今日吃瓜

Bondi Badlands – a聽new true crime podcast聽launched on Friday – delves headfirst into the spate of gay hate crimes and murders that tainted Sydney between the late 80鈥檚 to early 90鈥檚 and left the community living in fear. It is a five-part series from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, hosted by deputy editor for the Good Weekend Greg Callaghan.

Callaghan told Star Observer that the anti-gay crime wave that spread across Sydney during the late 80s and early 90s had always fascinated him.聽

鈥淭here was a level of violence right across Sydney that was unprecedented. In revisiting it through the podcast, it really struck me that the scale of violence was just staggering. The murders were one, and the worst, part of it but they were only the tip of the iceberg,鈥� Callaghan explained.

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Blossoming Of The Gay Scene In Sydney

鈥淭he community at the stage had an unprecedent profile for the first time, the gay bars on Oxford Street that were once tucked away, were in the 80鈥檚 suddenly bursting into life. Of course, this blossoming of the gay scene coincided with the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic.鈥�

Over the course of four decades, there have been at least 88 murders of gay men and transgender people in Sydney, with 30 cases still unsolved.

鈥淲hen you speak to people of a certain age, they just recall how there was violence everywhere. It wasn鈥檛 happening all the time, but there was a real problem and a real issue,鈥� Callaghan said.聽

鈥淚n the early 2000鈥檚 when I was working at 今日吃瓜 LTD, I was going to the coroner鈥檚 court. It was around 2003 that Jacqueline Milledge was the Deputy State Coroner.

鈥淢illedge looked into the cases and two years later bought down findings which were damming of the police investigation.鈥�

Arrests After Three Decades\

Of course, Callaghan is no stranger to these crimes, having released a critically acclaimed book of same name as the podcast in 2007.

鈥淚 wrote Bondi Badlands at the same time, and it was published a couple of years later. I thought that would be it, but I was surprised by the level of interest that bubbled up a few years later and has continued.鈥�

Callaghan goes on to add that while the book focused on the Bondi murders, it also took a look at the 鈥渨ider picture in Sydney.鈥�

鈥淭he LGTQI community, we don鈥檛 give up, if we see injustice, we stand up and look after our own.聽What鈥檚 accompanied that [attitude] is a greater social maturity and greater interest in social justice, and there has also been a dramatic shift in social attitudes.鈥�

‘The Grief Never Goes Away’

In an attempt to humanise the experience of those that are still affected by this dark chapter in Sydney’s and the LGBTQI communities鈥� histories, Callaghan has used their voices and stories in Bondi Badlands.

鈥淲hat we tried to do in the podcast is get under the skin of the people involved and show them as human beings through the voices of their friends and family, to empower the victims through their friends and family.

鈥淯nless it happens to you directly you don鈥檛 understand. When you lose someone, you don鈥檛 forget them, they stay with you.聽In the podcast you can hear [a] couple of the friends and family of the victims, the real emotions come back, because they are talking about these people, and they are still fresh in their memory.

鈥淥ne of the relatives of John Russel spoke very powerfully about how the grief never goes away. A lot of the stuff is pretty raw even now.鈥�

For some listeners this period in time may seem so long ago, however, as Callaghan reminds us, 鈥渨e are discussing a time only 30 or so years ago.鈥�

鈥淚 think it is really important for young people to realise this wasn鈥檛 so long ago. The other thing that these crimes remind us of is that social change doesn鈥檛 always move in one positive direction, things can take a bit of a back step sometimes.

鈥淲e live in a society which has matured and become more tolerant, but we have to guard that, not take it for granted.鈥�

You can listen to Bondi Badlands via , with new episodes released every Friday throughout October.