AustLit

'Wars have led to innumerable fine memoirs by foot soldiers. Less so Australian politics. Memoirs of note by backbenchers reflecting on their service in an Australian parliament are few. The journalist and military historian Max Hastings once wrote that he did not seek interviews with surviving military officers of very senior rank as due to their age the result was usually ‘a conversational train running upon familiar railway lines’; the recollections of regimental and battalion commanders were of greater historical value.1 My own observations of published writings on government are that senior ministers and departmental secretaries are typically so weighed down by personal baggage that they often default to a reassuring account that invites only minimal reflection on the author’s own record. Could those sitting quietly on the backbench (or even at a lonely desk in a government agency) have acquired a more cogent understanding of events, less weighed down by reputational self-interest?' (Introduction)