The sweeping drama of Australia’s political history
Tony Abbott’s history of Australia comes as a surprise. It has a spellbinding verve which will beguile friend and foe alike. We don’t expect such narrative command from a former prime minister of Australia. In office, Abbott was a believer in the ‘lean and lift’ principle of civic life, with a marked preference for the lifting side, which led to policies like work for the dole and budgets which were generally perceived as rough on the poor. His great ideological influence was the radical conservatism of Bob Santamaria and the formation of the Democratic Labor Party, the anti-communist ‘Groupers’ who caused the Split (in 1956) which stopped Labor from achieving
