From Fraser To Hawke

Government policy; references to Aborigines; chapter by Lyndall Ryan annotated separately.

BESTSELLING BIOGRAPHY NOW BACK IN PRINTBlanche d'Alpuget's classic 1982 biography of Robert J. Hawke remains one of the finest examples of political biography in Australian literature.Robert James Lee Hawke is one of the great men of Australian public life and his story makes compelling reading. Blanche d'Alpuget's sensitivity and psychological insight into Hawke's early years reveal how the son of devout Christian parents was reared to public duty and to the ambition of political leadership.Known throughout his life as a tireless campaigner for workers' rights and a man of wild personal habits, Hawke was a Rhodes Scholar, educated in three universities, before rejecting an academic career to commit himself to the trade union movement. As President of the ACTU from 1970 to 1980 he was a master negotiator and peacemaker in industrial life. He agitated for social and economic reforms, becoming a folk hero and the most popular Australian of his time. While he was President of the Australian Labor Party he sought to heal its wounds after the sacking of the Whitlam government; as the leader of Australia's unions he held back potentially violent industrial action over this most divisive issue. To unionists he was a giant killer; to some employers, a crypto-Communist bent upon their destruction. Hawke: The Early Years is an intimate portrait of a man of extraordinary achievements who struggles to overcome his drinking and philandering in order to rise to the highest office in Australia.

This groundbreaking book examines why the majority of Australian school leavers want to go to university and have resisted government attempts to promote alternative forms of tertiary education. The New Inheritors explores differences in young people’s understanding of the purpose of university and their reasons for wanting to enrol. The book reveals that although there has been a general shift in values towards the utilitarian perspective, there is still significant support for the traditional liberal idea of university education as a cultural experience. This support is concentrated in well-educated families, regardless of their financial resources, but there is a substantial number of young people from less well-educated families who have absorbed the liberal perspective. The book begins with an extensive and unique overview of changes in Australian federal government tertiary education policy and changes in the public discourse on education. This overview provides a framework against which differences among today’s students are examined in detail. Drawing on a study of over 200 secondary school students from diverse backgrounds The New Inheritors records their attitudes to university – including access, fees and the role of government – and explores how these are formed by their family backgrounds and influenced by public policy on education. The New Inheritors uncovers the complexity of young people’s attitudes, and what processes occur in the forming and reforming of those attitudes to university and what young people really want from university education. Dr Madeleine Mattarozzi Laming is a Lecturer in Education at Australian Catholic University. She has given numerous conference papers on transition from school to university and teaching students from diverse backgrounds. In 2011 she received an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation for an outstanding contribution to student learning, particularly at the first year.

Since its first publication in 1982, Blanche d'Alpuget's Robert J Hawke: A Biography has remained the benchmark by which other political biographies are measured. Hawke: The Prime Minister begins as Bob Hawke wrestles the Labor leadership from Bill Hayden and a few weeks later wins the 1983 federal election, thus achieving his life's goal of becoming Prime Minister of Australia. With a novelist's eye, a political scientist's acumen and based on exhaustive research and interviews, d'Alpuget brings to life ministers, political advisers and previously invisible but powerful mandarins, and their byzantine struggles. Here are leaders with vision and ideals, but prey to ego, ambition and human frailties-yet all committed to reforming a country and an economy that, at the time Hawke took over, was heading towards becoming 'the poor white trash of Asia'. Throughout the struggles inside his government, with the opposition and with an electorate that yearned for reform but hated its pain, Hawke maintained his vision for the country. With four consecutive terms in office he changed Australia irrevocably.d'Alpuget's analysis of how power is deployed, and how elections are won, is nothing less than epic, rich with intrigue and drama. In Hawke: The Prime Minister, she has produced a portrait of a remarkable political leader, determined to steer his country through the international forces pounding down on its economy and the ever-present but imperceptible dangers of the Cold War. It explores the role he played in the precarious game of international politics in the last days the Cold War, and at the awakening of the sleeping giant, China. Unknown until now, the book also reveals Hawke's involvement in international reconciliation, recovery and reconstruction-the 'Three Rs' he set out to deliver to Australia in 1983. Hawke: The Prime Minister is a meticulous portrait of a wily, brilliant politician, uncompromisingly ambitious and at the height of his political powers.

In this part memoir and part authorised biography, Malcolm Fraser talks about his time in public life. 'The great task of statesmanship is to apply past lessons to new situations, to draw correct analogies to understand and act upon present forces, to recognise the need for change.'—Malcolm Fraser Malcolm Fraser is one of the most interesting and possibly most misunderstood of Australia's Prime Ministers. In this part memoir and part authorised biography, Fraser at the age of 79 years talks about his time in public life. From the Vietnam War to the Dismissal and his years as Prime Minister, through to his concern in recent times for breaches in the Rule of Law and harsh treatment of refugees, Fraser emerges as an enduring liberal, constantly reinterpreting core values to meet the needs of changing times. Written in collaboration with journalist Margaret Simons, Malcolm Fraser's political memoirs trace the story of a shy boy who was raised to be seen and not heard, yet grew to become one of the most persistent, insistent and controversial political voices of our times. The book offers insight into Malcolm Fraser's substantial achievements. He was the first Australian politician to describe Australia's future as multicultural, and his federal government was the first to pass Aboriginal Land Rights and Freedom of Information legislation, also establishing the Human Rights Commission. After his parliamentary career, Fraser continued to be an important player in public life, playing a key role in persuading the USA Congress to impose sanctions on South Africa as part of the battle against apartheid. He was also the founding chair of CARE Australia, one of our largest aid agencies.

To mark Bob Hawke’s extraordinary life and legacy, this master work brings together the story of the man in full in a definitive hardback commemorative biography. Bob Hawke began life as a good Christian boy from a teetotal family, became a wild, drinking, womanising student, a Rhodes Scholar, a champion of workers, a folk hero recognised throughout the country, a dynamic politician who was elected four times as Australia’s Prime Minister - and transformed his country. He was our longest serving Labor Prime Minister and considered by many our greatest. By the early 1980s Australia was on the road to becoming ‘the poor white trash of Asia’. Hawke as prime minister, with Paul Keating as treasurer, changed all that. Australia became a forward-looking and humane country whose voice commanded respect on the international stage. Hawke was an environmentalist before it was fashionable, he loathed racism, helped end apartheid in South Africa, sent ministers to end the war in Cambodia, foresaw that China would become a great world power and established the first Chinese investment in an iron ore mine in Australia. His journey from the manse of a small South Australian country town to the palaces of Europe, Asia and the United States is the odyssey of a leader it is hard to imagine we will ever see the like of again - a man of towering passions and commitment to causes, and an unshakeable love of humanity.

How much do we know about the second most important office in the nation? Who was Australia's first treasurer? Who resigned because of a relationship breakdown with the PM? And who did Frank Hardy base his character Ted Thurgood in Power without Glory on? The Money Men is the first in-depth look at the twelve most notable and interesting men to have held the office of Treasurer of Australia. Former Treasurer Chris Bowen brings a unique insider perspective to the lessons learned from the successes and failures of those who went before him. Who does Chris Bowen think has been Australia’s most exceptional Treasurer? With revealing interviews of the five last treasurers, The Money Men dares to answer that question.