Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, June three. It'll be a decade before the
Speaker 1: Albanese government's huge boost in defense spending makes our military stronger,
Speaker 1: according to a new analysis revealed in The Australian Today.
Speaker 1: It comes as a fresh poll shows seventy percent of
Speaker 1: Australians believe China will become a military threat within the
Speaker 1: next twenty years. The husband of missing mum Bromwin Winfield
Speaker 1: was jealous and possessive, a former wife, has told The
Speaker 1: Australian's investigative podcast into her suspected murder. John Winfield denies
Speaker 1: all wrongdoing and has never been charged over Bronwin's nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three disappearance. You can catch the ex wife's account
Speaker 1: of her unhappy marriage in episode three, exclusively for subscribers
Speaker 1: now at bronwyn p podcast dot com. The Australian is
Speaker 1: turning sixty and to celebrate the milestone, our journalists and
Speaker 1: editors are delving into the archives to reflect on how
Speaker 1: Australia and the paper has changed in the past six decades. Today,
Speaker 1: with the Paris Olympics just around the corner, we hear
Speaker 1: the story of a young swimmer whose youthful defiance denied
Speaker 1: her a glittering career. There's a bit of Australian sports
Speaker 1: law that almost everyone knows or thinks they know. Dawn Fraser,
Speaker 1: then widely considered the greatest swimmer of all time, was
Speaker 1: banned from swimming for a decade in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 2: Like most Australians, Dawn is upset by the drastic action
Speaker 2: which we'll finish her swimming career.
Speaker 1: In an exclusive statement to Sydney radio station two Yue, she's.
Speaker 3: A but I'm not going to sit there and let's
Speaker 3: see bokay in my name. And here's what the man
Speaker 3: and woman in the street think of it.
Speaker 1: Many people believe Fraser was banned for stealing a flag
Speaker 1: from the Emperor's palace while in Tokyo for the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four Olympics, a crime for which she was arrested,
Speaker 1: but the champion swimmer apologized and the charges were dropped.
Speaker 1: The Emperor even let Fraser keep the flag as a gift.
Speaker 1: The band came about for another reason. Entirely.
Speaker 3: What I discovered was that, in fact, at those Olympic Games,
Speaker 3: there was in the opening ceremony. Obviously, everyone wanted to
Speaker 3: march at the opening ceremony.
Speaker 1: Fion Hairari is a writer for the Weekend Australian magazine.
Speaker 3: But the Australian officials told Australian athletes that if they
Speaker 3: were competing in the first three days of competition, because
Speaker 3: they might become fatigued, they could not march in the
Speaker 3: opening ceremony. Apparently someone turned up at the athletes village
Speaker 3: and said, look, maybe we should march, and at least
Speaker 3: four people Australian female swimmers decided that they would try
Speaker 3: and get to the opening ceremony.
Speaker 1: Two of those women were nabbed by Olympics officials before
Speaker 1: they could board the team bus to the opening ceremony.
Speaker 1: But Dawn Fraser and another swimmer, Marlene Damon, who was
Speaker 1: just fourteen years old at the time and in Tokyo
Speaker 1: to compete in the women's one hundred meter backstroke, boarded
Speaker 1: the bus and evaded detection.
Speaker 3: And I'm told it's because they were sitting behind someone
Speaker 3: who was reading a broadsheet newspaper, possibly the Australian that
Speaker 3: happened to obscure them.
Speaker 1: Fraser and Damon did March at that opening ceremony and
Speaker 1: went on to compete in Tokyo. Fraser put on a
Speaker 1: characteristically world class performance, winning gold in the women's one
Speaker 1: hundred meter freestyle and becoming the first swimmer to win
Speaker 1: the same event three times.
Speaker 2: Play Fraser, Australia, You're start away, not Fraser Way number four,
Speaker 2: We're pleasure, where.
Speaker 1: Before Marlene Damon placed sixth in her heat and it
Speaker 1: looked like she and Fraser had got away with their
Speaker 1: cheeky opening ceremony stunt. But less than a year later,
Speaker 1: in March of nineteen sixty five, the Australian Swimming Union
Speaker 1: handed down the band that still reverberates through swimming. Fraser
Speaker 1: out for ten years. Marlene Damon copped a three year ban.
Speaker 1: She'd only just turned fifteen, but it effectively ended a
Speaker 1: once promising career in the pool.
Speaker 3: So I was really keen to find out what had
Speaker 3: happened to Marlene because really nothing much had been reported
Speaker 3: about her then, which makes sense she didn't swim again
Speaker 3: competitively after the age of fifteen. Some of the others
Speaker 3: did appeal their ban, some of them did swim afterwards.
Speaker 3: Linda McGill, who was one of the women who tried
Speaker 3: to board the bus became a champion long distance swimmer,
Speaker 3: but I couldn't find any reference to Marlene Damon having
Speaker 3: swim again.
Speaker 1: Fiona went in search of Marlene Damon for a series
Speaker 1: of articles she's written for The Australian's sixtieth anniversary celebrations.
Speaker 3: So after trying to find her everywhere, I finally worked
Speaker 3: out where she lived. I found her phone number. I
Speaker 3: kept ringing her and there was no answer. I was
Speaker 3: in Adelaide for another story, and I thought, I'm just
Speaker 3: going to have to try and knock on her door,
Speaker 3: which is not something I tend to do, but I
Speaker 3: was really keen to get her in the story. And
Speaker 3: I was literally in a taxi on the way to
Speaker 3: her house when I had located her brother by chance,
Speaker 3: who was a businessman also in Adelaide, and I'd rung
Speaker 3: him and he ranged me as I was literally in
Speaker 3: the taxi on the way to her place, and he said, yes, yes, sure,
Speaker 3: I'm sure she'd be happy to talk to you. He
Speaker 3: gave me a number, So instead of getting the taxi
Speaker 3: to pull up outside her house, I got it to
Speaker 3: stop at the pub nearby. I rang her and she
Speaker 3: was just by chance at home that day and she said,
Speaker 3: I'd be thrilled to talk to you.
Speaker 4: I'd be really happy to talk to you. And I said, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm just in the neighborhood.
Speaker 3: So I walked down to her house and ten minutes
Speaker 3: after I was on her front balcony and we had
Speaker 3: a fantastic talk. And how do you feel all these
Speaker 3: years later when you're watching the Olympic Games swimming?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: I love it and I enjoy it.
Speaker 1: I feel as though, you know, you can relate very
Speaker 1: well to it, even though it's changed a lot. It's
Speaker 1: a much bigger event.
Speaker 3: Now, and she's an amazing woman who's actually lived a
Speaker 3: really positive, fantastic life. But none of us will ever
Speaker 3: know the true champion she could have been, because effectively
Speaker 3: that was the end of her swimming career.
Speaker 1: It's a real throwback to the days that probably haven't
Speaker 1: really left us, where amateur sports are run by blazer
Speaker 1: clad men who have the lives and hopes of young,
Speaker 1: very young, quite vulnerable people who often make not very
Speaker 1: great decisions in their hands, don't they. It's a really
Speaker 1: tough penalty for these young women.
Speaker 4: It seemed so unfair.
Speaker 3: It's so harsh for someone who's she's fifteen, And I
Speaker 3: asked her, why did you march? And I'm not sure
Speaker 3: that she'd ever talked to a journalist about it actually
Speaker 3: till I appeared on her doorstep and I asked her
Speaker 3: why she marched, and she said, look, sport was really
Speaker 3: amateur in those days. There weren't any managers in the
Speaker 3: sense of having your own personal manager. No one was
Speaker 3: plotting a path for you. All she could see was
Speaker 3: the end of the pool. She's swimming, She's at the Olympics,
Speaker 3: she's fourteen. She doesn't know if she'll ever get back
Speaker 3: there again. And then months after the Olympics, before she
Speaker 3: was banned from swimming, she did so well in national
Speaker 3: competitions that she was being heralded as the next Doorn Fraser.
Speaker 3: But she couldn't see this future because no one was
Speaker 3: plotting her future. All she knew was that her mum
Speaker 3: would drive her a swimming every single morning. She'd swim
Speaker 3: and swim, and swim and swim, get on with life.
Speaker 3: She got to the Olympics and she was convinced she'd
Speaker 3: never get there again, and she did not want to
Speaker 3: miss out on a marching and Olympic opening ceremony, which
Speaker 3: I think many of us can relate to. I mean,
Speaker 3: I still will have a dream so matching at the
Speaker 3: Olympic ceremony, and.
Speaker 4: So she did. She matched because she just saw I'll
Speaker 4: never get here again. And she was right. She never
Speaker 4: got there again.
Speaker 1: Coming up lessons from sixty years of Australian journalism. Subscribers
Speaker 1: to The Australian have been first to hear these kinds
Speaker 1: of stories for six decades, and we've come a long way.
Speaker 1: A subscription also comes with breaking news alerts to your phone,
Speaker 1: newsletters and special events. We'd love you to join us
Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au. We'll be back
Speaker 1: after this break. Fionahirari is one of the greatest chases
Speaker 1: I've ever known. She started her journalism career as a
Speaker 1: cadet in the Age newspaper in Melbourne and has spent
Speaker 1: much of her career at The Australian. She's a fast
Speaker 1: talker and a total charmer, and she wins the trust
Speaker 1: of her subject because she's ethical and thoughtful. She spent
Speaker 1: much of the last few months thumbing through The Australian's
Speaker 1: huge bound archives in search of stories like the one
Speaker 1: you heard earlier in the episode. The Australian's Deputy editor,
Speaker 1: Petra Reese, who's leading the sixtieth anniversary coverage, said she's
Speaker 1: convinced Fiona can track down anyone anywhere, living or dead.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a really special series and I am so
Speaker 3: thrilled with how it's turned out. The backstory to it
Speaker 3: is quite interesting. About twenty years ago, I was asked
Speaker 3: to do a series for every weekend called ad Lib,
Speaker 3: where I would find a classified ad and I would
Speaker 3: write the story behind it.
Speaker 4: I remember this, and you would.
Speaker 1: I remember you looking through the classifieds, you know, in
Speaker 1: either other papers or our own papers, and finding what
Speaker 1: you thought might be a good story.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I have to say when I was asked to
Speaker 3: do it at first, I remember thinking this is a
Speaker 3: really stupid idea work, but I'll try it.
Speaker 4: And it turned out to be incredibly rewarding.
Speaker 3: So I'd find these little ads and i'd ring the
Speaker 3: number up, And the way I like to describe it
Speaker 3: often is I might ring someone up who was advertising goats,
Speaker 3: and I'd say, Hi, I'm ringing about your ad for
Speaker 3: the goats, and they'd go, oh, do you want to buy?
Speaker 4: The goats.
Speaker 3: Okay, no, actually, I'm a journalist the Australian and anyways
Speaker 3: start chatting to them, and very often, from something as
Speaker 3: obscure as someone selling goats, you might end up with
Speaker 3: a story about a tragedy in that family, or a
Speaker 3: really funny story about something else.
Speaker 4: You just never knew where it went.
Speaker 3: But very often the ad led to something entirely differently,
Speaker 3: so some of the editors at The Australian decided for
Speaker 3: the sixtieth clearly I could find people from ads. I
Speaker 3: could find people who had been involved in previous news stories,
Speaker 3: which is a great idea, except that when we had
Speaker 3: lots of ads around the newspapers in those days came
Speaker 3: with phone numbers and I was charged with finding one
Speaker 3: new story for every decade The Australian has been published
Speaker 3: news story that we had run and then finding out
Speaker 3: what happened next.
Speaker 1: The front team sits not too far from Fiona in
Speaker 1: The Australian's Sydney newsroom. For months we've heard her on
Speaker 1: the phone in search of the people who appeared in
Speaker 1: the pages years and even decades ago.
Speaker 3: Very often what I did was google these people, just
Speaker 3: see if anything had been written about them, and the
Speaker 3: second thing I did was to find out if they
Speaker 3: were still alive, and as you can imagine, many people
Speaker 3: weren't after fifty or sixty years.
Speaker 4: So then I would try and find the people.
Speaker 3: Very often, as you can imagine, from the fifties and sixties,
Speaker 3: they had incredibly common Anglo names, people moved states. And
Speaker 3: then if I did finally find them, which could take
Speaker 3: literally weeks to find people, and I was not going
Speaker 3: to give up on any of them, sometimes they would
Speaker 3: not want to talk, and I found that mostly that
Speaker 3: was where there were a story that had something to
Speaker 3: do with medicine, or there was a sort of a
Speaker 3: medical backing to a story, so it might be the
Speaker 3: first person through whatever treatment in a st or transplant recipients,
Speaker 3: et cetera. They were the ones who tended not to
Speaker 3: want to talk. And I think that's fair enough. But
Speaker 3: every time I got to a dead end with someone
Speaker 3: who was no longer alive or didn't want to talk,
Speaker 3: I actually ended up with a better story anyway. So
Speaker 3: that was quite good because I was not going to
Speaker 3: give up on any of these stories.
Speaker 1: It was the trusty landline that yielded the best results
Speaker 1: in Fiona's search.
Speaker 3: I have to say, after all these years of working,
Speaker 3: I was so determined to find these people by the
Speaker 3: end of it. So you know, you can scour all
Speaker 3: sorts of records online. There's nothing as good as a
Speaker 3: phone book. People forget some people, particularly for older people,
Speaker 3: are still listed in phone books. There's lots of records
Speaker 3: you can access, but you still won't necessarily be able
Speaker 3: to contact the people because you actually need an email
Speaker 3: address or particularly a good old fashioned phone number is
Speaker 3: going to put you in touch most rapidly with people
Speaker 3: these days.
Speaker 4: Do you find Facebook useful ish? Yes, sort of.
Speaker 3: I mean I did reach out to some people through there,
Speaker 3: But interestingly I look the other day and the few
Speaker 3: people that I did reach out to through Facebook who
Speaker 3: I've subsequently interviewed, not one of them has actually seen
Speaker 3: my Facebook message.
Speaker 4: Yes, so I'm not so sure that it's that useful.
Speaker 3: Maybe for different demographics, for younger people who are on
Speaker 3: it all the time, although there were some younger people
Speaker 3: in this story and.
Speaker 4: They didn't reply to the Facebook messages either. I think
Speaker 4: Facebook's now for old people they didn't reply. I'm not
Speaker 4: sure it's well.
Speaker 1: This exercise in reflection has been as illuminating for Fiona
Speaker 1: as we hope it will be for readers of The Australian.
Speaker 1: What have you observed about the way journalism and the
Speaker 1: Australian have changed in those years.
Speaker 3: What I was really amazed about is how little the
Speaker 3: news has changed. I think we all feel at the
Speaker 3: moment that the world is spinning slightly off its axes,
Speaker 3: but in fact there was a similar mix of stories
Speaker 3: often in the paper about difficulties and wars in the
Speaker 3: Middle East and in Europe and people being on edge.
Speaker 3: That was the one thing that really struck me. And
Speaker 3: obviously there's degrees of seriousness, but the same issues have
Speaker 3: been around I think for a long time. There are
Speaker 3: a lot more human interest stories. I felt back in
Speaker 3: the fifties and sixties the coverage of women was a
Speaker 3: whole other world. I mean, there are obviously a lot
Speaker 3: more firsts that were being recognized. You know, there was
Speaker 3: the first Aboriginal woman to be a social worker, for example.
Speaker 3: There are a lot more first because we're obviously a
Speaker 3: much younger nation sixty years ago than we are now.
Speaker 3: But it was the sameness of a lot of news
Speaker 3: that really I found quite interesting.
Speaker 1: Fiona Heirari is a writer with the Weekend Australian magazine.
Speaker 1: You can read her reflections on the australians past six
Speaker 1: decades every week for the next six weeks, in the
Speaker 1: paper and online at the Australian dot com dot au.