Juanita Nielsen Memorial Lecture series

Juanita Nielsen, publisher of the independent newspaper NOW and active campaigner against high-rise development in Kings Cross, disappeared in July 1975. Her murderers were never brought to justice. The circumstances of her disappearance remain unresolved but it is commonly believed that she was murdered for her stand on the environment and the rights of low income residents.

ABOUT JUANITA NIELSEN

Juanita Nielsen was an Australian heiress to the Mark Foys retail fortune. In the 1970s Nielsen was the publisher of NOW, an alternative newspaper in the Sydney suburb of Kings Cross, New South Wales, where she lived. She conducted a vigorous editorial campaign in support of the 'green ban' movement against the redevelopment of Victoria Street by F. W. Theeman's real-estate company, Victoria Point Pty Ltd. With her neighbour and trade-union activist Jack ('Mick') Fowler, she played a prominent role in mobilizing local residents against the demolition of Victoria Street's historic terraces and the eviction of their tenants.

Juanita Nielsen disappeared on 4 July 1975 and it is generally believed that she was murdered because of her anti-development and anti-corruption stance. A coronial inquest determined that Nielsen had been murdered, and although the case has never been officially solved it is widely believed that Nielsen was killed by agents of the developers.

Although unable to establish the exact place and manner of her death, the Coroner found 'evidence to show that the police inquiries were inhibited by an atmosphere of corruption, real or imagined, that existed at the time'.  In 1994 the Commonwealth Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority further castigated investigative ineptitude in the case and emphasized links between her presumed murder, property developers and the criminal milieu at Kings Cross.

Despite public outcry the mystery of Juanita Nielsen’s death remains a major case in the annals of unsolved Australian crimes. The circumstances of her disappearance have been fictionalised in the films Heatwave (1982) and The Killing of Angel Street (1981). In July 1983 the Sydney City Council opened a recreation centre in the Juanita Nielsen Building, near her former residence in Woolloomooloo.