Presented by Emeritus Professor Judith Brett, La Trobe University.

About the Lecture

The core challenge of political biography is to answer the question, why politics? What inner needs did it fulfil, and what emotional and psychological resources were mustered for its accomplishment? These questions are harder to answer for Alfred Deakin than for less complex political leaders.

Deakin had a firm belief in his destiny yet was never entirely sure that it lay in politics. He entered politics almost accidentally in 1879 and enjoyed a decade of heady success. His commitment to politics faltered in the financial crisis of the 1890s, to be rediscovered in the cause of federation. Once the Commonwealth was formed he believed that it was the duty of those who had argued for it to make it work. Three times Prime Minister in the Commonwealth's first decade, he committed himself to building its institutions and to laying its foundational policies. By the end, as his powers failed, he felt himself to be trudging on with a continent strapped to his back.

About the Speaker

Judith Brett is a political historian. Her publications include Robert Menzies' Forgotten People (1992) and Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard (2003). In 2017, The Enigmatic Mr Deakin completed her trilogy of books on the history of Australian Liberals. It won the 2018 National Biography Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, NSW Premier’s History Awards and Queensland Literary Awards. In March this year she published From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia got compulsory voting.

Bookings are not required for this event.