The photo that uncovered Australia’s hidden past

At her mother’s wake, journalist Amelia Oberhardt discovered a photo of her mum as a teenager holding a baby she never knew existed with a husband she’d never seen, shattering her understanding of the past. 

Determined to comprehend what she had found, Oberhardt began investigating the story behind the photo, leading her to uncover hidden secrets of 1950-1970s Australia.

This story is the premise of Secrets We Keep: Shame, Lies & Family, the new original audio docu-series from the LiSTNR News team. 

“I have been on this journey to find answers to my own family secrets for more than a decade,” said Oberhardt.

“In that process, I found out so much more about the time that my mum was coming of age. It wasn’t easy to be a young woman in Australia through the 1960s and 1970s.” 

“What surprised me during the making of this series, is just how common this story is for so many families and how many are still impacted today. I really hope this series can help to heal these families, because it certainly helped change the way I feel about my mum.”

LiSTNR Head of News and Information, Melanie Withnall, said: “This first season of Secrets We Keep is a deeply personal journey for Amelia, as well as a companion podcast for anyone seeking to untangle their own family secrets.”

“Knowing the extreme sensitivity of the subject matter, the LiSTNR team has taken exceptional care and applied a best practice trauma informed approach to creating the content.”

Episode one and two of Secrets We Keep: Shame, Lies & Family is available now on LiSTNR. 

New episodes of the nine-part series will drop every Tuesday.