3CR book delves into protests, activism and ASIO files

To celebrate its 40 year history, Melbourne community station 3CR has published a book that delves into the stories of its station workers over the past four decades and chronicles the station’s activism on many issues.

The title Radical Radio sums up the station’s ethos, as a community broadcast outlet dedicated to give voice to the voiceless and to champion alternative viewpoints.

Over the years 3CR has championed anti war causes, East Timorese resistence, gay rights, indigenous treaty, anti-uranium mining, diversity, union politics, youth issues, rights of prisoners and many other causes.

A chapter headed Ordinary People, Extraordinary Radio sums up the spirit behind the station. Nancy Aitkin, profiled in the chapter, says, “community radio is like that, the more people you can involve the bigger and better it becomes.”

When 3CR went to air on 3 July 1976 it was one of Australia’s first licenced ‘community’ stations, but because there was no licencing regime for what has now become known as community radio the original licence was actually a restricted low powered AM commercial licence held by a group of shareholders in a co-operative. A chapter about granting the licence explains that it was the Whitlam Government that pushed through the first steps that forced the Broadcasting Control Board to licence broadcasters who wanted to give voice to the community and break the previous two tiered licencing regime that had been in place since the 1930s.

The Whitlam Government was dismissed just a month after 3CR was granted its licence at a tumultuous time in Australian politics. At first the new Fraser government withheld the licence, which only arrived 16 hours before the station was scheduled to officially switch on. The government and Broadcasting Control Board were apparently not have been too happy about the change to the decades old licening system, delaying the official licence until the last minute. The chapter tells the story of how the licence was finally delivered:

“The licence signed by Minister Robinson was delivered by hand to the studios in High Street Armidale… About five minutes before we actually turned the transmitter on a taxi pulled up out the front and a person form the Department, drunk as a skunk, fell out of the bloody taxi and gave it to us. ‘Here’s your f**king licence!’ [he said] and off he went.”  Click the pictures to enlarge them.

Researchers for the book were given access to ASIO files on many of the presenters who went through the doors of the station over its 40 years, with many ‘persons of interest’ having the honour of a file with Australia’s national intelligence agency.

One such person was Bevan Ramsden, a teacher and activist who was one fo the key people in the formation of the station.

“I got involved because I had experienced, together with many others, the inability to get any information through the press during the anti-war periods and anti-conscription days. And as a trade unionist in the teachers’ union, we knew how difficult it was to get a union’s viewpoints across in the media and how it was distorted… so we thought… and independent radio station which gave access to those who can’t be heard [would be] a good idea.”

A whole range of ASIO documents are now pubicly available, showing the detailed surveillance that was conducted by ASIO in the early years of the station. Some of them can be viewed online here, and a whole index of documents is available at the National Archives.

The book is available from 3CR’s online shop.

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