Quarterly Essay 36

Australian Story: Kevin Rudd and the Lucky Country

Mungo MacCallum

Release Date:
December 2009
Our Price:
$15.95
ISBN:
9781863954570
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Description

In Australian Story, Mungo MacCallum investigates the political success of Kevin Rudd. What does he know about Australia that his opponents don’t? This is a characteristically barbed and perceptive look at the challenges facing the government and the country. MacCallum argues that the things we used to rely on are not there anymore. On the Right, the blind faith in markets has recently collapsed. The Left lost its guiding light with the demise of the socialist dream.

In entertaining fashion, MacCallum dissects the myths that made Australia: the idea of the Lucky Country, with endless pastures, a workingman’s paradise, a new Britannia, and more. In newly uncertain times, MacCallum argues, Rudd has sought to tap into these myths, in the process reclaiming them from John Howard.

Australian Story is both a canny assessment of the Rudd government’s election-winning approach and a broader meditation on the nation’s core traditions at a time of major change and challenge.

“Rudd has made it clear that he is looking forward to a long time in office … If the polls are to be believed, he is still seen as the best man for the job by an overwhelming majority of Australians. But why? What is it about this repetitive, boring, God-bothering nerd that appeals to the proverbially laid-back, cynical, disengaged public?” —Mungo MacCallum, Australian Story

This special Christmas issue also includes Robert Manne's Quarterly Essay Lecture, Is Neo-Liberalism Finished?

Audio Book

Australian Story is available as an audio book. You can listen to a sample here and buy the audio book through Bolinda Publishing.

Correspondence

This issue also contains correspondence relating to the previous issue QE35 Radical Hope by Noel Pearson. Correspondence relating to QE36 Australian Story will appear in the next issue.


About the Author

Mungo MacCallum has long been one of Australia’s most influential and entertaining political journalists, in a career spanning more than four decades. He has worked with the Australian, the Age, the Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald and numerous magazines, as well as the ABC, SBS, Channel Nine and Channel Ten. His books include the bestselling Mungo: The Man Who Laughs, Run Johnny Run: The Story of the 2004 Election and Poll Dancing: The Story of the 2007 Election.

 


Author Video

Mungo MacCallum talks about his Quarterly Essay Australian Story: Kevin Rudd and the Lucky Country.
Part One | Part Two