A major road project takes a belly flop. Here's an extraordinary story of infrastructure planning gone awry, costing the taxpayer a billion dollars. The idea of an East-West road link had been kicked around policy circles for years and was finally taken up by Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu in 2011, just after his 2010 election win. Baillieu was seen as a weak, ineffectual premier, and his enthusiasm for the road project was lukewarm. Seeing his support as premier crumbling, he jumped ship before being pushed. His successor, Denis Napthine, wanted to appear a man of action and with a strong sense of mission. He took up the East West Link with gusto. So far, so good for the new Liberal Premier. Trouble was soon brewing, however. Locals who would be affected took umbrage – and then took up arms, or at least protest placards. There were court challenges and activists physically disrupting machinery, stopping works commencing. The Murdoch press portrayed the protesters as Luddites and greenie agitators. The Herald Sun covered the protests intensely, inadvertently helping the protesters' cause by keeping it relentlessly in the public eye. Enter the Labor party. With many an inner city seat at risk of succumbing to the Greens, the party moved in support of the protesters, even though there was much in principal support of the East-West Link within Labor. Finally, weeks out from an election, Daniel Andrews vowed to rip up any contracts that had been signed. Denis Napthine, despite this, committed the state to the project. Melbourne University academic James C. Murphy's main interest in the East-West Link story – or fiasco, as it is often gleefully referred to in this book – is to examine where power is located when it comes to decision making for major infrastructure projects. As he notes, public infrastructure is intensely political, as it involves public space and directly affects people's lives. His conclusion is that the East-West Link got up and running due to the influence and co-ordination of roads bureaucrat Ken Mathers. Mathers had three decades experience in roads bureaucracy, was well connected and skillfully orchestrated industry groups and other various boosters in favour of the project. Baillieu and Napthine appear as hollow men, holding power but not having any actual policy convictions. That the project was defeated appears to be almost random. The various protest groups that arose were not co-ordinated, more scattershot. But their vehemence and commitment won the day. The Making and the Unmaking of the East-West Link mixes theories of political science with a real life test case. Who holds power? How are major projects decided? Are community protests effective? Do faceless bureaucrats exert too much influence? These are some of the questions Murphy tries to answer, often with a sly sense of humour. The truth is governments can waste extraordinary amounts of money and we should probably pay more attention than we do. The Making and Unmaking of the East-West Link, by James C. Murphy. Published by Melbourne University Press. $34.99 Review by Chris Saliba A passionate and informative defence of the national broadcaster. Governments of all persuasions have had a prickly relationship with the ABC. Some more than others. Labor governments have gritted their teeth and put up with unflattering reporting; Liberal governments have virtually declared all-out war. The numbers on government funding are telling: the Hawke/Keating governments saw it increase by 7%; under the Howard government funding decreased by 5%; the Rudd/Gillard governments resulted in an overall increase of 10%; and 2013–present the contemporary Liberal governments of Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison have overseen a funding decrease of 11%. While conservative politicians and their media supporters have cried loud and hard that the ABC is full of rampant left-wing bias, surveys and polls consistently find that most people believe the ABC fair and accurate. No media organisation comes under as much sustained scrutiny as the ABC, with its journalistic practises guided by the ABC Act. Added to these checks and balances is a rigorous complaints-handling system. In Who Needs the ABC? authors Matthew Ricketson and Patrick Mullins have written an impassioned defence of the ABC, which is celebrating its 90th birthday this year. They demonstrate that arguments of left-wing bias are largely overplayed, that a publicly funded broadcaster does much to cool down political radicalism by remaining a trusted source of news, and, finally, that the ABC remains one of the country’s biggest producers of cultural content. This book is a comprehensive guide to the ABC and all that it does, and as well as a warning that our national broadcaster not be taken for granted. Who Needs the ABC?: Why Taking It For Granted is No Longer an Option, by Patrick Mullins and Matthew Ricketson. Published by Scribe. $29.99 Review by Chris Saliba First published at Books + Publishing. Seasoned political journalist Karen Middleton takes on the Anthony Albanese story. Albanese: Telling It Straight is a well fleshed out biography of Labor's current opposition leader, Anthony Albanese. First published in 2016, it tells of the personal and the political. Albanese was born in 1963 to Maryanne Ellery and Carlo Albanese. His parents' union was a brief one. They met on a cruise ship where Carlo was a steward, but their differing circumstances (Carlo was from Italy, Maryanne from the Western suburbs of Sydney) meant the relationship could not be pursued. When Maryanne found she was pregnant, her parents helped raise the child. To avoid unwanted questions and attention, Anthony's mother invented a story. She told everyone except a select few that she had married Carlo, but that he had tragically died in a car accident. Young Anthony would not learn the truth until he was aged fourteen, when his mother sat him down to explain. He would not meet his father until he was a middle-aged man. (The detective work involved in finding Carlo makes for a dramatic final act of Middleton's biography, with the surprise help of former Howard government minister Amanda Vanstone.) Growing up poor in a sole parent family, dependent on public housing, helped shape Anthony's progressive outlook. He fought his way up through the ranks of Labor politics, aligned with its hard left faction and eventually was preselected for the seat of Grayndler. His politics are pretty stock standard left wing fare: pro gay marriage (before many others were, it must be said); pro women; pro environment. True, that's an oversimplification, but the book concentrates more on factional infighting than policy development. Happily there's no scandals or skeletons in the Albanese closet. The worst that can be said of Albanese is he knows how to play politics hard and to win. Colleagues say he is direct and honest. When he promises to do something, he does it. There's also a basic decency to his character. He makes sure people feel respected and acknowledged. Anthony Albanese doesn't leap off the page as a great character. He's a dogged political operator, doing the grunt work to get things done. One can't imagine eloquent speeches or fine turns of phrase from him. The portrait this biography paints is of someone stodgy but honest. No fancy bells or whistles, but someone who is at least reliable and true to their word. A consummately researched biography of a tough political character with a heart stopping personal story that is genuinely moving. Albanese: Telling it Straight, by Karen Middleton. Published by Vintage. $24.99 Review by Chris Saliba A cautionary tale about power unchecked. From 1968 to 1995, Colin Manock was South Australia's chief forensic pathologist. During that time, he was there at every crime scene where an autopsy was required. His evidence helped secure some 400 criminal convictions. There was only one problem. A lot of his work as a pathologist was considered substandard. He was also lacking in qualifications, having no training in histopathology – the practice of taking tissue samples from various organs to discern more complex signs of disease or injury. In 1968, Manock had seen an advertisement for the director of pathology at South Australia's institute of Medical and Veterinary Science. The institute was eager to fill the position, and with no other promising candidates, Manock was accepted, with the hope that he would undertake further training. He didn't. Manock's English accent (he emigrated from the UK), self-possession and refusal to concede mistakes meant his evidence was often accepted without demur. But as his work has come to be reviewed over the years, deficiencies have become obvious. In the handful of cases author Drew Rooke examines in A Witness of Fact, many have spent decades in prison due in large part to questionable forensic work. Some have had their convictions entirely overturned. Drew Rooke has written a fascinating, easy-to-read biography of a strange, disturbing character. The middle sections concentrate on a number of cases and read like the best of true crime – enigmas to be solved. The book offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of giving too much power, unchecked, to one person. Clearly the work of forensic pathologists, as presented in A Witness of Fact, requires rigorous peer review before being used in courts of law. Once legal decisions have been made, lives can be ruined for decades. Or forever. Derek Bromley, who still protests his innocence of murder, has been behind bars for close to forty years. He could have walked free in the early 2000s if he'd admitted guilt, but maintains his innocence. He was convicted in large part on Manock's evidence, which has come under increasing scrutiny in the past two decades. Public interest journalism mixed with compelling true crime cases. A Witness of Fact: The Peculiar Case of Chief Forensic Pathologist Colin Manock, by Drew Rooke. Published by Scribe. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba Writer Sean Kelly finds in our current prime minister much surface and little substance. Before becoming a columnist for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, Sean Kelly was an advisor to Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. He’s worked both sides of politics, as minder shielding politicians from intrusive questioning, and journalist, digging deep to get the real story. Like fellow columnist Niki Savva, this gives him a unique perspective. In The Game, Kelly tries to get the measure of our current prime minister, Scott Morrison, and by his own admission, pretty much fails. It’s not for want of trying, or due to intellectual limitations. Kelly is arguably one of the country’s most incisive and penetrating writers on politics. The reason for the failure is that Morrison is such a skilled politician, he never lets a crack appear that could give a clue to his real personality. Most politicians at some stage make an embarrassing gaffe, giving a clue as to what they really think. Morrison is preternaturally aware: recall when Tony Abbott, Peter Dutton and Morrison were waiting for a meeting on Syrian refugees and some indiscreet comments were made about “Cape York time”. It was only Morrison that noted there was a boom mic above them. “There’s a boom up there,” he calmly cautioned. The story is a testament to Morrison’s awareness of himself as an actor playing a part, never making a slip or going out of character. (Morrison started his career as a child actor.) He has presented himself as the suburban dad who loves sport and makes a curry once a week. A simple, uncomplicated man. Any reality that gets in the way of this image – bushfires, a pandemic, violence against women – causes Morrison to lash out and get angry. (He famously said, “I don’t hold a hose, mate,” when questioned about the bushfires of early 2020.) Sean Kelly reaches a somewhat grim conclusion in The Game: “Morrison, unlike his predecessors, is the symbolic perfection of a certain version of Australia.” In other words, the two dimensional political character that is Scott Morrison (“How good is Australia?”) is a close reflection of how most of us see the country. In many ways, Morrison is a fictional character, an actor playing the part of someone we want to believe in. Australians have voted this mythical being into life. The book argues that we need to do better than this. Otherwise the country won’t move forward. Worse, poor policy will be made that adversely affects the country's citizens. But one wonders how? The Game provides first class political analysis, bringing the problems and deficiencies of Scott Morrison’s leadership into sharp focus. It can also be read more broadly as a political treatise, examining issues of personality and appearance in bracingly intelligent prose. A brilliant debut that is a cut above the usual political biography. Sure to be read and discussed in years to come. The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison, by Sean Kelly. Published by Black Inc. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba Two time Walkley Award winning journalist Annika Smethurst turns out a fair and balanced biography of Australia's 30th prime minister, Scott Morrison. There is much in this biography that the general public already knows about Scott Morrison: his Christianity, his background in marketing, his time as state director of the Liberal Party (New South Wales Division). In government, we have seen Morrison as a hard nosed Minister for Immigration and Treasurer under Malcolm Turnbull. To flesh out the picture a bit further, Smethurst undertook extensive interviews with colleagues, friends and various associates. We learn that Morrison is hardworking, ruthless and not trusted by many. Men get along better with him, whereas a pattern emerges that women loathe him. Morrison likes it when things are going his way, and is ready to take credit, but when mistakes happen he's liable to sheet the blame home to others. A fascinating quote appears on page 219 from a colleague who has known Morrison for two decades. It demonstrates how the current prime minister pursues power for its own sake. “He is a highly political person who doesn't have any sort of strong values, but the one thing he always had a view on was gay marriage. He was vehemently opposed.” Annika Smethurst has written an instructive and informative biography that pays attention as much to Morrison's flaws as to his strengths. A highly skilled politician, one with a high focus on research and polling, he's someone not to be written off, despite his bungling of several serious issues during his prime ministership (think the bushfires, Brittany Higgins, vaccine rollout etc.) A well rounded biography that should please a broad audience. The Accidental Prime Minister, by Annika Smethurst. Hachette. $39.99 Review by Chris Saliba A series of essays that look examines how Australia could improve its current policy settings by following the example of progressive Nordic countries. What can Australia learn from Nordic countries Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland? Quite a lot, according to editors Andrew Scott and Rod Campbell. Marshalling an array of Australian and Nordic writers and thinkers, The Nordic Edge examines the most pressing policy questions confronting Australia today. There is much received economic wisdom that Australians swallow without demur. Politicians especially like to tell us that low taxes equal a strong economy, but the authors demonstrate that high taxing Nordic countries have strong economies and their populations experience high levels of well-being. Norway's sovereign wealth fund is a particular cause for envy, having generated an enormous national nest egg by investing ethically and with great transparency. Sweden leads the way in making foreign policy from a feminist perspective, calling for gender equity and combating violence against women, with research showing that more women involved in peace processes leads to more positive outcomes. In another essay concentrating on gendered accounting (considering how policy impacts women) it is shown that more equal societies have better economies and health outcomes. Other essays concentrate on global warming, media and the prison system. Progressives will shake their heads that we don't have these policies in place already; sceptics may find some of the research presented here nudges their thinking. An urgently needed re-evaluation of Australia's policy direction that deserves a broad audience. The Nordic Edge: Policy Possibilities for Australia, edited by Andrew Scott and Rod Campbell. Published by Melbourne University Press. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba First published at Books + Publishing. An engaging look at gender inequality and how to fix it. Former Australian prime-minister Julia Gillard and Nigerian-American economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala see it as a matter of urgency that women fill more leadership roles. The statistics for female participation in politics, business and leadership roles generally are abysmal. To help foster change, they teamed up to write a level-headed manual on how to navigate a male dominated world where the cards are stacked against women. While Women and Leadership uses a wealth of research on the subject of gender inequality, one of the book's main attractions is its real life examples. Okonjo-Iweala and Gillard interviewed eight prominent women leaders, from a variety of different countries and cultures. They sought out personal stories of how these women achieved what they did, but also asked questions on a range of subjects. Does having supportive parents help young girls? Is there an unfair presumption that women should stay home to raise children? Is too much attention paid to the way a woman dresses? Do women really support women? The resulting answers make for an engaging and insightful book that is accessible and could also appeal to young adult readers. It's most practical lesson is the proverbial "forewarned is forearmed", arguing preparation and war-gaming are the key to success. The world is not fair for women, the issues are often deeply rooted and structural, but that is all the more reason, the authors assert, to forge ahead and make lasting change. Women and Leadership is sure to become a classic text on gender inequality and how to fight it. It's hard to think of a more perfect manual to put in the hands of aspiring women and supportive men. Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons, by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Published by Vintage. $34.99 Review by Chris Saliba The classic text about racism in America In 1959, journalist John Howard Griffin took the extraordinary step of changing his skin colour in order to pass as a Black man. Under the guidance of a dermatologist, Griffin took oral doses of a drug to darken his skin pigmentation, went under a tanning lamp and applied make-up. His first step to test if he passed among African-Americans was to go out in public and catch a bus. No one could tell he was actually white. African-Americans accepted him as one of their own. The reason for Griffin changing his skin colour was not to test the reactions of African-Americans, but of white people. Passing as a Black man he spent six weeks travelling the deep south, reporting for Sepia magazine (who also funded the experiment) and later turning the magazine articles he wrote into the book, Black Like Me. We often think we understand what racism is, how it impacts people and why it's wrong. However, it's an entirely different thing to literally walk in the shoes of a coloured person. It opens up a whole world of subtle and not so subtle politics, soul destroying rules on behaviour and barely contained, seething rage. Early in the book, Griffin highlights a simple problem in the segregated south. If you're a coloured person out in public and you need to use the bathroom, that can be a major problem. You can be made to walk miles because there are no toilets available to you. Planning a trip can be fraught for this simple reason – there will be nowhere to go to the toilet. On one bus trip that Griffin describes, the driver refuses to stop the bus at a segregated restroom, meaning none of the coloured commuters could relieve themselves. Another thing Griffin describes is the “hate stare”, being stared at by white people who utterly loathe the colour of your skin, and you because you inhabit it. Many a time Griffin would meet white people he thought were decent and civilised, but it didn't take long for the veneer to come off and racist attitudes to prevail. White people essentially think life as a person of colour is not so bad and can't see what all the fuss is about. They are blind to the structural disadvantage caused by white society. Black and white live side by side in America, yet there are major misunderstandings about each other's experience. Griffin was shaken to the core by his experiences as a Black man. Shaken by his own latent racism that he didn't realise he harbored, and profoundly disturbed by the depth of hatred in white America. He dreaded publishing his experiences for fear of the backlash. He and his family received death threats and moved to Mexico for a year. He later worked in the Civil Rights movement and many of his friends and associates were assassinated by white supremacists. Black Like Me is powerful and shocking. It provides deep, unique insights into racism in America and should be essential reading. Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin. Serpent's Tail. $22.99 Idealism clashes with reality in this thoughtful and revealing memoir. A Promised Land was supposed to cover Barack Obama’s entire presidency, but it stops after 700 pages at 2011. A second volume is in the wings. Let it be said at the outset, this is a very fine memoir. Its standout feature is an intellectual honesty that allows Obama to confront his personal limitations and the limitations of US democracy. Everywhere the overarching theme is the clash between idealism and reality. Good policy regularly takes a backseat to pointless political bickering and naked self-interest. US democratic politics doesn’t lend itself to reform and improvement, but is frustratingly weighted to maintain the status quo. Often Obama fondly remembers his younger idealistic self, romantically wishing he could join progressive global protest movements, but finding himself inert, ironically hamstrung in the world’s most important political office. The US presidency might seem to confer power, but the reality is it is often a straitjacket. For all the personal sacrifices to attain the presidency – family, privacy, a normal life – a question constantly hangs in the air: how much is really being achieved? For the most part, achievement is measured in the ability to stop even worse things happening. It is this honesty and candour that makes A Promised Land so compelling. The book gives a penetrating view into the presidency (we learn much about how the office actually works) and exposes the limitations of power. Obama remains optimistic about change, but this memoir, while deeply insightful, is also a sobering reminder of blunt political realities. A Promised Land will go down as one of the great political memoirs. A Promised Land, by Barack Obama. Vintage. $65 Review by Chris Saliba |
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