14 Dec 1988,
On this day the right wing University of Qld Student Unions attempted to evict 4ZZZ from its studios under the Refectory.
At 4.17am executive members of the UQ Student Council and four security guards served immediate eviction notice on graveyard announcers Mark Solway and Stefan Armbruster.
4ZZZ had been taken off air.
The president of the UQ Student Union, Victoria Brazil, supported by the Queensland Government were attempting to foreclose on radio 4ZZZ from its premises at the University. Over 1,000 listeners and supporters turned up to defend the station.
Annastacia Palaszczuk speaking in support of 4ZZZ, UQ Union Complex, 1989. Photo by Michael Aird, Image courtesy State Library of Queensland
Within hours 4ZZZ announcers were making emergency broadcasts direct from Mt Cootha and later in the day the Student Union was occupied by protesting students and supporters effectively taking control of their own union and radio station.
The University stepped in and asserted ownership of the UQ Union Complex thus backing the union executive’s attempt at eviction. Students continued to occupy the station ensuring that it continued to broadcast.
Despite this, the 4ZZZ collective curiously elected to leave campus and set up the station in Toowong thus ending Zed’s affiliation with the Student Union and the University where it started in December 1975. The station nearly folded and if it weren’t for the assistance of the Communist Party of Australia through a ‘gift’ of its building at 291 St Pauls Terrace Fortitude Valley, it surely would have. Forty-one years later 4ZZZ survives as an independent broadcaster with the slogan ‘Educate, Organise, Agitate’. Here is the report prepared by 4ZZZ at the time.
