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Mauro Gibin recalls migrating from Italy, 2006

This is an edited sound recording of Mauro Gibin, who migrated to Australia from Italy in 1966 with his parents. He recalls that as a 14-year-old, the month-long voyage by ship across the Indian Ocean to Australia was an adventure. Gibin describes his family's fellow emigrants and some of their on-board conversations. He ...

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Jim Stewart recalls the Australian Army Training Team in Vietnam, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of Jim Stewart, a former commanding officer of the Australian Army Training Team in Vietnam (AATTV), explaining how the AATTV trained units of the South Vietnamese Army (SVA) and militia forces. Stewart describes the duties of AATTV members, recalling the difficulty of the language barrier ...

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Klaus Scheuermann describes 'welcome home' parades, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of Klaus Scheuermann describing the 'welcome home' parade in Brisbane on 12 November 1970 for Australian soldiers who had just returned from South Vietnam. Scheuermann says that the 'fairly rousing welcome' made him and other members of the 8th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment ...

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Judge Kevin Parker outlines the development of humanitarian law, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of Kevin Parker, vice-president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), describing how international law dealing with human rights violations was developed from the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals set up after the end of the Second World War. He explains how ...

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Clare Martin talks about becoming NT opposition leader, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of Clare Martin talking about some of the political strategies she adopted after becoming Australian Labor Party (ALP) opposition leader in Australia's Northern Territory (NT) in 1999. Martin says she was very conscious that the NT had an unusually high proportion of male voters, and this ...

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Lynley Huguenin describes being a Bali bombing victim, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of Melbourne woman Lynley Huguenin, who received serious burns in one of the two terrorist bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali on 12 October 2002, describing the explosion that set her clothes on fire and the confusion that followed. She also tells of a long series of medical treatments, ...

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Jan Andrew recalls swimming at the 1960 Olympics

This is an edited sound recording of Australian swimmer Janice ('Jan') Andrew (nee Thornett) recalling how she won medals at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. She says that members of the Australian team had none of the special swimwear or support staff available to elite swimmers today. She also outlines her continuing work as ...

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Alf Turner remembers his grandfather, William Cooper, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of Alf Turner, grandson of Indigenous activist William Cooper. Turner describes moving to Melbourne to live with his grandparents in about 1936 in the house then used for meetings of the Australian Aborigines' League (AAL). He recalls Cooper's frustration at the lack of results from the ...

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Judge Kevin Parker talks about 'beyond reasonable doubt', 2008

This is an edited sound recording of Kevin Parker, vice-president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), outlining the process of reaching a judgement. Parker stresses that a guilty verdict can only be based on a case being proven 'beyond reasonable doubt' through evidence brought before ...

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Clare Martin speaks on being a female politician, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of Clare Martin, former chief minister of Australia's Northern Territory (NT), talking about being a female politician. Martin discusses some of the difficulties faced by women politicians, particularly those with children. She says that balancing their professional role with their role ...

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Graeme Burgess remembers army training for the Vietnam War, 2006

This is an edited sound recording of a former Australian soldier, Graeme Burgess, speaking about the School of Military Engineering (SME) in Casula in western Sydney where he trained in 1967 before being sent to fight in the Vietnam War. Burgess gives details of the type of engineer training provided at the SME. He also ...

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Kerry Alcock describes his Cyclone Larry experience, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of a Queensland banana grower, Kerry Alcock, describing the devastation wrought by Cyclone Larry on his family business plantation in March 2006. Alcock tells how his crop was totally destroyed and how a new crop had to be planted from scratch using about 65,000 'suckers'. He also points ...

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Milt Cottee describes RAAF air attacks in the Korean War, 2007

This is an edited sound recording of former Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Group Captain Milt Cottee describing attack missions in single-seater Mustang planes such as those he piloted in the Korean War (1950-53). Cottee outlines the range of weapons carried and the types of targets they were used against. He also gives ...

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Bonita Mabo speaks about being a South Sea Islander, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of Bonita Mabo, widow of Indigenous land rights activist Eddie Mabo. She discusses being of South Sea Islander descent and talks about how South Sea Islanders were officially recognised as a distinct ethnic group. She states a belief that Islanders such as her ancestors who were brought ...

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Jurij Semkiw remembers Australia's first computer, 2006

This is an edited sound recording of 77-year-old Jurij Semkiw talking about Australia's first computer, known as CSIRAC (pronounced 'sigh-rack'), which ran its first simple program in 1949. Semkiw, who was a maintenance engineer on CSIRAC, describes the excitement of being involved in a completely new technology. He also ...

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Brian Manning recalls the Wave Hill walk-off, 2007

This is an edited sound recording of Indigenous rights activist Brian Manning talking about the Wave Hill walk-off in the Northern Territory in 1966, when Gurindji workers on the Wave Hill cattle station went on strike. Manning tells how he was involved in organising the walk-off, assuring the Gurindji that, unlike previous ...

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Trevor Smith discusses dealing with droughts, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of Trevor Smith, a wheat and sheep farmer in the Forbes area of central New South Wales. He explains what it is like being a farmer who has to deal with a prolonged period of drought. Smith tells of the financial strains on farming businesses and the psychological strains on individual ...

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Jim Flemming recalls filming an attack mission in South Korea, 2007

This is an edited sound recording of former Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Air Vice-Marshal Jim Flemming describing an unusual operation to film an air attack mission in the Korean War for use in a 1950 episode of a 'Cinesound Review' newsreel. Flemming describes how a camera was specially fitted under the wing of a ...

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Colleen McCullough discusses the importance of research, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of the best-selling Australian author Colleen McCullough discussing the importance of research for a writer. McCullough explains that research for her own 'Masters of Rome' series of novels involved reading 'literally hundreds' of books by both modern and ancient writers. She stresses that ...

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Andy Thomas describes his first flight into space, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of Australian astronaut Andy Thomas talking about his first flight into space in May 1996. Thomas describes the experience of taking off aboard the US space shuttle Endeavour, and how he was able to look down from space on the city of his birth, Adelaide, at night. He also describes how ...