Life and career
Paul John Kelly was born on 11 October 1947 in Sydney, New South Wales. [3] He is the son of Joseph Kelly and Sybil (née Mackenzie). He completed a Bachelor of Arts degree and Diploma of Education at the University of Sydney in 1969. [2] He worked in the Prime Minister's Department in Canberra from 1969 to 1971 before changing to journalism. [4] He is a Doctor of Letters from the University of Melbourne. [5]
He joined the Canberra Press Gallery in 1971 and became chief political correspondent for The Australian from 1974 to 1975. [2] From 1976 to 1978 he was chief political correspondent for The National Times , then its deputy editor from 1978 to 1979. He became chief political correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald from 1981 to 1984. He returned to The Australian and was its national affairs editor from 1985 to 1991, editor-in-chief from 1991 to 1996 and editor-at-large from 1996 to the present. [4]
Aside from journalism, Kelly has written books describing political developments starting with The Unmaking of Gough (1976) on the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975 and Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (later titled The Dismissal : Australia's Most Sensational Power Struggle : The Dramatic Fall of Gough Whitlam). He has written books on subsequent Prime Ministers, Bob Hawke (The Hawke Ascendency, 1984), Paul Keating (The End of Certainty, 1992) and John Howard (Howard's Decade, 2006). His The March of Patriots: The Struggle for Modern Australia (2009) deals with economic and political developments under Keating and Howard as Australia entered the globalised age. [6] Triumph & Demise: The Broken Promise of a Labor Generation (2014) chronicles the rise and fall of the Australian Labor Party governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard (2007–2013). [7]
His book The Dismissal was used as the basis of the television miniseries The Dismissal shown on Network Ten from 6 March 1983. Kelly is a political commentator on radio and television (including Insiders ) and presented the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) TV documentary series, 100 Years – The Australian Story (2001) and wrote a book of the same title. [8]
In November 1991, after the massacres at Santa Cruz (near Dili, East Timor), Kelly had supported Indonesian president Suharto and declared him to be a moderate with no alternative to his rule. [9] Kelly's support for Suharto continued to 1998 and earned criticism from fellow journalist John Pilger who compared it to the appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s. [10]
In November 2012, Kelly criticised the decision of the Gillard government to create the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, calling it "profoundly ignorant" and "a depressing example of populist politics". [11]
Edward Gough Whitlam was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), of which he was the longest-serving. He was notable for being the head of a reformist and socially progressive administration that extraordinarily ended with his removal as prime minister after controversially being dismissed by the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, at the climax of the 1975 constitutional crisis. Whitlam is the only Australian prime minister to have ever been removed from office against his will.
The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, also known simply as the Dismissal, culminated on 11 November 1975 with the dismissal from office of the prime minister, Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), by Governor-General Sir John Kerr, who then commissioned the leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Fraser of the Liberal Party, as prime minister. It has been described as the greatest political and constitutional crisis in Australian history.
Sir John Robert Kerr, was an Australian barrister and judge who served as the 18th governor-general of Australia, in office from 1974 to 1977. He is primarily known for his involvement in the 1975 constitutional crisis, which culminated in his decision to dismiss the incumbent prime minister Gough Whitlam and appoint Malcolm Fraser as his replacement, unprecedented actions in Australian federal politics.
The Australian, with its Saturday edition The Weekend Australian, is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership as of September 2019 of both print and online editions was 2,394,000. Its editorial line has been self-described over time as centre-right.
Sir David Iser Smith was an Australian public servant. He was the Official Secretary to the Governor-General of Australia between 1973 and 1990, in which capacity he served Sir Paul Hasluck, Sir John Kerr, Sir Zelman Cowen, Sir Ninian Stephen and Bill Hayden.
Reginald Francis Xavier "Rex" Connor was an Australian politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives from 1963 until he died in 1977, representing the Labor Party. He was the Minister for Minerals and Energy in the Whitlam government from 1972 to 1975.
The Whitlam government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party. The government commenced when Labor defeated the McMahon government at the 1972 federal election, ending a record 23 years of continuous Coalition government. It was terminated by Governor-General Sir John Kerr following the 1975 constitutional crisis and was succeeded by the Fraser government—the sole occasion in Australian history when an elected federal government was dismissed by the head of state.
Timothy James Freedman is an Australian musician, best known as the mainstay lead singer and keyboardist of the Australian band The Whitlams formed in 1993. The song "No Aphrodisiac", co-written by Freedman, was their break-through hit in 1997; their top four ARIA albums by sales are Love This City (1999), Torch the Moon (2002), Little Cloud (2006), and their compilation album Truth, Beauty and a Picture of You: Best of the Whitlams in 2008.
Kerry Michael O'Brien is an Australian journalist based in Byron Bay. He is the former editor and host of The 7.30 Report and Four Corners on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). He has been awarded six Walkley Awards during his career.
Andrew Joseph Lewis was the original bassist of Australian band The Whitlams. He first played in Canberra, Australia in a duo called In Limbo, playing Everly Brothers and other songs from the 1950s and 60s with two acoustic guitars and close harmonies. In October 1985, he joined Canberra band, The Plunderers, on keyboards, guitar and harmony vocals. He left The Plunderers in April 1987, leaving a small legacy of recordings with the band, most noticeably a version of The Velvet Underground's "Stephanie Says" and the original version of Stevie Plunder's "Where Are You?". In 1992, he formed The Whitlams but left them in late 1995, and went to Melbourne to join The Gadflys. He battled a gambling addiction and committed suicide in February 2000, aged 33, after losing an entire week's pay in a poker machine.
Norman Graham Freudenberg was an Australian journalist, author and political advisor and speechwriter who worked with the Australian Labor Party for over forty years, beginning when he was appointed Arthur Calwell's press secretary in June 1961.
Margaret Elaine Whitlam, AO was an Australian social campaigner, author, and athlete. She was the wife of Gough Whitlam, the 21st Prime Minister of Australia from 1972 to 1975, and a representative of Australia in swimming at the 1938 British Empire Games in Sydney.
Peter Nicholson is an Australian political cartoonist, caricaturist and sculptor. He has won five Walkley Awards.
David Twohill is an Australian musician formerly with rock band Mental As Anything who is also known by the pseudonym Wayne DeLisle or as Bird.
Peter Hartcher is an Australian journalist and the Political and International Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. He is also a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based foreign policy think tank.
Jennifer Jane Hocking is an Australian historian, political scientist and biographer. She is the inaugural Distinguished Whitlam Fellow with the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University, Emeritus Professor at Monash University, and former Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University. Her work is in two key areas, counter-terrorism and Australian political biography. In both areas she explores Australian democratic practice, the relationship between the arms of government, and aspects of Australian political history. Her research into the life of former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam uncovered significant new material on the role of High Court justice Sir Anthony Mason in the dismissal of the Whitlam government. This has been described as "a discovery of historical importance". Since 2001 Hocking has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Lionel Murphy Foundation.
Triumph and Demise: The broken promise of a Labor generation is a 2014 book which chronicles the rise and fall of the Australian Labor Party governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard (2007-2013) by the Australian author and journalist Paul Kelly.
Kim Gamble was an Australian illustrator of children's books. He is best known for the Tashi books, which have been translated into more than 20 languages and adapted for television.
Peter Luscombe is an Australian drummer and composer.
Shane O'Mara is an Australian musician and record producer.
