Don Dunstan: The Visionary Politician Who Changed Australia by Angela Woollacott (review)

This book is one of the best biographies of an Australian politician that has been written. It is superbly researched but manages to combine first-rate scholarship with an engaging writing style. It is a book that will be read eagerly not only by political and labour historians but by the general public, particularly the South Australian public for whom Dunstan has a deservedly iconic status. Yet one of the many strengths of this book is that it also reminds readers from other parts of Australia of just how pioneering Dunstan was. After all, Dunstan commenced his periods in office as South Australia Premier (1967–68, 1970–79) before the election of the reforming Whitlam government (1972–75) or the Wran New South Wales governments (1976–86).

Woollacott's book begins by documenting the influence that Dunstan's upbringing in Fiji played in developing his views on race and social justice. Dunstan (along with Gough Whitlam) played a major role in convincing the Australian Labor Party to reject the "White Australia" policy that it had supported for so long. Similarly, Dunstan's experience of colonialism in Fiji influenced his pioneering support for Aboriginal rights. As Woollacott makes clear, Dunstan was a major exponent of multiculturalism and of the need for Australia to engage with Asia. His governments also introduced important measures in areas ranging from women's equality to consumer law, food and beverage licensing, culture and the arts. Given current national problems with flawed construction, it is worth noting that one of the areas of consumer law that Dunstan focused on regulating was the building industry. Under a Dunstan government, South Australia also became the first state to fully decriminalise homosexuality (1975 as opposed to 1984 in New South Wales, for example). Woollacott's book provides an essential biographical background for understanding these achievements, with her chapters on issues of race being particularly detailed and insightful. Woollacott also explores Dunstan's support for employees' democratic rights in the workplace and his critiques, post-office, of subsequent neoliberal measures such as privatisation of electricity and water. In short, Dunstan played an important role in developing Australian social democracy, particularly in expanding its conception of equality to include not only class but a range of other social issues.

As with any book, there are aspects which some readers may wish had been explored a little more. Woollacott argues that "it was Fiji that shaped" Dunstan's political values (1). In terms of Dunstan's childhood, and given it is not clear how early he acknowledged that he was attracted to males as well as females, that may be true. Nonetheless, the possible impact of Dunstan's sexuality on his support for broader social justice issues could have been explored a little more. After all, Dunstan had not only experienced other (colonised) peoples being outsiders; in respect to his sexual fluidity he was an outsider himself–indeed he was committing illegal acts. Is it not probable that this alienation from mainstream society also contributed to his ability to empathise with marginalised others, just as his experiences in Fiji had?

Admittedly, discussing Dunstan's complex sexuality is a hard task for any biographer given Dunstan's reticence in talking about it, although Dino Hodge has provided some illuminating insights in his book Don Dunstan, Intimacy and Liberty: A Political Biography. However, Dunstan's reticence was partly related to his outsider status. For example, one can only imagine what it was like for Dunstan as Premier to have held back from playing a more prominent role when it came to the introduction of homosexual law reform, almost certainly because of the danger of being identified as homosexual himself. Yet Dunstan had previously advocated decriminalisation and knew the impact of the law well. According to Hodge, Dunstan had visited a friend imprisoned for homosexuality during the late 1950s, taking him books to read in Yatala jail. Dunstan could be a high-profile advocate...