Lot's Wife Edition 2 2016

STUDENT
“I never
censored
anybody.
Everybody
got a go.”
Steedman’s refusal to keep quiet had consequences reaching
further than just university disciplinary action. During
later periods of editing at Melbourne University’s Farrago,
Steedman received a ‘D-Notice’ stating he had threatened
the defence of the country. The article in question, which
was pulled off the printing press and denied publication,
had been written by a welfare officer in the Northern
Territory and discussed the way Aboriginals were being
treated in the 1960s. “That article was harmless but I was
served a ‘D-Notice’ by the Federal Police,” he says.
As a child of the 60s, it’s no surprise that Chaos,
soon to become Lot’s Wife, reported extensively on the
Vietnam War and conscription. The 1965 National Forum
on Vietnam was held at Monash University and hosted a
string of high-profile names, including leading anti-war
figure Dr Jim Cairns and External Affairs Minister and later
Governor-General, Paul Hasluck. The Forum was covered
in detail in Lot’s Wife by co-editors at the time, Phillip
Frazer and Peter Moylan, but it wasn’t just students who
did the reporting. Lecturers and university staff were often
published in Chaos and Lot’s Wife, such as senior politics
lecturer Max Teichmann’s contribution to the conscription
debate and economic lecturer Ian Ward’s article on Vietnam.
But it wasn’t all politics. “The highlight of the year,
which of course upsets people now, was the Miss Monash
contest,” Steedman says. While photos of Miss Science, Miss
Engineering and Miss Economics would not be accepted
now, Steedman insists the some of the most prominent
feminists of the day were crowned Miss Monash at some
point.
In 1964, Chaos was renamed Lot’s Wife by the now
prominent science fiction author and science writer,
Damien Broderick. Supposedly a move to tidy up the paper,
Steedman states “Damien had this thing about not looking
back.” In the Old Testament, Lot and his wife fled the
destruction of Sodom with God’s promise to spare them if
they left behind their burning town without a backwards
glance. Lot’s wife, upon looking back, was turned into a
pillar of salt for not obeying God’s orders. While the new
title suggested a fresh start, the paper’s content remained
as radical as ever. In the first Lot’s Wife edition, a front page
report on an inquiry into police brutality in Sydney towards
eight university students showed that the paper had no
intention of backing down from questioning authority.
According to Steedman, Lot’s Wife gradually became
less hard news and more “the youth package,” reviewing
everything from music and concerts to fashion. “This is
Barrie Humphries when he first started up,” Steedman says,
pointing to an article promoting his stage act, Excuse I. “Mrs
Everidge had just started,” Steedman notes. “Humphries
invented her in the late 50s.”
1966 saw the relationship between Lot’s Wife and
Farrago come to share more in common than just their
status as university newspapers. As Lot’s Wife editor,
Steedman joined forces with the University of Melbourne’s
Ian Robinson to create a highly controversial joint Lot’s
Wife/Farrago edition. “That really upset [the students],”
Steedman says. Pooling resources gave the publication the
money to print more articles and develop more content.
The front cover set the tone for an anti-Vietnam War issue,
with a cartoon in which US president Lyndon B. Johnson
confessed to “raping” Vietnam, but sought justification in
that if he had not, Chairman Mao, portrayed on crutches,
would have done so.
While the original tabloids Chaos and Lot’s Wife seem
vastly different from today’s glossy publications, they share
a similar ethos, allowing all students the chance to write.
“I never censored anybody,” Steedman says of his time as
editor. “Everybody got a go.”
Despite evolving and differing political and social
issues since those early days, there are certain student
concerns which are unlikely to fade. “This was an article
attacking parking,” Steedman says with a laugh, pointing to
the faded, yellowing clipping. It seems there are some things
about Monash life that never change…
If you’d like to read past editions of Lot’s
Wife, all the way back to 1961, check out
lotswife.com.au
8 | Lot’s Wife