Judith Peppard has built a career based around a love of radio
JG: You’re a busy person! You’ve been interviewed on, and hosted, a number of radio shows, and had a career as an academic. Can you tell me a little bit about your work now, and what you led you it?
JP: My interest in radio goes back to when I lived in Japan with two very young children in the late 1970s. The only English radio available then was the Far East Network, broadcast for US soldiers based in the Pacific. The Network used to play old radio dramas from the 1930s to the 1950s. I loved it! Podcasts have taken up that space now, but the idea of people sitting around a radio studio interacting with scripts and noise makers still appeals. Acoustic drama. Thrilling how much a sound can evoke!
When I moved to Australia from Canada in 1981, I worked in a youth advocacy organisation and became interested in the political possibilities of radio as a way of getting voices out: voices often absent from policy debates. Later, through my University work, I was concerned that important research was locked up in the University. I also became aware of how narrow the media landscape is in Australia, with ownership in the hands of a small group of powerful people, which we’ve heard so much about in the past year. I could see that community radio was adding an important dimension to the media mix, a broader range of perspectives and voices on complex social issues.
So, to come back to your question, what led me to radio was all of those things. Slowly, tentatively I moved toward it, thinking maybe I could, and should, be doing this. So, I handed in my PhD thesis at the University of Adelaide, walked across the street to Radio Adelaide and signed up for a radio presenters’ course.
When I moved to Melbourne five years ago, I quickly checked out radio possibilities. I will never forget my first broadcast experience in Melbourne at 3 Triple R. I was terrified of course! I interviewed the Grandmothers against Detention of Refugee Children. It was so exciting to have those fabulous women in the studio with me talking about their weekly vigil at the corner of Sydney Road and Bell St. That was followed by a conversation with Greg Denham, then Executive Officer of the Yarra Drug and Health Forum, to discuss why a medically supervised injecting centre for North Richmond was so needed and what it could achieve. I had some lovely feedback on the show and that encouraged me to keep going. I now produce and present programs at 3Triple R and 3CR. I love being part of these two stations which have such wonderful communities and rich histories.
You’ve undertaken some brilliant interviews in your time with a variety of activists, researchers, and creatives. In your time talking to these people, what have you learnt?
I’ve learned so much from the people I’ve met and interviewed over the years! About passion, dedication and hard work; the importance of thinking beyond the rigid structures society imposes, the courage to speak out about injustice, to call it out.
I’ve learned to listen. Still working on that. People always surprise you, so it’s important not to presume too much, to be open to the gift they are offering. I’ve been inspired and often in tears. I’ve learned how generous people are in telling their stories and that can be difficult, so it’s important to understand and respect when people aren’t able to do it.
With researchers, I’ve discovered that there is often a personal story that brought them to their area of research. I’m always curious about that. I appreciate the depth academics have in their chosen field, the time it takes to do the research to get that depth and that a story has so many layers.
Activists have taught me about the patience to persist in the face of opposition, to dream big and work to make it happen. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a great Melbourne story. It started with a group of activists in Melbourne in 2007 and quickly became an international movement. ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its work on the International Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons, a treaty that became international law on January 22nd, 2021. It’s been a joy to report on this story over the years.
Creatives have opened my heart and my mind to new ways of seeing and being in the world. I’ve learned about passion and dedication, what inspires their work and sustains them and just how many ways there are to create. I loved interviewing Kimberley Twiner from PO PO MO CO (Post Post Modern Company), a couple of years ago now, about their production of Once Upon a Drag Story Time and to hear about the response they’d had to the show. Very moving.
Can you talk through some of your academic work? What lead you to the areas you worked in? Is the work something you’d continue in some way, now?
My interest in social justice and inequality in health led me to study public health and I continue to be fascinated and frustrated at the way policy-making happens, often ignoring evidence and with little or no dialogue with the people most affected by those policies. I worked in the areas of drug policy and sexualities for many years, areas fraught with misinformation often fuelled by the mainstream media.
During my time in academia I was particularly interested in oral history. Radio is a great medium for that. In 2015, I received a small grant to produce a radio documentary on the history of the South Australia Sex Industry Network (SIN) which had been campaigning to decriminalise sex work since 1986. It was a great collaboration. I was inspired by the people I met, from sex workers to politicians to radio presenters, who had all been advocates for sex work law reform, some since the 1980s. The best part was, when the documentary went to air in 2016, receiving text messages from people at SIN saying things like “It’s only ten minutes in and I’m already finding out things I didn’t know!”
What do you see as the biggest issues currently facing women, non-binary and gender diverse people of Victoria?
Where to start? An underlying misogyny and the way patriarchy works across all levels of society.
The violence and the threat of violence that is always present, limiting the way we can move around the city and for many women, causing us to feel unsafe within our homes. We know that Indigenous women, women of colour and women of diverse cultural backgrounds and sexualities, are more likely to experience violence than others.
The gender pay gap and the expectation that women will do society’s care work, unpaid. We see the results of this in the increasing number of older women now experiencing homelessness, partly due to their giving up work to care for children, resulting in their receiving significantly less superannuation than men. Australia is behind many OECD countries in this. Add to that the poor pay rates for care work, mostly done by women, the casual, and precarious employment conditions that the Covid crisis has uncovered, all of which is harmful to women and society as a whole.
We know from what non-binary and gender diverse people have told us in surveys and community radio programs here in Melbourne, and from the international and Australian research, that discrimination and harassment are common experiences, whether it’s exclusion from public housing or actual physical violence. Sexual health is a key issue so gender affirming health care and training for health professionals is essential along with community education.
What’s next for you, after the year that was 2020?
Over the past two years I’ve mainly focused on news and current affairs. I’ve also done specials on a range of topics, from Joni Mitchell’s legacy to Chicago Blues women and Prisoner Radio in the UK and Australia. In 2021, I’m keen to look again at radio documentary. I have a few ideas but still in the early development stage. I’d like to learn more about working with sound. I’d need some training for that. Writing is always in the mix, so we’ll see where all that goes. And just for a complete change, I’m planning to enrol in a course on improvisation...and I’m still wanting to do a radio play!
Interview: Jessamy Gleeson