Ted Wixted (1927-2001) was a man with a message for the world.
He delivered this message for eighteen years in the thrust and parry of the public forum that operated in Brisbane from 1962 to 1980.
His subjects ranged from the theological debris with which the churches have surrounded Jesus of Nazareth, to the unholy trinity of priests, press, and politicians who were responsible for the Vietnam War.
The Brisbane Public Forum was a place where issues were vigorously debated. Status counted for nothing. Speakers and interjectors sank or swam according to what they had to say, and their ability to say it. It was a place where issues could be — and were — dramatised, making an impact far beyond what the written word could do. There was no more effective speaker in this setting than Ted Wixted.
At that time, the media, churches and other establishment organizations were able to censor information more effectively than they can today. However they could not exercise this power in a place where there was direct communication between the speaker and his audience. The Brisbane Public Forum provided Ted with a platform to speak in detail about the nature of the political / religious Establishment and its manipulation of the truth.
How much of a threat such a man could be to the Establishment depended not only on that man’s ability and the information that he conveyed, but also on whether or not his message could be contained. The activity of certain groups towards containing the message is another story for another time. It is enough to say here that the media and the Police Special Branch play prominent roles in that story.
So far as containing information is concerned, we now live in a different world to that of only a few decades ago. The Internet has seen to that.
During his period at the Brisbane Public Forum Ted issued numbered pamphlets, which documented the issues involved. The nature and purpose of his work is evident in these pamphlets, and they will be added to this website in due course.
With the expectation that the issues raised in the pamphlets will be resolved, one point should be stated clearly. The media was fully informed at the time about the issues discussed at the Brisbane Public Forum. That which the media chose to ignore then cannot become some sort of new discovery in 2007, or later …
January 2007
The Public Forum operated at Centenary Place, Brisbane, Australia from 1962 to 1980. It was a place of vigorous, intellectual debate for many of those years until external factors led to its gradual diminution.
Ted Wixted 