A Sunshine State? Remembering Queensland's 1980s Public Symposium and Film Screening
Event Details
- Date:
- Wednesday, 09 October 2019
- Time:
- 4:00 pm - 7:30 pm
- Room:
- 14-115 & 14-212
- UQ Location:
- Sir Llew Edwards Building (St Lucia)
- URL:
- https://hpi.uq.edu.au/event/session/4196
- Event category(s):
Event Contact
- Name:
- Mrs Donna Moodie
- Phone:
- 56320
- Email:
- d.moodie1@uq.edu.au
- Org. Unit:
- Historical and Philosophical Inquiry
Event Description
- Full Description:
- This public event looks back, with a quizzical eye, on Queensland’s culture and politics during the 1980s.
Queensland’s age of Bjelke-Petersen, of the gerrymander and the Fitzgerald Inquiry, ended thirty years ago. For historians the 1980s are now officially ‘history’, an opportunity to reflect on this unusual and occasionally bizarre decade through its local peculiarities.
With the 1982 Commonwealth Games and Expo ’88 as triumphant landmarks, Queensland life during the 1980s was more typically polarising and unpredictable. Civil liberties, land rights, political corruption, environmental activism and economic globalisation sparked heated debate. Foreign investment, the ‘white shoe brigade’ and police corruption dominated headlines. ‘Joh for PM’ derailed a federal election. Queensland ruled Origin, but still couldn’t seize the Shield. The old guard hung on, the baby boomers were trying to take over, and today’s Generation Xers were impressionable teenagers.
Through an exhibition, film screening and panel discussion with three key writers and commentators, A Sunshine State? Remembering Queensland’s 1980s reflects on the volatile culture and politics of Australia’s ‘Deep North’ during this pivotal era. Was Queensland different, and if so, what kind of difference? Who are the heroes and villains, those we can’t forget and those we should remember? What exactly did we show the world at Expo ’88 and through the Fitzgerald Inquiry?
Directions to UQ
- Google Map:
-
- Directions:
- St Lucia Campus | Gatton campus.
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