James Button - Speechless: A Year in My Father's Business (Reviews)
Author/editor: James Button
Year published:2012
The Voiceless SpeechwriterShaun Crowe It shouldn’t surprise us that speechwriters pen the most compelling books on political life. After all, their primary function is to forge a coherent narrative out of a disparate reality, to create comprehensibility out of complexity. By applying literary…
Lindsay Tanner - Politics With Purpose: Occassional Observations on Public and Private Life (Reviews)
Author/editor:Lindsay Tanner
Year published:2012
Old Australia and New Australia, Old Labor and New LaborShaun Crowe When Lindsay Tanner quit politics in 2010, he, like many gone before him, cited ‘family’ as the primary reason for his leaving Parliament. “There are”, he confessed, “two little girls and two older children who need me more…
Lindsay Tanner - Politics With Purpose: Occassional Observations on Public and Private Life (Reviews)
Author/editor:Lindsay Tanner
Year published:2012
Author: Lindsay TannerReviewed by: Jennifer Rayner It is a sad irony that the Australian media's coverage of Lindsay Tanner's latest book Politics with purpose: occasional observations of public and private life focused almost exclusively on the ongoing tensions in the Labor Party…
Maxine McKew - Tales from the Political Trenches (Reviews)
Author/editor:Maxine McKew
Year published:2012
The Art of Losing (un)GracefullyJennifer Rayner In the weeks since the release of her book Tales from the political trenches, Maxine McKew has often said that she sees it as a ‘second draft of history’; one designed to counter the triumphal first draft written by those who deposed Kevin Rudd…
Political Theatre
Author/editor:Frank Baber
Year published:2012
Like most political scientists, if I were capable of doing something more interesting I would be doing it. In my case, the alternative career would probably involve music. As it happens, I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. However, that shortcoming has left me with a great fondness for musical…
Politics with Purpose: Occasional Observations on Public and Private Life (Reviews)
Author/editor:Lindsay Tanner
Year published:2012
It is a sad irony that the Australian media's coverage of Lindsay Tanner's latest book Politics with purpose: occasional observations of public and private life focused almost exclusively on the ongoing tensions in the Labor Party over the toppling of Kevin Rudd, and his less-than-flattering…
Responsible and accountable government in Australia
Author/editor:Stanley Bach
Year published:2012
What is interesting about the Australian political system? Where to begin? To an American observer, government and politics in Australia offer innumerable instructive examples for, and points of useful comparison with, other democratic polities
Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation of Political Power (Reviews)
Author/editor:David McKnight
Year published:2012
Too much has been written about Rupert Murdoch. David McNight’s book stands out from the rest in two ways. First, with a few exceptions (the financial structure of the Murdoch empire, the battle to take over The Wall Street Journal, the Leveson Inquiry), it offers coverage of Murdoch’s career as a…
Screening Gillard
Author/editor:M. J. Saward
Year published:2012
...Was the treatment of Gillard on ‘Q&A’ typical, or an anomaly that was noticed and criticised? If it was criticised, was it just the lefty green-tinged liberals (in whose number I’d include myself), or was there wider disquiet? Or was there nothing – was this normal, okay,…
Submission to the Senate Standing Committee for a code of conduct for Federal Parliament (Professional News)
Author/editor:John Uhr
Year published:2012
'In a submission to the committee, Australian National University professor of public policy John Uhr said the federal parliament was one of the few national bodies without a code of conduct. "I think that public confidence in the integrity of parliament requires that something now be done to…