David Lee, ‘I don’t vote for them, but I’ll vote for John Curtin’ Labor’s Wartime Leader

John Curtin and Robert Menzies remain arguably the most revered prime ministers on their respective sides of Australian politics. The two men shared a mutual respect for one another, and a sense of cordiality that crossed party lines, even if that was severely tested by Eddie Ward’s ‘Brisbane Line’ fabrication. As two prime ministers who shared the burden of leading the nation through its greatest test, Curtin has tended to receive more credit for Australia’s success in World War Two, but for that effort he would pay the ultimate price. 

In this week’s episode of the Afternoon Light podcast, Robert Menzies Institute CEO Georgina Downer talks to Associate Professor David Lee from UNSW Canberra, who is the author of a new biographical monograph on Labor icon John Curtin. 

David Lee is Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Canberra. He is the author inter alia of Stanley Melbourne Bruce: Australian Internationalist, Bloomsbury, London and New York, 2010, the Second Rush: Mining and the Transformation of Australia, Connor Court, Redland Bay, 2016 and John Curtin, Connor Court, 2022.