People's History of Australia
Ep 4 – The life and times of Nick Origlass, the Red Mayor of Leichhardt
In 1971, a Trotskyist revolutionary was elected as the mayor of Leichhardt Municipal Council in Sydney - one of the most unusual developments in Australian political history. This Trotskyist revolutionary was Nick Origlass, who over the course of his life fought the fascist New Guard in the streets of Kings Cross, led thousands of Balmain ironworkers on strike against their own union's policy of sacrificing wages and conditions during World War Two, and then attempted to turn Leichhardt Council into a directly democratic campaigning body that pioneered environmental activism in the 1960s and 1970s. In today's episode, we cover Nick's remarkable life and activism