by Aaron Patrick

Published by Black Inc.,an imprint of Schwartz Books Pty Ltd

2019

This remarkable book is a work of recent Australian political history of the events which led to Scott Morrison not only becoming leader of the Liberal Party and immediately Prime Minister of Australia but also unexpectedly winning the subsequent 2019 general election. The chaos in the tag line to the title of the book were the events within the governing party which saw the Prime Minister Tony Abbott being replaced by Malcolm Turnbull who in turn was challenged by Peter Dutton leading to Morrison becoming the occupant of the Lodge. A mirror image of the raucous de-stabilisation of the previous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments on the Labor side of politics. Patrick charts what led to Morrison becoming PM and how he won the most unlikely of elections leading to the famous remark on election night by the practitioner of ‘glossolalia’ and born-again Christian, “I believe in miracles !” A miracle indeed.

Patrick is well placed to write so perceptively of this era. He is a multiple award winning journalist and for the past five years has been the Senior Correspondent with the Australian Financial Review. In his youth he had been a keen member of Young Labor in Victoria and had been an adviser to Bill Shorten. He has written other political histories such as Downfall;How the Labor Party ripped itself apart, (about the Rudd-Gillard years); Credlin & Co ( The Abbott period in office) and Ego (the title says it all about the Turnbull period ). Despite his youthful  flirtation with the ALP he gives all sides a critical assessment devoid of partisanship with the keen eye of not just an historian but also a novelist.

As a novelist his descriptions of the major participants throughout this period are sniffy but acute, he doesn’t miss their foibles and strengths, he says; of Kim Beazley is ‘much-liked but ineffectual; of Kevin Rudd and Bill Shorten both ‘self-defined messiahs’; further of Shorten that his perception of the economy had not much progressed far from being ‘a trainee lawyer in Melbourne’ trawling for workers’ comp punters (Ouch!); of Tony Abbott his attempt at budget reform was ‘an immediate political failure’; of Malcolm Turnbull watching Abbott stumble and who ‘surreptiously greased the fall’; of Morrison he possessed an ‘anti-intellectual style’. Of minor participants in this morality play he says; of Peta Credlin ‘famously abrasive’;of Vaucluse MP Gabriel Upton ‘in the declining years of her political career’; of Paul Keating was “making a fortune as a door opener for boutique investment bank, Lazard & Co” (an equivalent description given by Conrad Black about former PM Bob Hawke having embarrassingly become a greeter in a large international hotel in Double Bay); of Chris Bowen, as ‘pixie-like who humblebragged’ and finally of ex-NSW Premier Kristina Keneally who ‘specialised in outrage’.

As an historian his analysis as to why Turnbull failed as Prime Minister is accurate. Turnbull did not heed or even acknowledge the advice of Angus Taylor regarding the near defeat suffered by the LNP in 2016 concerning the shifting nature of party allegiance taking place which required political adjustments which ultimately Morrison did to secure his victory in 2019. Secondly, Turnbull failed to shore up his right flank by spurning the three big A’s, Abbott, Andrews and Abetz by not giving them Cabinet positions forgetting  the maxim that ‘idle hands are the Devil’s work.’

Yet once Morrison was in place as Prime Minister, after the tumult of the previous few years, no one expected him to win. However as in Greek tragedies, hubris leads to nemesis, the ALP made some fatal mistakes.

The first of many of which was the franking credits tax debacle and Chris Bowen’s arrogant response to retirees’ concern of double taxation being, ‘if people don’t want this to happen they are perfectly entitled to vote against us.’ This epithet gave many the green light to get their baseball bats out of storage.

Secondly, the cavalcade organised by ex-Senator Bob Brown to protest the Adani coal mine in central Queensland led to big swings to the LNP in country and regional electorates not just in that state but elsewhere. No drinks were served at any of the Clermont, QLD pubs to any thirsty Greenie.

Finally, letting Bill Shorten go on his morning jogs in front of the cameras, a Forrest Gump on steroids. ‘When he sped up, his arms and skinny legs pumped back and forth furiously, while his padded torso remained strangely rigid.’ If Bowen was a complete goose, Shorten looked like a prize dork.

Morrison’s daggy suburban Dad persona seemed more authentic than the Xavier College old boy in the cloth cap and newly acquired Collingwood scarf.

I look forward to Aaron Patrick’s next work on the Albanese Government.

BENCH AND BOOK,

Courts, Cases, Verdicts, Diaries, Letters Memories by Nicholas Hasluck, first published by Arcadia 2021.ISBN 978-1-922669-12-4

To produce this interesting book Nicholas Hasluck draws upon his diaries in the first two years he spent as a Supreme Court judge in Western Australia: 2000-2001. As well as being a barrister prior to his appointment to the bench he was a well known writer, novelist and poet. During the period covered by the book he continued to serve on the Literature Board and the Australia Council as well as continuing his work in the evenings writing a novel. Hence the duality of his life found within the title Bench and Book. On account of both the legal and literary worlds’ commitment to entertaining each other a more accurate title for book, based upon the diary’s entries would be Bench, Book and Table. The numbers of parties, restaurants, eateries and bars he lists could comprise a formidable index of where to eat and entertain in Perth, Sydney and Canberra.

Hasluck provides a valuable account as what it means to be a busy judge, well worth a read for those considering that calling. By December of 2000 he writes that ‘I have never worked so hard in my entire life.’Not just the writing of judgments but directions to juries, sentencing remarks and verbal rulings along the way. He writes of many late nights getting ready for court the next day, ever conscious and fearful of acerbic and critical remarks by judges on appeal scrutinising his decisions for error.

Hasluck is not without a critical eye himself. While sipping champagne at the marina in Matilda Bay he describes an acquaintance as having ‘..the self-contained quality of an efficient kelpie, rounding up strays, moving things along, making no concessions ….aggrieved that he and ( his wife) have not been invited to join other writers on the trip to Rottnest Island .’

However Hasluck reserves his most trenchant and justified criticism for two judges, former High Court judge Sir Ronald Wilson and Supreme Court of Western Australia and later New South Wales Court of Appeal judge and ICAC Commissioner David Ipp.

His distain for Wilson related to his chairmanship of a report into the ‘stolen generations’ which stated that previous government policies, especially in the assimilation era, amounted to genocide. This finding of ‘genocide’ appeared to be contrary to the evidence and an attempt at grasping a pithy headline. It was also an indirect attack upon Hasluck’s father Paul who in his period as Minister for Territories had within his portfolio Aboriginal Affairs. He points out that Wilson for many years was a Senior Crown Prosecutor in Western Australia but failed to prosecute anyone for the crimes he contends were taking place in his home state. He also points out that  Wilson was a former Moderator of the Uniting Church, and a member of the governing Board of Sister Kate’s hostel for part-Aboriginal children and as such was a collaborator in the policies and practices he condemned .

He recounts David Ipps’ bullying persona on the bench  described thus, “ Ipp turns to me,as counsel for the respondent, and begins bombarding me with this and that, suggesting, by various poutings and wincings and ponderous leanings forward in the course of hurling another brick-bat,that I am either a fool or a charlatan, probably the latter, as the Judge below seems to have been duped into handing down a verdict in my client’s favour.’Even when Hasluck joined the  Western Australian Supreme Court Ipp continued to treat him badly. Somehow Ipp managed a transfer to the NSW court system and generally imposed his ill-temper and pomposity on the Sydney Bar.

Hasluck devotes a chapter (if not his life) to Law and Literature. He correctly asserts that lawyers are assisted by insights into the human condition by the great works of literature. Years ago, I recall reading one of the books written by Lord Denning who advised young barristers to read widely, beyond the law reports and text books, better to understand the language and human nature.

One is struck in these diaries by the extensive range of characters with whom Hasluck rubs shoulders, breaks bread and sips wine. The book could do with a far more extensive index than the rudimentary one it has.

One memorable encounter is with Barry Jones,   parliamentarian and polymath. “Barry refers in passing to the  Graham Freudenberg  summation that Kim Beazley is probably the first Labor leader since Ben Chifley not to have some major personality defect.”

More delights like this are to be found in this wonderful book.

Jeffrey Phillips, SC

Sydney 

“Going Under”

by Sonia Henry

Allen & Unwin ISBN 978 1 76052 957 4 (2019)

Sonia Henry’s debut novel called “Going Under”, described as a novel of sex, death and doctors, describes the life of a junior doctor in a large teaching hospital in Sydney.

The teaching hospital is Holy Innocents Hospital, a thinly disguised  St Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst is the scene of the action.  The heroine of the tale is Dr Katrina ‘Kitty’ Holliday.  The novel as a work of fiction,  describes the anxiety and tension suffered by junior doctors in the Australian medical system.  At a time during the COVID-19 crisis, when focus has been placed upon the medical profession, this novel casts a sharp light upon the travails of junior doctors.

The junior doctors appear to be in a constant, heightened state of anxiety.  One understands why they are put under such pressure because if they fail in their job, patients can get sicker or in unfortunate cases, die. However, the pressure and close scrutiny under which they are placed can be counter-productive The fact that some of the  senior doctors within the novel are referred to as “the Joker, the Smiling Assassin and the Shark” gives a good indication of the esteem in which they are held by the junior doctors.

This novel gives focus to a very important workplace.  A safely functioning hospital system is crucial for our society and equally important are those who work within it.  The fact that such junior doctors are exposed to such pressure reflects the fact that they have been students who have reached the pinnacle of their academic career, but also reflects the fact of the importance of what they do.  When their actions can have life and death consequences, one can understand why their superiors may put them under  pressure.  However, in doing so, those above them need to exercise due restraint so as to maximise the result but also to minimise the fallout from such intense demands.

Henry has written an important book, but also a funny book, and a book filled with great literary merit.  In another life Henry, who is a junior doctor, could have been a great English academic or indeed a great journalist.  She is a writer whose career perhaps has only been shortened by the fact that it is dedicated to medicine, rather than a literary career.  An example of her deft touch can be found when the heroine of the novel Kitty repeats a  conversation from her radiology registrar:

 “‘Look being an intern is fucking shit,” he says, kindly ignoring my bloodshot eyes and dripping nose.  ‘There are a lot of dickheads in this place, just don’t worry about it.  I’ve gotten used to it.  Some of the surgeons who come in here hassling me for scans, one minute they’re nice, next minute they’ve flicked the prick on.  Only takes them half a fucking second.”

 Kitty also talks about having been balled out by a registrar as producing the following result:

“A lone tear betrays me and tracks down my face.  I use the cap to wipe it away, then walk quickly to the patient toilet on the ward.  I shut the door, turn on the tap and splash my face with water.  Then I go to the cafeteria to buy the Smiling Assassin a coffee, feeling ridiculously sad.”

The life of an intern in a hospital is demanding, full of unpaid overtime and great highs and lows.  Only certain personalities can survive such a system.

When I was a student I shared a house with two junior doctors.  My recollection is they worked inordinately long hours.  One of my flatmates informed me that during an operation in which he was assisting, he was so tired he fell asleep standing up.  On another occasion I came home to find his car in the garage with its lights on. Thinking he had left the lights on, I went to turn them off. He had succeeded in driving the car home only to find that he had fallen asleep in the garage.  One wonders whether this is really the best system to train our doctors. There must be massive burnout and disappointment for the cohort who go through such a system.

Henry has provided a great social commentary a modern equivalent to Emile Zola’s Germinal for coal miners in France and Charles Dickens’ Bleak House for the 19^th Century English legal system. Both novels lead to reforms in both industries. This novel may itself lead to changes in the way junior doctors are taught and treated.

The difficulty of being a junior doctor is tempered by the support they receive from their colleagues and kindly senior doctors.  Kitty Holliday is described and loved by one of her friends as ‘half surgeon, half writer’.  That is a very apt description of the author of this novel.   Henry has done junior doctors, but also Australian society a great favour by writing this no holds barred novel, full of wit and pathos.

Jeffrey Phillips

BOOK REVIEW

Not For the Faint-Hearted: A Personal Reflection on Life, Politics and Purpose 1957 – 2007 by Kevin Rudd

Pan Macmillan Australia (2017) pp674

Do we need to read about Kevin?

The title of Kevin Rudd’s book should be a warning to would-be readers.  This is volume one of Rudd’s autobiography.  It takes us from his birth to his election as Prime Minister in 2007.  Volume two is nearing completion.

Whether Rudd is larger than life may be arguable. It is indisputable that volume one is a very large book.  In fact, when volume two is released Rudd will still be a relatively young man with many more adventures ahead.

Rudd was born in 1957 to a poor Queensland farming family. Both parents were instinctive Country Party supporters.

There was no risk of Rudd being a dual citizen.

An ancestor, Thomas Rudd, came out on the First Fleet as a convict.  Like Kevin Rudd, Thomas Rudd made a comeback.

Thomas Rudd, after serving his sentence, returned to England, only once again to offend, be convicted and transported back to Sydney.  Happily, he ultimately became Thomas Rudd ‘Esquire’ having attained middle class respectability.  It would be nearly two centuries later before a Rudd family member would better his upward social mobility.

Rudd’s childhood was marked by poverty, serious illness as well as a distant and angry father.  Much of his anger was expressed by abusing Rudd’s mother.  Rudd has never forgiven his father for the misery he caused his family.  In spite of these challenging circumstances, his mother’s love and sacrifice inspired him to work hard for a better life.

School work was a joy to Rudd.  However, his enthusiasm for sport was not accompanied by ability.  It was at school he discovered a love of drama.  Obviously a love that would never leave him, given his propensity to create it throughout his public life.

During high school Rudd was attracted to the Labor Party after learning of the then opposition leader, Gough Whitlam’s, visit to China.  That visit and Mao’s Little Red Book were the beginning of a deep interest in all things Chinese.

To his credit, Rudd did not enter politics through the familiar ALP pathways as a political staffer or union official.

After leaving high school he took a number of menial jobs; even enduring a period of employment.  This qualified him to be a community delegate to a National Youth Conference on Employment convened by the Fraser government.

After the conference there was a visit to The Lodge and a meeting with Malcolm Fraser.  Thirty years later Rudd was to return to live in The Lodge.

Rudd became a Christian in his teens.  He gives a thoughtful account of his conversion and the nature of his faith.  Although as the rest of the book makes clear, it would be unwise for enemies such as Mark Latham to hold their breath waiting for him to practice forgiveness.

Rudd attended the Australian National University studying Chinese civilisation and learning Mandarin.  There he met the love of his life, his now wife Therese Rein.

After university Rudd became a junior Australian diplomat in Sweden and then China.  He left the Diplomatic Service to stand for the Queensland federal seat of Griffith in 1996 election.  Having lost, he became the Director General of the Cabinet Office in the Queensland Government of Wayne Goss.  He re-contested and won Griffith at the 1998 election.

Rudd’s relationship with the Australian Labor Party is not one of the great love stories of the century.  The then National Secretary of the party, Gary Gray, together with staff, cheered long, loud and publicly when he lost in 1996, so Rudd recalls.  He describes the  Labor Party as ‘a perverse beast standing for some of the noble aspirations of humankind while happily cannibalising its own’.

The book tells of Rudd’s life in Parliament and his eventual seizure of the party leadership from Kim Beazley.  This was made possible by an alliance with the Left’s, Julia Gillard, who then became his Deputy.

Rudd writes well with at times a wry humour.  The book is enlivened by a number of acute pen portraits of colleagues and opponents.

Do we need to read about Kevin?  Well for those interested in federal politics, it provides a wealth of detail while remaining entertaining.  It is an insider’s account which provides access to the internal workings of the Labor Party and its ascent to power in 2007.  Those interested in the science of elections will find the chapter on the 2007 election especially interesting.  It was a brilliant campaign.  However, readers will be surprised to learn that Rudd came close to vetoing the Kevin 07 slogan.  He told National Secretary, Tim Gartrell, “I lived in China.  I know what the cult of the personality looks like.  I don’t like it.”

In volume one Julia Gillard remains the loyal, helpful deputy.  Although Beazley had warned Rudd she was “toxic”, no doubt in volume two the “real Julia” will emerge.

Finally, Rudd may have underestimated the appeal of his 674 page book.  Given its weight and size, its title is fair warning to the faint-hearted. It could serve the occasional need for a doorstop.

The review was written by Malcolm Kerr, OAM who was a Sydney Barrister before becoming a Member for the NSW Parliamentary seat of Cronulla for the Liberal Party between 1984 and 2011.

BOOK REVIEW

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT- a political memoir

by

Carl Scully

IngramSpark Australia 2017, paperback (p460)

Loves Labor; Lost

Former New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma told the Sydney Morning Herald that if Carl Scully wanted to know why he did not become Premier he should look in the mirror.

Well Carl Scully has been doing a lot of reflecting. The result is a very detailed but entertaining political memoir of 460 pages.  Its title “Setting the Record Straight -a political memoir” could easily be entitled “Getting Square”.  No opponent Scully encountered in a long and eventual career in politics emerges unscathed from his action packed account of his journey.

Born in 1957, Scully grew up in Chatswood.  He describes his father as a “soft Labor supporter” and his mother as a “pretty strong Liberal supporter”.  However, there was a Labor family heritage.  Scully’s grandfather in 1920 was elected to the NSW Parliament.  His great uncle was a member of the Federal Parliament between 1937 and 1949.  His great uncle served as a Minister in both the Curtin and Chifley Governments, a pedigree which was a source of pride and inspiration to young Carl.

Carl became a convinced Whitlamite, having joining the Labor Party as an 18 year old he immersed himself in factional warfare on behalf of the Right of the party.  Finishing an Arts/Law degree from Macquarie University, Scully practiced for a while as a solicitor.  Unfortunately, the book provides few details of his legal career.  This would have been of interest to our readers as he once instructed the one of our esteemed co-editors of this journal.  Anyone interested in entering Parliament would do well to study the careful planning undertaken by Scully to gain Labor Party pre-selection for the state seat of  Smithfield.  Elected to State Parliament at a by-election in 1990, Scully continued as a fierce warrior for the ALP Right wing.

Upon entering Parliament as an Opposition member he asked one of his factional colleagues “When are we going to get stuck into them?”  He had to be told that being in Parliament required one to get stuck into the Government, rather than the party’s Left.

No doubt as a non-drinking vegetarian he was a puzzle to the carnivores and Reschs drinkers in the Labor Right.  This was compounded by the fact that despite his Irish Catholic background, Scully was an atheist.  This revelation brought a look of horror to the face of the Legislative Council President, ‘Johnno’ Johnston, who was very much part of the Right wing papal mafia.   Scully worked out early that to climb the greasy pole would owe more to mates than merit.  He therefore attached himself to the “Terrigals”, a sub-set of the Right guided by Eddie Obeid, Sr.  The faction acquired this name from the location of Obeid’s holiday home also known as “The Plotting Shed”.  The Obeid weekender also served as a private meeting place for Obeid and his acolytes.

Scully makes no secret of his closeness to Obeid.  In fact, when Scully was elected to the Ministry he was prepared to give up his spot for his patron Obeid.  Having gracefully declined the offer, Obeid had to wait four more years to get into the Ministry.

Joining Cabinet after Carr’s 1995 victory, Scully served in a number of portfolios.  He spent the longest period as Minister for Roads and Transport.  From this vantage point he provides an insider’s account of the Carr and Iemma governments.

Carr was, in Scully’s view, the non-executive chairman and the Treasurer, Michael Egan, the government’s chief operating officer.  Nevertheless, Carr was the master communicator, his handling of the media constantly getting the Carr Government out of trouble.

No one doubts Scully was a hardworking Minister.  In fact, he has reproduced a day from his Ministerial diary to make his point.  Unfortunately, Scully had a falling out with  Egan almost from the beginning of the Government.  This enmity was a serious obstacle to Scully proceeding with major infrastructure projects.  However, Scully did deliver large undertakings and significant road safety reforms.  One anecdote of Scully’s exposure to the workings of Cabinet Government deserves to be quoted in full :

“There is a room full of relevant public sector CEOs, several relevant ministers and advisors.  Perhaps 30 or so huddled in a small room just next to the larger cabinet room.  Premier Bob Carr was in the Chair.  I said to the Treasurer: ‘Treasurer, that is a whole lot of treasury, purchaser provider gobbledegook’ and his response was priceless; ‘You are a fuckwit’.  I then retorted ‘I always know when you have lost an argument, as you play the man and not the ball.’ And his response was even better: ‘That just proves you’re a fuckwit.’  Carr stepped in and asked Egan to calm down before the Treasurer chimed in again with: ‘Okay but he’s a fucken prick’.  Nothing like a good intellectual discussion in the New South Wales cabinet!” ( page 297)

On hearing of Carr’s resignation, Scully believed his moment had come.  When announcing his nomination for Premier, Scully told the media “I will bring sparkle and verve to the job”.   He has been dogged by the nickname “Sparkles” ever since. Having for years dreaming of becoming Premier, he had developed a detailed policy blueprint that he would implement in his Government.  The present Government would be wise to study the reform agenda Scully includes in his book.

The painful story of how Scully’s premiership hopes were dashed by his “mates” is told with searing honesty. Obeid, Tripodi and Labor Secretary Mark Arbib, made the choice that Morris Iemma had a better chance of wining the next election. Scully and his hopes were jettisoned by the hard heads of the Right.

Scully joined the “almost men” who include Laurie Brereton, Paul Hasluck, Rab Butler and Roy Jenkins. Men who had made their mark in Parliament and Cabinet were labelled as future leaders, papabile, but never attained the leadership of their respective parties.

Worse was to come at the hands of Iemma.  Scully was sacked from Cabinet for allegedly misleading Parliament on two occasions.  He then made what he now considers a big mistake.  He left Parliament at the 2007 election.

Although Scully was now out of Parliament, the book in an act of schadenfreude chronicles Iemma’s inglorious time as Premier.  Scully does not forget to record Iemma’s and Treasurer, Michael Costa’s, then futile and politically fatal attempt to privatise the State’s electricity assets.

The book ends happily with Scully having enjoyed a successful business career after leaving Parliament.

Any current or aspiring member of Parliament should read this book.  It gives a compelling account of how to attain, keep and use political power.  It is also a great read for anyone with a deep interest in the ‘Bear Pit’ of the  New South Wales Parliament and  the Labor politics

This review was written by Malcolm Kerr, OAM  who was a busy Sydney barrister before becoming member for the seat of Cronulla for the Liberal Party between 1984 and 2011.