About the Lecture

William Morris ‘Billy’ Hughes, the ‘Little Digger’, is impossible to sum up satisfactorily. The country’s most controversial prime minister, he was full of contradictions, prone to tall-tale telling, and his stance on the issue of conscription in 1916-17 divided the Australian community for at least two generations. He was also a crucially important figure in the establishment of the Australian Labor Party, a brilliant orator, a highly talented creative writer and the longest-serving politician in the history of the Commonwealth parliament.

This lecture will focus on a selection of Hughes’ many faces, public and private.

About the Speaker

Dr David Headon is a cultural consultant and historian. Formerly Director of the Centre for Australian Cultural Studies, Cultural Adviser to the National Capital Authority and History and Heritage Adviser for the Centenary of Canberra, he is now a Foundation Fellow at the ANU Australian Studies Institute, a Parliamentary Library Associate and the Canberra Raiders club historian.

Information for Guests

This free lecture will be held in the in the Main Committee Room, Parliament House.

This lecture will also be live streamed and recorded. You can access the live stream on the day at Watch, Read, Listen and youtube.com/@AUSParliamentLive.

A recording of the lecture will be made available on the Parliament of Australia website.

For further information, or if you have any accessibility requirements, call Louise McKay on 02 6277 8702 or email DPSParliamentaryLibraryEvents@aph.gov.au.

The First Eight Project

The First Eight Project aims to enliven interest in this formative period of the nation’s history, focusing on the private, public and political lives of its political leaders, and something of the essence of the world they inhabited and which shaped them. It incorporates a series of events, lectures, exhibitions, and a monograph series on the first eight Prime Ministers of Australia.
Barton, Deakin, Watson, Reid, Fisher, Cook, Hughes and Bruce.

The project is a joint undertaking between the Parliamentary Library, the ANU Australian Studies Institute, National Museum of Australia, the National Archives of Australia and the Victorian Parliamentary Library.