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Political History of Australia
by John Ruddick
Today: #192 in History, Australia on our combined chart.
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Latest episodes
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E44: A Free Press Arrives in Australia
October 14, 2026 · 51 minWilliam Wentworth returned to Australia in 1824. He was a man on a mission – to overthrow the ruling clique in the colony who were hostile to even modest democratic reforms. Wentworth’s weapon of choice in this battle was a free…
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E43: Wentworth - Australia's Greatest Native Son
October 7, 2026 · 50 minWilliam Wentworth was described by Manning Clark as ‘Australia’s greatest native son.’ When Governor Macquarie departed Australia, his campaign to lift the social status of the emancipists was in tatters. All the institutions were lined…
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E42: Australia's First Parliament
September 30, 2026 · 46 minLast time the emancipists were on the back foot but then two hammer blows hit with Governor Macquarie’s departure. The new governor of NSW, Sir Thomas Brisbane, was a tough Major-General who had seen a lot of war. Governor Brisbane…
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E41: Macquarie's Farewell: 'I Anticipate the Applause of Posterity.'
September 16, 2026 · 48 minIn this episode we say farewell to Governor Lachlan Macquarie after twelve years in Sydney. He championed the name Australia, made 26 January an official public anniversary, and was the first leading figure to address the colony as a…
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E40: The British Empire Strikes Back
September 9, 2026 · 54 minGovernor Lachlan Macquarie was on a sincere mission to lift up the former convicts known as emancipists. For years that project had gone his way — until the colonial establishment struck back and set out to put these “uppity” emancipists…
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E39: What Politicised the Emancipists?
September 2, 2026 · 55 minIn early New South Wales, more than four-fifths of the non-Aboriginal population were convicts, former convicts, or their children. Once free, these people — the emancipists — discovered that money and talent could not wash away the…
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E38: John Macarthur, Down and (Almost) Out in London
August 19, 2026 · 51 minEpisode 38 follows John Macarthur after he slipped out of New South Wales just before Lachlan Macquarie arrived to restore order. Having masterminded the Rum Rebellion, Macarthur exploited a legal loophole in Lord Castlereagh’s arrest…
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E37: The Tale of Two Tasmanias
August 12, 2026 · 54 minIn September 1803 Lieutenant John Bowen raised the Union Jack at Risdon Cove on the Derwent, founding the first European settlement in Van Diemen’s Land. The next year, Governor King in Sydney, under orders from London, sent…
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E36: The Van Diemen's Land Version of the First Fleet
July 29, 2026 · 56 minIn 1803, Governor Philip Gidley King in Sydney sent two ships to near modern day Hobart. There had been multiple earlier European visits to Van Diemen’s Land but these ships were going to stay and build a permanent British…
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E35: BONUS EPISODE - Address to 'The Women's Pioneer Society of Australasia'
July 22, 2026 · 48 minLast week 'The Women's Pioneer Society of Australasia' invited me to speak about the Political History of Australia podcast. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please leave a comment, share and rate the…
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E34: The Geopolitics of Pre-Colonial Van Diemen's Land
July 15, 2026 · 56 minThe people of what we now call Tasmania had lived in complete isolation since rising seas carved out Bass Strait around 10,000 BC, transforming their homeland from a southern peninsula of the Australian continent into the world’s most…
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E33: Australia's Neighbourhood in the Early 1820s
July 8, 2026 · 1 hr 5 minThis episode we pause the story of Governor Lachlan Macquarie to take a panoramic tour of Australia’s near-abroad and Australia’s infant settlements in the early 1820s. With the Napoleonic Wars finally over and Britannia ruling the…
About the show
Welcome to the story of Australia. This podcast series by John Ruddick tells the political and geopolitical history of Australia, starting with the fabled "terra Australis" and then tracking the journey from British penal colony to a young federation, a country at war, and today one of the world’s great nations. Episodes released weekly. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.