“Instead of reality turned into fiction, fiction had become reality” – Robert Fisk, describing 9/11 in The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.
Thanks to Peter Gray for his detective work below regarding the TV smashing at 4Zzz studios at St Lucia and early events in the history of Triple Zed, now in its 50th year.
The interesting thing about Triple-Z’s first Radiothon appeal is that it was broadcast from the new mast on Mount Cootha as a test transmission. The Radiothon was held between 6th and 9th January 1978 and raised over $6,000.
Although the test transmission was broadcast at 1 kilowatt of power as per the Saint Lucia licence, the switchboard was jammed with calls from Mooloolabah to Tweed Heads, and Stradbroke to Toowoomba, all reporting hearing the station in stereo.
4ZZZ finally went “full power” at noon on Friday, 15th December 1978, when John Woods officially launched regular programming from Mt. Coot-tha.
(See: Radio Times, February 1978, page 14; Radio Times, June 1978, page 15; and John Stanwell’s “Pocket History”, Radio Times, December 1979.) – Peter Gray.
The medium is not the message
If you look at the content of the posters on the TVs you will see that they refer to events that occurred in the mid to late 1980s. For example the US bombing of Libya occurred in April 1986 and the Rupert Murdock $1.8 million dollar take over of the Herald and Weekly Times occurred in February 1987. The photo depicts TVs that were lined up along the bluestone wall underneath the refectory at UQ Student Union.
I helped take down the small 1kW 4Zzz antenna from the Schonnel theatre and helped erect it up on Mount Cootha. Steve Blair built Zed’s 1 kW transmitter (personal communication from Jim Beatson).
Steve also built a pirate transmitter for 4PR, which we used to broadcast from Mt Cootha. Because everything 4PR did was illegal, Steve adopted a nom de guerre: ‘George Orwell’.
I am not surprised that people a hundred kilometres away on the Gold Coast could pick up Zed’s 1kW signal from Mount Cootha. The signal would have been aided by height and the undulating terrain down towards the NSW border.
More important still was the political message conveyed in the radio signal. For example, here is a report from 4PR about opposition to uranium mining and export at Hamilton No 4 wharf in Brisbane Magandjin.
“We were standing on the railway tracks. It was 9pm. Over a 100 police lurked in the shadows. Special Branch was all around. The ABC evening broadcast came over the radio. The suave voice of an evening news reader declared we had been removed from the tracks. Yet here we stood, blocking the uranium train. The police commander bellowed over the loud hailer that we should relent.
From the middle of our sturdy throng, Student union secretary Keith Horsely let out the plaintive cry: “They lied, it’s a lie, we are still here … Where’s 4PR – the voice of the people? And, as the cops pushed us off the railway tracks, special branch Detective Senior Constable Domenico Cacciola leant down and whispered a warning as we piled up on the ground: “We’re gonna get ya“! True enough, they did.
The uranium train got through that night but was stalled on the wharf by the waterside workers for health & safety reasons. However, Keith Horsely’ cry, said with youthful conviction, it was as if, in that moment, 4PR was the embodiment of truth. The fact is we were standing on the railway tracks at Hamilton No 4 wharf trying to block the uranium train. Uranium is an element that has done so much damage to people’s lives since that day in August 1977.
It was 4Zzz coordinator Denis Reinhardt who banned the Civil Liberties Co-ordinating (CLCC) media committee that put together a political program criticizing the federal government’s decision to mine and export uranium by calling out Queensland Liberal Senator Neville Bonner for backing uranium mining on aboriginal land.
What Reinhardt, with possible backing of the 4ZZZ collective, had failed to understand was that it is the resistance that is important, not the medium. He passed up the chance for Zed to play an active and telling role in the longest period of mass defiance of the government in Australian history (Democratic Rights Struggle, 1977-79) … with one exception, the Aboriginal resistance.
But then Reinhardt went on from being the station co-coordinator at 4ZZZ to become a gold and copper miner, a toxic polluter, and a boss who stole backpay and wages from workers.
I would not wish the reader to think the triple Z story is as bad as Reinhardt’s role in it. Some did, if somewhat belatedly, get on board, if only from the sidelines.
Educate, agitate, organise!
Ian Curr
19 July 2025
References
Former copper mine operator penalised
4PR – Voice of the People
4ZZZhistory.pdf https://share.google/R23N1gM6jmXt3qybZ
I’ve been associated with Zed in one way or another since 1975. I did my first interview at Zed in 1976 as the Education Resource Officer of the UQ Students Union. I helped Bill Beattie put in the electrical wiring at Zed studios under the refec at UQ Students Union. Inadvertently in 1977, we provided ‘left-cover’ for 4Zzz by making a submission to the broadcasting tribunal on behalf of 4PR – voice of the people, a pirate radio station that made sound wave broadcasts at forums at UQU. Station coordinator, Denis Reinhart, banned the 1977 civil liberties program that exposed the hypocrisy of Liberal senator for Queensland, Neville Bonner, when he supported uranium mining on Aboriginal land. That was the first time I was banned by Zed management.
IN 2021, after 10 tens years as an announcer Zed management took me off air. But I kept subscribing. The station took my subscription money despite a silly rumour that I was a transphobe. I paid my sub fees to support Paradigm Shift and other shows like Only Human and Radio Reversal.
It’s hard to keep anything progressive running, be it Zed, a left-wing library or bookshop, a progressive cinema like the Schonnel Theatre, a grass roots centre, any socialist or anarchist organisation or any cultural or left-wing social club or a union like the CFMEU, even websites like Radical Times and Workers BushTelegraph.
The list of progressive institutions that have felt the same pressure is pretty long. Some in Brisbane Magan-djin have fallen by the wayside: AHIMSA house, Emma’s bookshop the Sitting Duck Cafe, West End Learning Exchange, West End Resource Centre, Kropotkin’s restaurant, Justice Products. Like Zed a few still survive: the House of Freedom, Kurilpa Commons, Common House, and Leftpress are some examples.
It’s not really money that kept Zed going. After all, Zed was effectively ‘gifted’ the building at Barry Parade by the old Communist Party leadership who had given up on their socialist dream and converted it into a small fortune, ‘Moscow gold’, and called it the Search Foundation. Search money is the legacy of the sale of party assets. However Search only received $225,000 dollars from Creative Broadcasters Ltd (the entity that owned Zed) for a building worth millions.
That’s all for now I’ll go and make the morning toast.
Ian Curr
1 September 2025