Audio on demand

Hubert Opperman (1904-1996), or ‘Oppy’ as he was known, was one of the greatest cyclists of his time. Curator Daniel Oakman reflects on why Opperman became a national hero and how his cycling feats transformed popular understandings of human endurance.

The Governor-General highlighted the role of women in Australia and the importance of Indigenous culture as portrayed in the exhibition as she took a retrospective look at where we have come from in 100 years and where we may go in the next 100 years.

Songman Archie Roach, former AFL star and Indigenous activist Michael Long, and Bill Johnson, whose Indigenous son Louis died tragically, with curator Stephen Munro, answer questions from the audience following the screening of the film Liyarn Ngarn.

The first Tuesday in November this year sees the running of the 150th Melbourne Cup. Curator Isa Menzies gives an insight into the race that stops the nation: from the glitz and glamour to the seamy underside of horseracing in Australia.

Having researched written three volumes covering the social and political history of Australian racing, Andrew Lemon has been working as a consultant historian with the Victoria Racing Club and talks about why the Melbourne Cup.

Dr Chris McConville combines his great interest in horse racing with his expertise on the history of gambling in Australia to talk the Melbourne Cup from a gambling point of view.

Rod Fitzroy discusses how it’s a little bit of good luck and a lot of good management that has delivered for a century and a half an annual event that so commands the attention of the whole nation as does the Melbourne Cup.

Hear what the Melbourne Cup means to the owner of a cup winner, the first female trainer to win both the Melbourne and Caulfield Cups, the grandson of the inaugural Melbourne Cup winning trainer, and a former jockey who has won the Melbourne Cup twice.

MC for the day Bryan Martin provides a brief background to the Melbourne Cup and Andrew Sayers, the new Director of the National Museum, outlines why the Museum recently declined to lend Phar Lap’s heart to Melbourne for the horse’s re-assembly.

Hear a racing administrator, the author of The Horse in Australia, a bookie and a sports publisher discuss the public fascination with the Cup as not only a day of fashion, socialising, networking and fun but also a time to chance their luck with a bet.