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The challenges of minority government: Alfred Deakin and Malcolm Turnbull
Hosted by:
September 20, 2018 - September 21, 2018
Members' Lunch with Emeritus Professor Judith Brett – winner of this year's National Biography Award
For the first 10 years of its existence, the Australian Commonwealth had minority governments. Alfred Deakin was Prime Minister of two of these and in his second stint, from 1905-1908, laid down much of what has become known as 'the Australian Settlement.' How did he achieve this? And what were its costs? Could he have provided an example for Turnbull to follow? Or were his circumstances quite different?
Judith Brett was an Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University where she taught Australian politics and political biography for over 20 years. She has written extensively on the history of non-Labor politics in Australia, including Robert Menzie's Forgotten People, Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class and most recently The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, the first full biography of our second Prime Minister in more than 60 years and the winner of this year's National Biography Award. She also comments on contemporary Australian politics for the media.
Sometimes the answers for the future can be found by exploring the past.