Lloyd Ross’ impact on the Australian labour movement has been as protean as it has been significant. The socialist incendiary, adult education activist, unionist, communist turned anti-communist, Grouper supporter turned opponent of the Right in the ARU, journalist and theoretician – all these appellations could have applied to Ross at different times.
Richard Prebble is not very well known outside of New Zealand. As a result of his recent bestselling (in New Zealand) book he deserves to be better known across the Tasman. Although Roger Douglas got most of the credit and the publicity for the Rogernomic reforms in New Zealand under the fourth Labour government of David Lange from 1984 to 1990, Prebble played just as important a role.
Early next century Peter Costello is likely to be Australia’s Prime Minister. What sort of leader will he be? Tracey Aubin’s unauthorised biography attempts to answer that question by looking backwards, at his development and the issues that he wrestled with in emerging as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, the Coalition government’s Treasurer and their most lethal parliamentary performer.
Report completed 31 January 1996 by a panel chaired by Michael Easson and administered and supported by the Department of Finance. Republished here is the body of the Report minus most of the Appendices.
When he colourfully described some fund managers as ‘donkeys’, the then Prime Minister, Mr Keating, was popularising a critique of the invisible managers of funds, who have lost their elevated mandarin status as their performance has come under greater scrutiny.
I first met Hop Van Chu, as he then called himself, in 1984 when the then Opposition spokesman for immigration and ethnic affairs, Michael Hodgman, made some dramatic criticisms of Asian immigration to Australia. This was met with surprise and fear in large sections of this country’s Vietnamese community.
There is a long way to go, but it appears that everyone has written off John Major’s chances of winning the next British election. Tony Blair, elected Labour leader last June after the death of John Smith, is doing everything right.
From the forests of the Northern Tableland to the wilderness of mirrors in the NSW Legislative Assembly, Bob Carr has trekked all over the state in search of political mileage.
Archbishop James Carroll left no memoirs, generally refused interviews with historians and was very guarded about what he said about his role in some of the significant events in the ALP’s and Australia’s political history.
John Howard will be tougher, more cunning, and intellectually miles ahead of his former leader, Alexander Downer. Hence he will be a more formidable presence in the parliament and will be, at least in the short term, a heartening force for Liberals and their supporters. ‘But can he win the next election?’ is the question that matters.