies of all time and one of the greatest sequels ever made, and fan clubs for the film and "road warrior"-themed activities continue into the 21st century.
Preceded by Mad Max in 1979, the film was followed by Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985 and Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015.
Morning of the Earth is a 1971 classic surf film by Alby Falzon and David Elfick.
The film's soundtrack was produced by G. Wayne Thomas and included music and songs by noted Australian music acts Tamam Shud, John J. Francis, Brian Cadd, Mike Rudd and G. Wayne Thomas. The record became the first Australian Gold soundtrack album. In October 2010, the soundtrack for Morning of the Earth (1971) was listed in the book, 100 Best Australian Albums.
The film portrays surfers living in spiritual harmony with nature, making their own boards (and homes) as they travelled in search of the perfect wave across Australia's north-east coast, Bali and Hawaii. The movie is regarded as one of the finest of its genre and noted as recording the first surfers to ride the waves at Uluwatu on the very southern tip of Bali and so bringing Bali to the attention of surfers around the world and so the beginnings of Bali as a major tourist destination.
Tony's out of jail. His mates think he's got the proceeds from the robbery and want it. Tony just wants to find Anna. He deals with one problem at a time. This is a road movie and a trip. Writer/director Esben Storm.
Music; John Martyn, Allan Stivell, AC/DC, Rose Tattoo.
Living abroad and being a teacher, I often talk to people about the history of Australia. Many people find it hard to believe that in many ways Australia resembles South Africa in it's history and ideology regarding the Indigenous people of the continent. At the same time many people in Australia want to see change, and to see the crimes of history addressed. But many people in Australia also see the colonisation of the landmass as a 'civilising project'. The distance between these points is the reason why collective Australia is so often concerned with what it is to be 'Australian' and so much time, effort and money is spent in projecting out into the world a sort of composite image of 'Australia'. As recently as the 2023 FIFA women's world cup there were advertisements run to attract tourists to Australia which featured the same image that were being promoted in the 1980s (outback landscapes, marsupials, the beach and the Great Barrier Reef, the Opera House) in the tedious 'Come and Say G'day campaign'. If Australia as a culture could only articulate some of the complexities of the national story and history, I believe there could be massive change in how the society as a whole develops and many of the issues that are dividing the nation today would be incorporated into a larger understanding of national identity. One of the most difficult and important issues that needs to be incorporated into the nation is the ongoing history of genocide that is the story of Aboriginal survival. This film takes a bleak look at this horror
Barry Humphries died today. This is one of his many films.
The Naked Bunyip is a 1970 Australian documentary film directed by John B. Murray. The film explores sex in Australia using a fictional framework. A shy young man is hired by an ad agency to conduct a survey on sex in Australia. The somewhat clueless young man investigates homosexuality, transvestites, prostitution, and strip clubs along with every other variant on the "norm". While doing his interviews he meets celebrities, self proclaimed sex experts, prostitutes, female impersonators, pop stars, actors, and legislators as well as self appointed moral guardians.
The Naked Bunyip is a sex documentary and a blend of fact and fiction; "[it] incorporates the fictionalizing of the 'real' that had been a feature of tendencies in French 'new wave' and the American avant-garde narrative cinema." Graeme Blundell plays a shy young man who works for an ad agency, and the agency hires him to survey about sex in Australia. The film consists of "unrehearsed and unscripted" interviews as Blundell's character investigates a variety of sexual experiences, all except for the "normal" heterosexual experience.
Among the people interviewed are Dame Edna Everage, Jacki Weaver, Aggy Read, Harry M. Miller, and Russell Morris.
The Commonwealth censors insisted on five minutes of footage being removed but the producers refused, simply blacking out the offending images and bleeping the soundtrack. On the black footage, Murray inserted a picture of a bunyip performing a parody of the forbidden action. Murray also previewed the film without cuts to censors, angering the censor. This led to a debate about censorship which helped lead to a reform of censorship standards
A 2001 Australian comedy-drama film directed by Richard Lowenstein and starring Noah Taylor. The film draws on the 1994 memoir of the same name and consists of a series of vignettes from a young man's experience of sharing accommodation with a variety of characters.
The Last Wave (also released in the United States as Black Rain) is a 1977 Australian mystery drama film directed by Peter Weir. It is about a white solicitor in Sydney whose seemingly normal life is disrupted after he takes on a murder case and discovers that he shares a strange, mystical connection with the small group of local Aboriginal people accused of the crime.
Click on the image above to watch the full film.
Explore the life and work of beloved Melbourne artist, dancer and free spirit Vali Myers in this special Window on Collections event.
Cutting her own unique path, Vali Myers lived a bohemian life that was true to herself. With her bright red hair, dramatic eyeliner and facial tattoos, Vali turned heads wherever she went. She was known not only for her exquisite art but for an approach to life that continues to captivate our imaginations.
Join us for a screening of The painted lady (2002) documentary, in which director Ruth Cullen captures Vali Myers at her iconic studio in the Nicholas Building in the heart of Melbourne, a lively environment where she painted, drew, drank and danced with those who her rare soul enchanted. In Vali’s own words, ‘When you’ve lived like I have, you’ve done it all.’
The film screening will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Library staff member Fiona Jeffery with guests Ruth Cullen and art historian Tracy Spinks. A viewing of Vali’s artworks, diaries and artefacts in the State Collection will also be available, as well as live folk and Romany music performed by Vardos, who feature in the film. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn more about an incredible figure in Melbourne’s art history.
Please note: this event will be livestreamed and recorded, including the film screening. The 26-minute film will be available to watch online for one week after the event, after which it will be removed. The panel discussion will remain online to watch at any time.
If you would like to know more about the film The Tightrope Dancer, or purchase the film, please head to Ruth Cullen's website: www.ruthcullen.com/product-page/the-tightrope-dancer-the-painted-lady
This film is unrated and includes sexual references. Viewer discretion is advised.
A history of the Australian environmental activist movement in the 1970s & early '80s, focusing on the Terania Ck, Franklin River & Daintree rainforest eco-blockades. Narrated by Jack Thompson.
Europe 1988: Mutoid Waste founder Robin Mutoid conceives a journey across the Australian desert, which will fuse a 'mader than Max' blend of theatre. protest, lifestyle and performance.
12 years later Robin heads to Port Augusta in Australia's far south to see who will answer the call. Those who come will be challenged on every conceivable level on their 20,000km journey, bringing them together as a community and allowing them all to participate in a fascinating study into 'lateral human governance'. Sometimes violent, often humorous and always passionate, this is their story.
A 25 minute documentary focusing on the characters that inhabit King Street in Newtown, Sydney Australia - aired on ABC TV 9.2.95.
Newtown at the time was a 19th century workers suburb that had been taken over by diverse counter culture, artistic, punk and outsiders in the 1980s. By 1995 it was in full bloom and was about to enter a 5 year decline of gentrification and real estate market ethics.
I highly recommend this film to capture something of the energy and spirit that was the inner city of Sydney in the 1980s and 90s.
The film was raised in a Senate committee hearing regarding its rating, as it features some queer content.
The entire 1964 documentary about Sydney's Kings Cross "The Glittering Mile*. David Low's classic narration says it all: King Cross is a "glittering mile of dreams, delusions, hopes and headaches, where life comes out of an espresso machine and you can have it any way you like it."
In some ways, Kings Cross, described as Sin City, hasn't changed at all. One Sydney alderman wants to clean it up, another says it's worth a million dollars a year the way it is.
American singer Wayne Newton, the so-called King of Las Vegas, has just flown in and is seen rehearsing for his opening night at the Silver Spade Room at the Chevron Hotel. He's singing Danke Schön — "Thank you for all the joy and pain."
Outside, the people celebrate the bohemian way of life and complain about the weirdos who congregate there. A dancer at the Pink Pussycat tells a reporter, "Well, you get a lot of creeps around here, I know that. You get pestered walking from one club to another." A New Zealander and his mates perform an impromptu haka outside one strip club.
Dancing girls. Another voiceover demonstrates the way women were portrayed in the media in the '60s: "If it's company you're after, there are plenty of girls at the Cross. The place is full of girls, coming and going. It's hard to understand what keeps them busy all night long." And another: "You can be catered for at places where the girls are provided to please you, but you mustn't touch."
The manager at the Pink Pussycat, "Last Card Louie" says, "I've seen the (striptease) show 39,000 times. It's just one of those things. I don't know what to think about it, to tell you the truth."
Another sign that some things never change is the "frequently heard demand around the Cross" for more police ... and for more police on the beat. One resident even keeps a diary of all the crimes that she hears and sees from her flat.
An interviewer speaks to the infamous "witch of Kings Cross" Rosaleen Norton at the Apollyon Lounge, a cafe that she used to frequent. A robed Rosaleen Norton performs a banishing ritual by inscribing a pentagram in the air with her ceremonial athame, or dagger, thereby purifying and defining the ‘sacred space’ associated with the ritual. However we know that Norton was not always robed during her ceremonial performances because she confirmed in her interview with D.L. Thompson that ‘ceremonial attire ranges from nakedness to full regalia – robes, hood, sandals and accessories...’. Norton appeared during her interview with Thompson clad only in her dark leather ‘witch’s apron’, naked from the waist up, although she later posed for a photograph wearing a cat’s mask in addition to her apron. During Norton’s interview with Thompson her fellow coven members wore ritual animal masks to disguise their identity and referred to each other by using code names like the Rat and the Toad, thereby remaining effectively anonymous. (see Neville Drury's article on Roie)
The excerpt ends with an all-male revue. The narration reads: "A few years ago an all-male revue like Les Girls would have been out of the question in Sydney, as it would in most places where people like the differences between the sexes to be clear and obvious. Today, it's part of the Kings Cross scene." And now years later, it still is ... with the Gay Mardi Gras now one of the highlights of Sydney's social calendar.
The Glittering Mile is a fascinating stroll down memory lane ... looking at Kings Cross as it really was in 1964.
