Bestselling author, columnist, and raconteur Peter FitzSimons takes an explosive journey across Australia, reliving the country’s forgotten race riots in a new three-part documentary series, The Great Australian Race Riot. In his inimitable style, FitzSimons exposes heroes and villains on a journey that spans more than 170 years, and the breadth of the country. Along the way, he demonstrates how mobs of every ethnicity have transformed our nation. FitzSimons sets out from the sands of Cronulla beach, site of Australia’s most notorious recent race riot, to quickly reveal that this riot was no aberration. He visits original riot locations retracing both the social context and the path each mob takes.
Peter FitzSimons discovers that the Anzac heroes of the Great War are Australia’s most enthusiastic race rioters - but also capable of reconciliation with their enemies. After WW1 ends, thousands of returned soldiers return home eager to get on with their lives. But home has changed, and so have they. The horrors of trench warfare coupled with a vehement distrust of communism explode in Brisbane in March 1919 into a week of mob violence.
Peter FitzSimons journeys from 1952 to the present as Australians riot their way to becoming one of the most successful multicultural nations on Earth. In the “Lucky Country” race riots help work out who gets a fair share of the luck. As the 1950s dawns, Australia booms. Our grand nation building schemes need people to construct them. Enter some Continental Europeans, lured with an assisted passage and the promise of work. Peter FitzSimons tucks into a classically Anglo-Australian dinner as he discovers what incited 1000 Italians to riot in our largest migrant camp called, Bonegilla, in country Victoria, in 1952.