“I think Mussolini was a good politician. Everything he did, he did for Italy, she told the interviewer. And we haven’t had any politicians like that in the past 50 years.” – Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni.
I would like to make a few corrections to the script of the Radical Australia radio program compèred by Joe Toscano and broadcast on 3CR. I notice a more sanguine attitude towards the political situation in Italy creeping into minds of Australians that come from there and visit that country with its beautiful landscapes and strong culture. Dr Joe Toscano seemed to be saying during this interview that Italian doctors in Australia in the 1940s and 50s gave up their fascist sympathies after Mussolini was defeated. All I can say to that is if the fascists from Italy gave up their politics after Mussolini was defeated, why then is the current Italian PM, Giorgia Meloni a fascist? Please see 3CR summary below. Corrections are in italics – Ian Curr, Ed., 8 Aug 2023.
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Joe Toscano (3CR) interviews Ian Curr who was born in a private (a suburban) hospital (owned by the doctor or doctors running it, a bit like medical clinics today) and nearly died! Lucky for his mother having an Italian doctor (Dr Angelo Vattuone, not Dr Castellano as suggested by Joe T. However Joe was right in claiming that these doctors and others had a fascist past. Dr Fidele Castellano was the patron of the Dante Alighieri society and is remembered each year in a memorial event), the only one in the state (He was one of ten Italian doctors who achieved registration in the State through an Anglo-Italian treaty (1883) which provided for reciprocal recognition of British and Italian medical degrees).
According to 3CR, Ian Curr has got up to all sorts of activist mischief in his life, including preventing freeways (not true, freeways have expanded during my lifetime and I was not directly involved in the Battle for Bowen Hills, one of the few victories). Check out ‘The Battle for Bowen Hills‘ on Vimeo. (I was involved in unsuccessful attempts to prevent the S-E freeway assisting producing a magazine advocating public transport). Ian was a lifelong unionist, including at the Australian Tax Office where he worked 1986-2003. The ATO took the Murdoch family to court after Ian and other tax officers had noticed an anomaly in the family’s tax affairs. A case against Dame Elizabeth Murdoch went all the way to the High Court who gave favourable treatment to her. (Ian Curr’s involvement was with the tax affairs of the entire Murdoch family. At that time he worked as an executive level technical officer in the High Wealth iIdividual section of the ATO. The entire Murdoch family, with one exception, failed to declare profits made on shares brought out by Rupert Murdoch when he took over News Corporation and the family company Cruden Investments.
Curr was subsequently fired from the ATO under the Public Service code of conduct on a question of disrespect during the Howard government. He had distributed a Dilbert cartoon which offended one of the senior ATO managers. [See Dilbert got me the Pink slip by Bernie Dowling].
Ian was also cancelled from community radio station 4ZZZ after 10 years on ‘The Paradigm Shift‘.
Ian has just completed 1,200 kms as part of a collective of 63 unionists and supporters in a ‘From Australian to Cuba with Love’ campaign trying to break the US blockade of Cuba.
‘4PR Voice of the People‘ was originally a Brisbane pirate radio in 1978. It is a podcast show about class, culture and country.
Thanks to Joe Toscano and Kelly Whitworth for arranging the interview. All power to 3CR and Radical Radio!
4PR Voice of the People: 4pr-voice-of-the-people.com/(link is external)
The Battle of Bowen Hills is on vimeo
Workers Bush Telegraph: workersbushtelegraph.com.au
Image: Ian Curr outside KP Prison
- Where did you grow up? 0:00
- Streaming live on 3CR.org.au, Joseph Toscano with Ian Curr.
- Ian tells us about his parents, where they came from and what type of people they were. His parents were cousins.
- The story of the Italian doctor who saved the life of a young boy in the 50s, and how he reinvented himself as an Italian doctor.
- Dr. Aldo Castellani.
- Why aren’t they real Italians? 5:14
- JT on why Dr Raphael Cilento is not a real Italian, and why his family is not real Italian.
- The only decent in Ballarat mayor since 1854, and how it has changed.
- Inclusive and inclusive, she was one of the core members of the Ballarat cemetery gambling group. She was a lovely human being.
- Nudgee junior college, Christian brothers school.
- From Canberra to Cuba. 10:00
- The 15,000 kilometre ride from Canberra to Havana and the virtual ride from Australia to Cuba to end the us blockade.
- The Cuban ambassador to trade hall.
- Eric was average and went straight out to work average and get a commonwealth scholarship. He was not a brilliant working class student who was ready to attack university.
- He was 16 years of age when he failed the 12 or 16 when he did 12 and worked at the university.
- How did you get on with life? 15:49
- Working on Fraser island, managing the airport and gardens, and taking people on tours in the six wheels of a Studebaker truck.
- Completed a science degree and got involved in political activity.
- Organising pickets against the uranium mining and export ban at the Hamilton number four wharf in Brisbane.
- Begging unions to put up a green ban on the demolition of the estate.
- Marriage as a way out. 20:06
- Tracy went out with him in solidarity because he couldn’t manage to have a family at that stage. He didn’t believe in marriage and never got married.
- Tracy got married once, but it was not that kind of marriage in order to go to Latin America.
- A treaty of Waitangi is not a golden pathway to the future, but at least it is seen back in the future.
- If this happened today, joe would be charged under the
- The Australian federal police called us into a side room after we had been stowing away on a ship.
- Never made heaps of money in school. 26:49
- Ian was born in a private hospital and worked in every job he could find. He had a major in zoology and did his honours in marine biology.
- He bought a boat for $3,000 and lived on the river near the university of Queensland for three years.
- The battle for Bowen Hills. The department of main roads wanted to build a southeast freeway and a northern freeway to go up to the north coast.
- The resistance was strong enough that in the end, when Tom Uren became the minister for local government, he said no to the freeway.
- How did you become a union member? 32:30
- Hinze was pissed off about getting to his home in the gold coast. He had a quarry and the freeway went near the quarry, and that quarry was used to build the art gallery and the museum on the southbank.
- He worked on the building site and helped put up the brass handrails.
- After eight years of working in casual jobs, began working as a temporary still in 1982 for what was then known as telecom.
- She spent about 15 years working in the australian tax office, where she became an executive level technical officer in the tax office.
- A victim of Victorian values. 38:23
- dame Elisabeth Murdoch was a victim of Victorian values. Her husband Keith gave her the rights to income, but wouldn’t give her the right to the ownership of property capital.
- Lionel Murphy.
- Curr was sacked by the ATO under the Howard government. He circulated a Dilbert cartoon and one of the senior managers thought that he had manipulated the cartoon to indicate it was him.
- Curr got a pink slip because of a Dilbert cartoon.
- How did you get sacked from ATO? 43:02
- He went to court and the court found that there had been some disrespect to him. He tried to get several jobs, but they were only labour hire jobs.
- He worked at triple Z for 10 years and now he works at 4pr – voice of the people.
- Halfway through the program, the manager of news at triple Z came into the studio and challenged the broadcast.
- A lot of community radio stations have lost the plot and are losing the plot. The manager’s perspective is that she acted according to her own principles (not the 4ZZZ constitution).
- Acting according to your principles. 48:46
- JT on how community radio acts outside of the constitutional parameters of an organization.
- The 4PR – voice of the people podcast channel.
- The history of triple zed and how the station banned two crucial radio programs: megaherz and the civil liberties program.
- The virtual Cuban dream, the Australian Cuban friendship society.
- Growing up in the same time as the US government and the Cuban missile crisis, and being sympathetic to the Cuban revolution.
- The red north …
