Norman Abjorensen

Norman Abjorensen reviews ‘John Winston Howard: The biography’ by Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen

September 2007, no. 294 • 01 September 2007

Contemporary biography presents many challenges, even more so when the subject is a politician who is still in office. It is, at best, a progress report: necessarily provisional both in its analysis and its attempt to anticipate the weightier judgment of history. By its very nature, it inclines more towards journalism than towards scholarly assessment. John Howard has been a constant presence in ... (read more)

Norman Abjorensen reviews ' Howard’s Fourth Government' by Chris Aulich and Roger Wettenhall (eds), 'Inside Kevin 07' by Christine Jackman, and 'Howard's End' by Peter van Onselen and Philip Senior

September 2008, no. 304 • 01 September 2008

The Australian ritual of a federal election campaign every two or three years is one in which voters are invited to participate in hyperbole. Reality is magnified a thousand times as the actors perform a finely choreographed political quadrille while their every word and gesture are scrutinised for meaning and analysed for nuance. Yet for all the expensive and lavish hoopla that now constitutes an ... (read more)

Norman Abjorensen reviews 'Goodbye To All That?: On the failure of neo-liberalism and the urgency of change' edited by Robert Manne and David McKnight

June 2010, issue no. 322 • 01 June 2010

It may be far too early to begin writing obituaries for neo-liberalism; as with Mark Twain, reports of its demise constitute an exaggeration. With the growing critique of neo-liberalism, in which our own prime minister has joined, there is a pervasive assumption that it is something of an aberration, an errant change of course in the development of capitalism. That assumption is, I suggest, errone ... (read more)

Norman Abjorensen reviews 'Silencing Dissent: How the Australian government is controlling public opinion and stifling debate' by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison

April 2007, no. 290 • 01 April 2007

It is little appreciated just how much power and influence are wielded by a successful Liberal prime minister, success being measured entirely by electoral victory. Whereas a Labor prime minister has a caucus, factions, the ACTU, a not always co-operative national executive and a sometimes fractious national conference to exert countervailing influence, a conservative leader is remarkably unfetter ... (read more)

Norman Abjorensen reviews 'Liberals and Power: The road ahead' edited by Peter van Onselen

February 2009, no. 308 • 01 February 2009

Australian conservatism, for all its political dominance, is little understood and has been studied by surprisingly few scholars. The very industrious and perceptive Peter van Onselen is almost single-handedly determined to correct this imbalance. He has brought together a timely collection of essays on the Liberal Party and its future, coinciding with yet another term in unaccustomed opposition, ... (read more)