Blood Politics: Nurses and Australia’s AIDS Crisis

Join Prime Minister’s Literary Award-winning historian Geraldine Fela, author of Critical Care: Nurses on the Frontline of Australia’s AIDS Crisis, for a special World AIDS Day event exploring the history of care work and community activism during Australia’s HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The event will be hosted by historian and ABC broadcaster Associate Professor Leigh Boucher, whose current research explores community responses to HIV/AIDS in Sydney during the 1980s and 1990s.
Leigh and Geraldine will be joined by Living Positive co-founder David Menadue, and respected HIV nurse Judy Frecker, whose career has spanned the entire history of Australia’s response to HIV/AIDS.
Together, the panel will reflect on the experiences of nurses, carers, activists and people living with HIV, examining how communities responded to the crisis and how those histories continue to shape conversations about health, stigma and social justice today.
Presented in partnership with the Australian Queer Archives, this event will also feature an exhibition of archival materials documenting Victorian’s response to the AIDS crisis.
Featured Contributors:
Geraldine Fela (featured Author)
Historian and author of Critical Care: Nurses on the Frontline of Australia’s AIDS Crisis, winner of the 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Australian History.
Associate Professor Leigh Boucher (MC)
Historian, broadcaster and educator whose work explores gender and sexuality in Australian political and social life. Leigh is an Associate Professor of Modern History at Macquarie University and co-host of the weekly ABC history podcast The Dead Can’t Sue. Earlier this year he co-produced Darlinghurst’s AIDS Crisis, an oral history project and podcast released through History Lab.
David Menadue (Guest)
Co-founder of Living Positive Victoria and one of the first Australians diagnosed with HIV. David has spent four decades advocating for people living with HIV and documenting the history of Australia’s community response to the epidemic.
Judy Frecker (Guest)
Nurse working in HIV care since the earliest days of the epidemic, beginning at Melbourne’s Fairfield Hospital when effective treatments were limited and stigma was widespread. Recognised as a NAPWHA Community Champion in 2023.
Australian Queer Archives Exhibition, curated by Nick Henderson
Art historian, curator, archivist, and committee member at the Australian Queer Archives (AQuA), Nick has worked across national and state cultural institutions for two decades – including the National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia, and the National Archives of Australia.
This event has been assisted by the Australian Government through Writing Australia, its principal Literature investment and advisory body.