Comments on: Inside Kevin07

By: Lefty E

Lefty E — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:53:14 +0000

PS the surely winner is Don Watson, on the 93 and 96 elections!

By: Lefty E

Lefty E — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:49:24 +0000

Speaking of Dark Victory - it IS extraordinary that mandatory detention has been abolished today.

You can whinge about the Ruddster, but he’s a reformer alright.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:37:22 +0000

I’d agree that Dark Victory’s probably one of the ok-ish recent election books.

By: Ambigulous

Ambigulous — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:01:21 +0000

And Richo keeps getting huge credit for a Labor victory (1990?), by helping to retain sufficient Govt. seats. So Richo was a MASTER campaigner, was he?

By: Hal9000

Hal9000 — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:58:12 +0000

Marian Wilkinson’s The Fixer, political biography of Graham Richardson was ok, helped along no doubt by its subject’s, ahem, colourful career. Marian was also co-author with David Marr of Dark Victory.

By: Paul Burns

Paul Burns — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:30:46 +0000

Artie Fadden’s They Called Me Artie isn’t too bad, especially on how he made his decision which political party - Country Party ot ALP - he would join. On the flip of a coin. He has some teasers in it though - on the Curtin Government - “If I told everything they’ll be sorry”.And he doesn’t. Published 1969. Enid Lyons’ Among Carrion Crows is also pretty good, from memory.
I liked David Marr’s Dark Victory. And there was a very strange book about Keating’s defeat I quite liked,I think it was called The Victory.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:03:02 +0000

Mungo McCallum’s stuff on the campaign last year was acerbic and interesting - but didn’t work so well when turned into a book (though it’s still a good read). I wonder whether Rundle would rework his material, and whether there’s a market for a book on the American election by an Australian. There should be, but I’m not sure publishers would agree!

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:57:08 +0000

It’s interesting how much more bold and entertaining Guy Rundle’s writing for Crikey on the U.S. election has been than anything written on the Australian scene - though he’s certainly not writing as an ‘insider’ (given the quality of most of the ABC’s ‘insiders’ you often wish they had someone a little more ‘outside’). I’m sure Rundle will get a decent book out of it in the end.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:46:16 +0000

However Latham’s was good fun.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:45:52 +0000

Thta’s the second time in 4 days that Mailer’s coverage of the ‘68 campaign been recommended.
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Thing is in Australia, writers don’t take chances. One of the reasons could be that they’re imbedded in the process. There’s not much scope for them to make a living otherwise. Most Australian political writing is a combination of over-boring ‘reasonableness’ and self-aggrandizing doggerel.
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Hawke’s memoir wins the World Heavyweight Championship for the last category. What a wanker!

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:25:22 +0000

Yeah, and there’s some other excellent ones on 60s American campaigns - Norman Mailer on 68, for instance, which I think might have been a bit of an inspiration for Hunter on 72.

By: Ambigulous

Ambigulous — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:22:32 +0000

Oh yes, I wasn’t claiming our pollies memoirs are up to US or UK standards of writerly skill or thoughtful judgements. Not at all.

Agree wholeheartedly about Don Watson on Paul Keating: good work.

Early 60’s, a schoolteacher recommended those campaign books by a US journalist: “The Making of the President”. Theodore White? They read like a thriller. Such knowledge, such flair.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:12:34 +0000

Sticking with campaigns, Ambi, books by Alan Reid, and even our friend Paul Kelly are pretty decent pieces of journalistic work going back to the 60s, 70s and 80s. The last decent biography of an Australian pollie, I think, was Don Watson’s of Keating. Blanche’s bio of Hawkey was actually pretty good too.

I’m not sure I agree with you about the memoirs, though the ones you cite are pretty readable. There are some excellent political memoirs from the US and the UK which I really don’t think have been equalled here.

On political journalism in this era generally, you could compare Tony Jones’ compilation with any of the “best of political writing” books from the US to the former’s discredit I suspect.

By: Ambigulous

Ambigulous — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:05:28 +0000

Fair enough Mark, let’s broaden it out then. Last 50 years!

I’ve found some of the political autobiographies very revealing. Certainly not objective, but telling tales and giving a whiff of the hothouse. John Button, Clyde Cameron, Gough. Even Peter Walsh - and “Memoirs of a Finance Minister” isn’t exactly a catchy title.

Not surprising that so many of the opportunistic potboiler political biographies make their way to the remainders tables so swiftly.

Does it take a historian’s eye (and research skills) to write a solid political book?

By: Adrien

Adrien — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:46:11 +0000

What the hell is Jackman doing quoting Hunter S? If he was around now and Australian she’d be on that breakfast show crapping on about declining standards and saying: ban him.
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Kevvie is idealistic. Kevvie idealizes himself.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:15:14 +0000

Actually, I’d be scratching my head to nominate any Australian examples in the last decade - all my picks would be older!

By: Ambigulous

Ambigulous — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:58:37 +0000

Interesting Mark,

By the way, would you care to nominate a few books that contrast with this one in being more analytical, more objective, more knowledgeable and better written? Say, in the last 10 years or so?

Are these books becoming more “tabloid” style? Chased downhill by the online “news” sites, gossip magazines, etc? I blame teh Big Brother. Bloody Orwell.

By: MediaWatcher

MediaWatcher — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:56:21 +0000

I’m rather surprised everyone here has scooted over Christine Jackman’s marital relationship with Oz EIC Chris Mitchell, which began when she was a reporter and Mr Mitchell was still very much married … might go along way to explaining the yards of coverage of a fairly ho-hum book in the Weekend Oz of two Sats ago….

By: Sue H

Sue H — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:32:28 +0000

I think Lefty E’s idea of a book on the ‘insiders’ at the GG would be great. And Working Dog mob should also do something on the MSM.
Mungo MacCallum’s book Poll Dancing was interesting as it was a daily diary type thing but it will be a good idea for an impartial author to sum up the 2007 election too.
Jackman was fairly woeful on Q&A so we decided not to buy the book at that point. May check it out at the local Library later but can’t imagine it would be worth the money.

By: Paul Burns

Paul Burns — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:34:28 +0000

Another primary source for historians to plough through with a very critical eye in 30 years time. Just to put this into perspective, these kinds of books used to come out some years after the event, usually when the pollies/journos/staffers retired. Offhand, (because I’m too slack to look up bibliographies at the moment)I can think of only one book that came out contemporaneously, more or less, in the 1930s, -Caucus Crisis. And in WW2 I think there was only a short book by Makin, and Allen Chester’s biography of Curtin. Back then, I don’t think the pollies or their very few operators were into kiss and tell, and both pollies and journos used to wait for retirement before they put pen to paper.
The rush to judgement over the past few decades has more to do with the publishing industry and the desire of our current journos for some kind of immortality. As I said, great for future historians but increasingly dull for the rest of us.
I can’t wait for that big book Glen Milne must be planning.