Penny Wong

Author: Margaret Simons
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 174382114X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 439

Book Description
An updated and extended edition of the bestselling biography of one of the most talented, poised and respected Australian politicians ‘What Simons has excavated from the background of this extraordinary Australian should be cause for great pride and celebration.’ —Mandy Sayer, The Weekend Australian Senator Penny Wong is an extraordinary Australian politician. Resolute, self-possessed and a penetrating thinker on subjects from climate change to foreign affairs, she is admired by members of parliament and the public from across the political divide. In this first-ever biography of Wong, acclaimed journalist Margaret Simons traces her story: from her early life in Malaysia, to her student activism in Adelaide, her time in the turbulent Rudd and Gillard governments, her key role as a voice of reason in the campaign to legalise same-sex marriage – and a new chapter on her elevation to the post of foreign minister in the Albanese government. What emerges is a picture of a leader for modern Australia, a cool-headed and cautious yet charismatic figure of piercing intelligence, with a family history linking back to Australia's colonial settlers and to the Asia-Pacific. Drawing on exclusive interviews with Penny Wong and her Labor colleagues, parliamentary opponents, and close friends and family, this is a scintillating insight into an Australian politician without precedence. Shortlisted, 2021 National Biography Award Longlisted, 2020 Walkley Book Awards Longlisted, 2020 Australian Book Industry Awards, Biography Book of The Year A Readings Best Australian Nonfiction Book of 2019 ‘It can be difficult to write entertainingly about the day-to-day slog of politics, but Simons, author of two fine novels and a lauded biography of Malcolm Fraser, is a skilled storyteller who weaves a compelling narrative notable for its clarity and pace.’ —The Monthly ‘We should all be grateful that Simons has given us this clear, well-researched, and comprehensive biography.’ —Australian Book Review

My Story

Author: Julia Gillard
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 0857983997
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 546

Book Description
On Wednesday 23 June 2010, with the government in turmoil, Julia Gillard asked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for a leadership ballot. The next day, Julia Gillard became Australia's 27th prime minister, and our first female leader. Australia was alive to the historic possibilities. Here was a new approach for a new time. It was to last three extraordinary years. This is Julia Gillard's chronicle of that turbulent time, a strikingly candid self-portrait of a political leader seeking to realise her ideals. It is her story of what it was like - in the face of government in-fighting and often hostile media - to manage a hung parliament, build a diverse and robust economy, create an equitable and world-class education system, ensure a dignified future for Australians with disabilities, all while attending to our international obligations and building strategic alliances for our future. This is a politician driven by a sense of purpose - from campus days with the Australian Union of Students, to a career in the law, to her often gritty, occasionally glittering rise up the ranks of the Australian Labor Party. Refreshingly honest, peppered with a wry humour and personal insights, Julia Gillard does not shy away from her mistakes, admitting freely to errors, misjudgements, and policy failures as well as detailing her political successes. In the immediate aftermath of the leadership, here is her account, of what was hidden behind the resilience and dignified courage Gillard showed as prime minister, her view of the vicious hate campaigns directed against her, and a reflection on what it means - and what it takes - to be a woman leader in contemporary politics. With new material and fresh insights, Julia Gillard reveals what life was really like as Australia's first female prime minister. 'An honest and compelling account of what life is like at the highest political levels- Gillard is an engaging and incisive guide.' Sydney Morning Herald 'Julia Gillard's memoir provides real, detailed, forensic, and clinical insight into the government from her central, completely unique, vantage point.' Katharine Murphy, The Guardian 'Provides a cogent defence of the reasons for the challenge to Rudd, the difficulties her government faced, both internal and external, and an insight into Gillard herself.' The Conversation

Rebel with a Cause

Author: Jacqui Lambie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780369305718
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 494

Book Description
You can't keep a bloody Lambie down' Jacqui Lambie in a radio interview, 14th November 2017 Jacqui Lambie has always stood out from the mainstream of Australian politicians - even in the announcement of her retirement from the Senate after being caught up in the 'Citizenship Crisis'. In stark contrast to other politicians ducking and weaving before finally being given their marching orders by the High Court, Jacqui copped it sweet and voluntarily walked as soon as the UK Home Office informed her she was a dual national. Her no-nonsense response that politicians who have breached Section 44 of the Constitution should just 'suck it up', deal with their mistakes and run for Parliament again is typical of a simple common-sense approach to issues that endears her to her legion of fans and followers. During her time in Parliament Jacqui was the most authentic Australian voice in the Senate. Love her or hate her, you can't deny she's totally heartfelt and unscripted. In an age when populism in politics often just means a backlash against the existing order, Jacqui actually stood for issues: a better deal for our military veterans, and a better system of care for those afflicted by the scourge of ice addiction. These are real issues for her, things she's lived through, and not just hot-button issues raised by focus groups. So for anyone who knows Jacqui, her resignation from the Senate is just an interruption in her unique career representing Australians who've previously had little access to the corridors of power: the veterans, the single mums, the welfare recipients, the families of ice addicts. In one form or another she'll be back. Her autobiography is not a political book. In fact, politics barely gets a mention until the final chapters. It's the story of her life as an ordinary working class girl from Tasmania, and her journey through the army, her enforced medical retirement after 10 years when she suffered a horrendous back injury, her fight to get adequate treatment and compensation from the DVA, her struggles to raise two kids as a single mother on welfare, her son's ice addiction, the slow rebuilding that saw her determined to prevent other people experiencing the bureaucratic-inflicted torment that she was forced to survive, her roller coaster ride as a politician, and finally her resignation from the Senate and her plans for the future. The subject matter is real and sometimes raw, but Jacqui handles it with humour, honesty and dignity. It's safe to say that there's never, ever been a politician's memoir like this in Australia.

King of the Air

Author: Ann Blainey
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1743820712
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Book Description
A revealing portrait of a brilliant and troubled figure – a daredevil of the sky Charles Kingsford Smith was the most commanding flyer of the golden age of aviation. In three short years, he broke records with his astounding and daring voyages: the first trans-Pacific flight from America to Australia, the first circumnavigation around the equator, the first non-stop crossing of the Australian mainland. He did it all with such courage, modesty and charm that Australia and the world fell in love with him. He became a national hero, ‘Our Smithy’. Yet his achievements belied a traumatic past. He had witnessed the horror of World War I – first as a soldier at Gallipoli, later as a combat pilot with the Royal Flying Corps – and, like so many of his generation, he bore physical and emotional scars. The public saw the derring-do; only those close to him knew the anxious man who pushed himself to the edge of health and sanity. In November 1935, Kingsford Smith’s plane crashed and he was lost at sea near Burma, his body never to be recovered. This brilliant work from one of Australia’s foremost biographers reveals the complicated, tumultuous life of a fascinating figure, who pursued his obsession to the greatest heights of fame and catastrophe Ann Blainey is the author of the acclaimed I Am Melba, which won the 2009 National Biography Award and was the most popular book in the 2009 State Library of Victoria Summer Reads program. Her other books include biographies of Leigh Hunt and the Kemble sisters. ‘Brilliant ... Blainey’s fascinating book focuses on the inner as well as the outer man. While Smithy’s career highlights may be well known, his ambiguous relationship with fame, his drinking, and his doubts and fears were not. In this beautifully written, scrupulously researched and meticulously indexed work, Blainey has filled this gap to perfection.’ —Ross Fitzgerald, The Weekend Australian 'Crisply written ... Even people not particularly interested in the feats of aviators will find this book an engrossing read.' —Jim Davidson, The Sydney Morning Herald ‘Blainey is a pleasure to read and this biography is superbly researched’ —Michael McGirr, Australian Book Review

I Am Melba

Author: Ann Blainey
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 192182543X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 410

Book Description
The story of an Australian girl who defied convention and became the most famous singer of her era. Growing up in Melbourne, Nellie Mitchell dreamed of fame, but her devout father disapproved. When a chance arose to go to Paris, she trusted in her musical talent and hoped for a lucky break. Within a few years, reborn as Nellie Melba, she was performing to overflowing concert halls, hobnobbing with European royalty and collaborating with some of the most renowned composers of the age. Audiences swooned over the 'heavenly pleasures' of her voice, while the public showed an insatiable appetite for news of her sometimes passionate private life. Dame Nellie Melba was Australia's first international superstar. In this important biography, enhanced by new research, Ann Blainey captures the exuberance, controversy and pathos of Melba's remarkable career. Winner of the 2009 National Biography Award. Shortlisted, 2008 Age Book of the Year Awards. ‘Blainey ... writes with clarity and panache. This is an entertaining biography. Everyone should read it and be reminded of what a remarkable singer we once had in our midst.’ —Sydney Morning Herald ‘There have been five biographies of Melba, together with her own rather fanciful memoirs; but the present one by Ann Blainey is superior to them all.’ —The Age ‘Thoroughly researched, excellently written and beguilingly human biography of Nellie Melba’ —Australian Book Review ‘Blainey brings a freshness to the story, giving us the feeling that we are reading about a life in progress.’ —Good Reading ‘Welcome and timely, shedding new light on the diva’ —Courier Mail ‘This is a gripping story of triumph and sorrow.’ —Sun-Herald ‘Meticulously researched biography’ —The Australian Ann Blainey is the author of I Am Melba. She has written five biographies, and her most recent biography of Dame Nellie Melba reflects her fascination with singing and opera. She has served on the council of two Australian opera companies and of the Percy Grainger Museum in Melbourne, where she lives.

The One That Got Away

Author: Ken Haley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781925760859
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
'A moving and funny chronicle of questing and courage in the age of coronavirus.' Margaret Simons, author of Cry Me A River and Penny Wong: Passion and Principle In 2020, Australian author Ken Haley mapped out an enticing menu of travel destinations, comprising the Caribbean island states for main course, with Central America for dessert. Main course soon turned into obstacle course. Cuba was a breeze, but then the world went into Covid lockdown mode and he had to decide whether to push on. As a pioneer wheelchair traveller, Haley knew exactly what to do. He took the brakes off. After an unplanned detour to Trumpian Florida, he returned to the tropics intent on dividing his time between sun worship, historical exploration and observation of life's realities for the community of West Indian nations. In a year that wasn't long on fun, Haley had his share but he also met his quota of hardship and risks - from developing hurricanes to a no-longer-dormant volcano, from robbery to an acute health crisis that had him wondering whether he might have been wiser to buy a one-way ticket in advance. 2020 was the year most of us stayed at home. Ken Haley turned an accident of timing into a rollicking, but dangerous adventure. The result is a triumph: a humorous and penetrating insight into a world grappling with an unforeseen calamity and a rare and empathetic travel book. 'Travel books are often entertaining but Ken Haley's book is both entertaining and edifying: not many other writers manage that nowadays. He follows in the footsteps of those great adventurers before him ... Stevenson, Newby, Chatwin and Bryson.' Phil Brown, author of The Kowloon Kid and Travels with My Angst.

Malcolm Fraser

Author: Malcolm Fraser
Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing
ISBN: 0522868886
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Book Description
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.

Lowitja

Author: Stuart Rintoul
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1761060368
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 449

Book Description
'This profoundly moving story is beautifully told by Rintoul without sentimentality . . . [but] with sympathy, truthfulness and restraint. In Rintoul, Lowitja O'Donoghue has found the biographer she (and we) deserve.' - Robert Manne, Sydney Morning Herald I am sometimes identified as one of the 'success stories' of the policies of removal of Aboriginal children. But for much of my childhood I was deeply unhappy. I feel I had been deprived of love and the ability to love in return. Like Lily, my mother, I felt totally powerless. And I think this is where the seeds of my commitment to human rights and social justice were sown. - Lowitja O'Donoghue Lowitja O'Donoghue is a truly great Australian. She is arguably our nation's most recognised Indigenous woman. A powerful and unrelenting advocate for her people, an inspiration for many, a former Australian of the Year, she sat opposite Prime Minister Paul Keating in the first negotiations between an Australian government and Aboriginal people and changed the course of the nation. But when Lowitja was born in 1932 to an Aboriginal mother and a white father in the harsh and uncompromising landscape of Central Australia the expectations for her life could not have been more different. At the age of two, she was handed over to the missionaries of the Colebrook Home for Half-Caste Children and cut off completely from her people and her culture. She would not see her mother again for another thirty years and would have no memory of her father. In 2001 a bitter controversy arose over whether Lowitja was 'stolen' as a child. In search of a past she did not remember, Lowitja went back to Central Australia accompanied by journalist Stuart Rintoul. This ground-breaking and long-awaited biography completes that journey into Lowitja's life and the challenging history of her times. It is a remarkable work about an extraordinary woman. 'A remarkable Australian leader. A leader whose unfailing instinct for enlargement marks her out as unique.' - Paul Keating, Prime Minister of Australia 1991-96 'If there is one woman that you would identify as being someone that inspires you, that terrifies you, that is a symbol of possibility, it would be Lowitja. The dignity, I think, is the thing that you remember the most.' - Linda Burney, first Aboriginal woman to be elected to the House of Representatives 'The greatest Aboriginal leader of the modern era . . . the rock who steadied us in the storm. Resolute, scolding, warm and generous, courageous, steely, gracious and fair. She held the hardest leadership brief in the nation and performed it bravely and with distinction.' - Noel Pearson, Aboriginal leader 'She changed the course of Australian history. She literally seized the day.' - Robert Tickner, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs 1990-96

Twiggy

Author: Andrew Burrell
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458798542
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
The swashbuckling West Australian entrepreneur Andrew ''Twiggy'' Forrest took on mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto at their own game - and won. In this unauthorised biography, Andrew Burrell traces Twiggy's business triumphs and disasters to reveal the complicated man behind the myth. Why do his mining ventures attract so much controversy? And what do his philanthropic schemes tell us about him and his plans for the future? It takes extraordinary force of will, combined with boundless energy and cunning, to create enterprises on such a mammoth scale. With the value of iron ore now integral to the health of the federal budget, Twiggy's business affects all Australians. This entertaining book gives a unique insight into one of the most powerful men in Australia today.

No Logo

Author: Naomi Klein
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312203436
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 520

Book Description
"What corporations fear most are consumers who ask questions. Naomi Klein offers us the arguments with which to take on the superbrands." Billy Bragg from the bookjacket.