Last week I put together some books that have had a ‘mentoring’ effect on me. Here’s a very brief list of shorter pieces, and a podcast, that also contain elements of wisdom from which I’ve benefited. David Kemp’s A Leader and a Philosophy I came across this piece, published back in 1973, while doing some research for a writing project. At a time when many outside of formal party politics puzzle over the importance of ‘rallying the base’, and trimming this against electoral appeal, Kemp builds a coherent picture for a modern political leader, the need for a philosophy, and […]

Many Australians rightly look back on the Hawke-Keating-Howard-Costello era of the 1980s and 1990s as Australia’s golden era of reform. From the floating of the dollar to balanced budgets, and from low tariffs to wage bargaining, reform used to be the result of mixing good leadership with all-out necessity. Modern legacies But ‘reform’ in modern times has been a muddled journey, leaving many Australians increasingly dismayed at politics. Rudd, post-GFC, promised revolutions that only collapsed people’s trust in government. The Gillard government’s legacy, amid much internal Labor squabbling, has been reduced to a misogyny speech on the floor of federal […]