Australiana > Politics

'Freedom of speech is the freedom to offend and that means the freedom to offend anyone.' - Bill Leak. A new collection of the art and observations of cartoonist, painter and all-round contrarian - the incomparable Bill Leak. The public has rarely held politicians and the practice of politics in such contempt. Luckily Bill Le... read more

James Button spent a year writing speeches for Kevin Rudd. Before that, he reported on politics as a highly regarded journalist for Fairfax. But James also has politics in the blood: his father was the diminutive but larger-than-life Senator John Button, who was a minister in the Hawke and Keating governments. Growing up, Jam... read more

Australia is a destination country for people trafficking, in particular women to work in the sex industry. Most are desperate due to extreme poverty or debt. This book profiles real case studies collected by the authors from interviews and court records featuring appalling acts of kidnapping, fraud, deception, drug abuse and forced sex.

Celebrated political and social commentator Craig McGregor has spent his working life holding a mirror to Australian society. In Left Hand Drive, he on his personal journey, writing about and living amidst some of the most compelling and events of modern times. From meeting his lifelong partner on a legendary ban-the-bomb mar... read more

Graham Freudenberg, Australia's greatest speechwriter, says "the Australian Labor Party was built on speeches." This book brings together great Labor speeches which give voice to the party's enduring values and achievements, and place it and its principal figures at the centre of historic events. There are speeches that stir ... read more

'Julia Gillard was impatient for the prime ministership, and either worked with or allowed others to manufacture a sense of crisis around Rudd's leadership. She then cut down a prime minister in his first term and tried to pretend it was in the national interest to do so. Since then, she has been the architect of her own misf... read more

'We cannot blame particular individuals for modern Labor's malaise, because it is part of a systemic global phenomenon. We are all under the sway of politics without purpose. And politics without purpose is pointless.' Nothing could better sum up Lindsay Tanner's forthright attitude to politics and the public interest tha... read more

Behind the Lines - the Year's Best Political Cartoons is a celebration of Australian political cartooning. Relive the major events of the year including the implementation of the carbon tax, the ongoing debate over asylum seekers, the state of the economy and the challenge of governing with a hung parliament. Witty, wise and ... read more

Australians are generally uncomfortable in the global spotlight - outside of sports stadiums. But after seeing us negotiate the Asian financial crisis, the tech wreck and the Global Financial Crisis that bred the Great Recession, the world is now turning to us, the 'miracle economy', for guidance. This is the page-turning sto... read more

Former investment banker and economist Brad Orgill believes that Australia is suffering from a crisis of confidence.

It's time for some straight talking about Australia's future as a republic. A republic is the key to our national renewal: we need a head of state who shares a genuine affinity with our country rather than an outdated historical link.

Neither Power Nor Glory fills an important gap in Australian political history and our understanding of the Labor Party. It is also a timely antidote to nostalgia about Labor's past. In Victoria at least, that past was anything but golden.

By the time he was forty-eight, Steve Bracks had achieved the goal he'd set himself nine years earlier. He was Premier of Victoria. He reveals for the first time the background to his decision to take the party's leadership from his friend John Brumby in 1999 - then to hand it back to John in 2007 when he sensationally resign... read more

The tenth edition of this best-selling series features the work of Peter Broelman, Warren Brown, Matt Davidson, Andrew Dyson, Firstdogonthemoon, Matt Golding, Fiona Katauskas, Mark Knight, Jon Kudelka, Bill Leak, Alan Moir, Peter Nicholson, Vince O'Farrell, AVAILABLE ON STANIDING ORDER

Books of speeches are rarely published as a compendium of work by one person. After Words is unique in Australian publishing by virtue of its scale and range of subjects, and that all the speeches are the work of one eye and one mind: former Prime Minister Paul Keating. Each speech has been conceptualised, contextualised and ... read more

Good drinkers, bad swimmers and unlikely heroes. Since Australia's birth in 1901, twenty-seven politicians have run the national show. Their time at the top has ranged from eight days for Frank Forde to eighteen years for Bob Menzies. But whatever the length of their term, each Prime Minister has a story worth sharing. Edmund... read more

Andrew Fisher was a man who hated imperial honours, yet enjoyed the trappings of office, a leader who believed in world socialism, yet took Australians into the First World War. In this authoritative and immensely readable biography, David Day reveals the man, his politics and his remarkable legacy.

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Today, despite being in government, Labor is in crisis. Reduced to minority government after just one term and tanking in the opinion polls (the lowest primary vote in 25 years of Newspoll), how did it come to this so soon? Labor's true believers see the party at a defining moment in its history: in government, but without an... read more

It's the biggest and most puzzling story in Australian politics: how did the Australian Labor Party go from a thumping win in 2007 to facing annihilation in the forthcoming election? Other books have pointed to a lack of coherent policies and an over-reliance on polls--all true--but as this book makes clear, Labor's biggest p... read more