tasmanian_bibliophile's review
4.0
‘The Hawke-Keating Government is often now seen, even by non-Labor people, as the Australian gold standard: as good as it gets in terms of effective leadership; the strength, depth and diversity of the talent in its ranks; and the quality of its achievements. Certainly it did not always feel that way on the inside, as this diary will make very clear.’
Gareth John Evans AC, QC (born 5 September 1944), is an Australian international policymaker and former politician. Gareth Evans has been Chancellor of the Australian National University since January 2010. Gareth Evans served as a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating governments from 1983 to 1996 as Attorney-General, Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for Transport and Communications and, from 1988 to 1996, as Foreign Minister. This diary covers a two year period from September 1984 to October 1986.
‘These were the years when tensions – easily contained at this time, but eventually explosive – began to build between Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.’
Gareth Evans began this diary just three months before Bob Hawke fired him as Attorney-General. The diary finishes with the death of Lionel Murphy. These dates were not chosen for any particular reason, but they represent the beginning and end of Gareth Evans’s impulse to write up at length his ministerial experiences.
For students of government, and for those of us who worked for this government, the diary makes for interesting reading. There are plenty of insights into the operation of Cabinet under Bob Hawke’s prime ministership, and some (at times) less than flattering comments about Cabinet colleagues. Gareth Evans’s downfall as Attorney-General may in part have been a consequence of his decision to authorise a RAAF flight over Tasmania’s wilderness in April 1983 to take photographs of the Gordon-below - Franklin Dam site (’Whatever you do, don’t call me Biggles’), but his zeal for legal and social reform is likely to have been another factor. During this period, the Hawke government was much more focussed on economic reform.
‘But it’s a miracle that any of us retain any kind of sense of the impact of what we are doing, given the artificial life that we lead.’
At least some of Evans’s disdain for his successor as Attorney-General, Lionel Bowen, is surely attributable to the fact that the Bill of Rights proposed by Evans together with other legal reforms withered and died during this period. Evans also mourns the treatment of High Court Justice (and former Labor Senator) Lionel Murphy who was convicted, and then subsequently acquitted, of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
There are also some regrets, on the impact of a political life on family life:
‘That question from my kids I recorded nearly thirty years ago – why couldn’t I spend the same amount of time with them ‘as the other kids dads’? - is one that will forever stay with me.’
I found this a fascinating look inside the Cabinet process during two years early in the Hawke-Keating Government. While I wish that Gareth Evans had continued his diary (and published) a similar record of his experience as Foreign Minister, it’s the focus on internal Cabinet processes and the dynamics of the Hawke-Keating government that held my attention.
‘They say, after all, that a statesman is a dead politician.’
My thanks to NetGalley and the Melbourne University Press for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Gareth John Evans AC, QC (born 5 September 1944), is an Australian international policymaker and former politician. Gareth Evans has been Chancellor of the Australian National University since January 2010. Gareth Evans served as a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating governments from 1983 to 1996 as Attorney-General, Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for Transport and Communications and, from 1988 to 1996, as Foreign Minister. This diary covers a two year period from September 1984 to October 1986.
‘These were the years when tensions – easily contained at this time, but eventually explosive – began to build between Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.’
Gareth Evans began this diary just three months before Bob Hawke fired him as Attorney-General. The diary finishes with the death of Lionel Murphy. These dates were not chosen for any particular reason, but they represent the beginning and end of Gareth Evans’s impulse to write up at length his ministerial experiences.
For students of government, and for those of us who worked for this government, the diary makes for interesting reading. There are plenty of insights into the operation of Cabinet under Bob Hawke’s prime ministership, and some (at times) less than flattering comments about Cabinet colleagues. Gareth Evans’s downfall as Attorney-General may in part have been a consequence of his decision to authorise a RAAF flight over Tasmania’s wilderness in April 1983 to take photographs of the Gordon-below - Franklin Dam site (’Whatever you do, don’t call me Biggles’), but his zeal for legal and social reform is likely to have been another factor. During this period, the Hawke government was much more focussed on economic reform.
‘But it’s a miracle that any of us retain any kind of sense of the impact of what we are doing, given the artificial life that we lead.’
At least some of Evans’s disdain for his successor as Attorney-General, Lionel Bowen, is surely attributable to the fact that the Bill of Rights proposed by Evans together with other legal reforms withered and died during this period. Evans also mourns the treatment of High Court Justice (and former Labor Senator) Lionel Murphy who was convicted, and then subsequently acquitted, of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
There are also some regrets, on the impact of a political life on family life:
‘That question from my kids I recorded nearly thirty years ago – why couldn’t I spend the same amount of time with them ‘as the other kids dads’? - is one that will forever stay with me.’
I found this a fascinating look inside the Cabinet process during two years early in the Hawke-Keating Government. While I wish that Gareth Evans had continued his diary (and published) a similar record of his experience as Foreign Minister, it’s the focus on internal Cabinet processes and the dynamics of the Hawke-Keating government that held my attention.
‘They say, after all, that a statesman is a dead politician.’
My thanks to NetGalley and the Melbourne University Press for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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