Today, a more relevant spin on Aristotle’s maxim “give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man” may be “give me the student and I will show you the prime minister”. We now know that Scott Morrison spent a good amount of time as a university student engrossed in the world of the Christian Brethren.
But what about his predecessors? Let’s look at how other prime ministers spent those splendid university days of intellectual freedom — the years which can be transformative if one is so minded.
Gough Whitlam
Whitlam enrolled at the University of Sydney in 1935. He completed an arts degree and began a law degree which was interrupted by World War II.
Malcolm Fraser
Fraser studied at Oxford’s Magdalen College and completed a degree in politics and economics.
Bob Hawke
Completed a Bachelor of Arts and Laws before going to Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. Hawke wrote his Oxford University thesis on wage fixing in Australia.
Paul Keating
Alone in this batch of PMs, Keating left school at 14. He worked as a clerk at the Sydney County Council and was more interested in the education he could get from his father’s hero, the Labor figure Jack Lang. He also managed a rock band, the Ramrods.
John Howard
Howard graduated with a Law degree from Sydney University.
Kevin Rudd
Rudd graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University. Rudd specialised in Chinese history and language and gained a first class honours for his thesis on Chinese dissident and democracy campaigner Wei Jingsheng.
Julia Gillard
Gillard graduated with a law degree and then an arts degree from Melbourne University.
Tony Abbott
Completed a Bachelor of Economics and Bachelor of Laws at Sydney University. He went to Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship where he studied philosophy, politics and economics with mixed results between bouts of boxing. Abbott also commenced studies for the priesthood at St Patrick’s seminary at Manly but found it wasn’t what he wanted.
Malcolm Turnbull
Turnbull graduated with bachelor degrees in arts and law from Sydney University. He also went to Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship and graduated with a Bachelor of Civil Law.
the exclusive brethren = the Christian Taliban
And then the LNP, the Australian Taliban. A natural progression it would seem.
100%. A quick look around the country & the destruction is evident. Major river system on point of collapse, water rights stripped away & given to large scale environmentally destructive corporate farming, prime farm land given to frackers & coal miners, corruption spiralling out of control, the stench of a million dead fish….
No accident that the two most appalling of PMs have been heavily engaged in religious pursuits
Whitlam was by far the best PM in my lifetime.
Yes. A vision for an Australia that would have meant we were not the ‘sovereign’ toy of the US military. If the US goes to war against China there is NO WAY we can avoid being the meat in the sandwich now. Australia is one huge target now. Thanks to our American ‘allies’…….
Yes exactly. The price we pay for being a vassal state. New Zealand has a foreign policy but not Australia.
The Brethren? Enough said!!!
I like Barry Jones description of the early Hawke cabinet, praising them as probably the finest post-war cabinet we’ve had, they were “mostly uncontaminated by tertiary education, and Peter Walsh had sufficient exposure to confer lifelong immunity.”
That from the extremely bright and highly credentialed Minister for Science for much of that time.