Acclaimed historians Nick Dyrenfurth and Frank Bongiorno tell the story of the Australian Labor Party’s rich history of more than 130 years and examine its central role in modern Australia. The Australian Labor Party is one of the oldest labour parties in the world and the first to form a government. From the prime ministerships of Watson and Fisher to the tragedies of Hughes and Scullin, through the 1940s legends Curtin and Chifley to governments of Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard, A Little History of the Australian Labor Party recounts times of triumph and failure, as well as resilience. This updated edition examines Labor’s recent performance in state and territory politics and takes the national story up to the Albanese government. ‘Informative and insightful, the authors shrewdly marshal the key events, policies and personalities in Labor’s long and lively history to tell the compelling story of the party that has shaped Australia more than any other. I enjoyed it immensely.’ — Troy Bramston ‘The history of Australia’s Labor Party is the story of how ordinary men and women dreamed, organised, argued and raged to form a political movement that has weathered wars, depressions, financial crises, bitter splits, rivalries and betrayals, and yet forged great alliances to shape this country into a good and safe place to live. The story of Labor is the story of a nation that was not born on a distant battlefield, but in the homes and workplaces, pubs and halls where people gathered to make the world better. This enthralling, questing book is not just great Labor history, it is great Australian history.’ — Janet McCalman

Basic facts, a chronology, a bibliography, and a list of suggested reading make up the appendixes. --Book Jacket.

Here are the political diaries of one of Australia's most promising national leaders—published within twelve months of his resignation from office—an historic first. The Latham Diaries are searingly honest bulletins from the front line of Labor politics. They provide a unique view into the life of a man, the Party and the nation at a crucial time in Australian history. Mark Latham resigned from parliament in January 2005, after only fourteen months as Leader of the Opposition, amid bitter post-election recrimination and his own ill health. From the beginning of his career he was viewed by many observers as the ALP's resident intellectual and larrikin, the great hope of a new generation with the drive and talent to become prime minister. So why did his career end so abruptly? As The Latham Diaries reveal, the rising tide of public cynicism about politics, the cult of celebrity, the dangerous liaison between politics and the media, and the sickness at the heart of the Labor machine all played their part. As did Latham's own errors, as he candidly records in these diaries. This is a riveting chronicle of life inside politics: the backroom deals, the frontroom conniving, the bitter defeat of idealism and the triumph of opportunism. The Latham Diaries is not just the story of the Labor Party in the last years of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, but a sobering account of the state of Australian democracy 100 years after Federation.

A history of Australia that covers: discovery by European; navigators who claimed the land as their own; the First Fleet, convict settlements and the gold rushes; the birth-pangs of a federated nation, and the experiences of Australians in the world's wars; and the Australian way of life.

On 13 April 1910, Andrew Fisher led the Australian Labor Party to a sweeping victory at the fourth federal election held since federation. By virtue of its double majorities in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, Labor became the first party of its type to take office in its own right anywhere in the world. According to the then Governor-General, the odds of the former Scottish child miner Fisher becoming prime minister were a "million to one against". Yet just six years later the ALP violently split in two over the issue of military conscription and was subsequently exiled from power for a generation. Why did early Labor enjoy such precocious success? And how could it all fall apart so rapidly? HEROES AND VILLAINS, a bold new interpretation of this formative phase in Australian Labor politics, explains why.

A bold and provocative book about Australia's national identity and a plea to keep Australia's famed open-mindedness, Cater tracks the seismic changes in Australian culture and outlook since Donald Horne published THE LUCKY COUNTRY in 1964. 'A great book.' Rupert Murdoch A bold and provocative book about Australia's national identity and how it is threatened by the rise of a ruling class. Nick Cater, senior editor at the Australian, tracks the seismic changes in Australian culture and outlook since Donald Horne wrote the Lucky Country in 1964. His belief is that countries don't get lucky; people do. the secret of Australia's good fortune is not found in its geography or history. the key to its success is the Australian character, the nation's greatest renewable resource. Liberated from the constraints of the old world, Australia's pioneers mined their reserves of enterprise, energy and ingenuity to build the great civilization of the south. their over-riding principle was fairness: everybody had a right to a fair go and was obliged to do the right thing by others. today that spirit of egalitarianism is threatened by the rise of a new breed of sophisticated Australians - the 'bunyip alumni' - who claim to better understand the demands of the age. their presumption of elitism and superior virtue tempts them to look down on others and dismiss opposing views. Half a century after Donald Horne named Australia 'the Lucky Country', Nick Cater takes stock of the new battle to define Australia and the rift that divides a presumptive ruling class from a people who refuse to be ruled. the Lucky Culture is a lively and original take on 21st century Australia and its people. Sometimes rousing, often provocative and always good-humoured, its unexpectedly moving message cannot be ignored. 'tHE LUCKY CULtURE is a great book and particularly relevant as it comes in a moment of high political excitement. I particularly loved Nick Cater's passion for the great Australian dream. It is the first step in restoring that dream.' Rupert Murdoch

Humphrey McQueen's new edition of his irreverent classic charts the origins of the Australian Labor Party. In tracing the social forces which produced the ALP, he shows it was anti-socialist from the very start.

'Australia First' is a good slogan that has been adopted by several quite different political ideologies. This book deals with the movement that developed slowly from about 1936 and came to an inglorious end in 1942. It grew out of the Victorian Socialist Party and the Rationalist Association. At first it attracted literary figures such as Xavier Herbert, Eleanor Dark, Miles Franklin. When it became heavily political, among its members were former communists and a Nazi Party member; some worked for the Labor Party, some for the United Australia Party (later the Liberal Party). One was a paid agent of the Japanese. Some were connected with Theosophy, some with Odinism, and in Victoria most were Irish Catholics with links to Archbishop Mannix and Sein Fein. Among their close friends were John Curtin, Dr Evatt, Arthur Calwell, Jack Beasley, Robert Menzies, Percy Spender, Archie Cameron. Several had contacts with Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and with the Imperial League of Fascists and National Socialists. One had met Hitler and corresponded with General Ludendorff. Two composed and circulated anonymous subversive pamphlets. Others imported Nazi propaganda, one even during the war through the German Consulate-General in New York. At its core was a coterie of elderly men with too much time, too much money, and little common sense. 'Inky' Stephensen was the public face of the AFM and was responsible for the crude and vulgar style of its monthly magazine, the Publicist. But behind it all was Billy Miles, a cynical, arrogant manipulator, who turned it into a vehicle for anti-Semitic propaganda. He who wrote: 'What is the solution to the Jewish question? There can be none while a Jew lives.'Its downfall was precipitated less by its fascist and Nazi tendencies than by its close association with the Japanese. In the end, the internment of AFM adherents was used by both Labor and Liberal politicians as a stick with which to beat each other, until the wrongs and rights of the affair became buried under political abuse.

A 'mate' is a mate, right? Wrong, argues Nick Dyrenfurth in this provocative new look at one of Australia's most talked-about beliefs. In the first book-length exploration of our secular creed, one of Australia's leading young historians and public commentators turns mateship's history upside down. Did you know that the first Australians to call each other 'mate' were business partners? Or that many others thought that mateship would be the basis for creating an entirely new society - namely a socialist one? For some, the term 'mate' is 'the nicest word in the English language'; for others, it represents the very worst features in our nation's culture- conformity, bullying, corruption, racism, and misogyny. So what does mateship really mean? Covering more than 200 years of white-settler history, Mateship demonstrates the richness and paradoxes of the Antipodean version of fraternity, and how everyone - from the early convicts to our most recent prime ministers, on both sides of politics - have valued it. 'This is essential reading for anyone interested in one of Australia's key national myths.' Books+Publishing