When and why did politicians start telling us every detail of their lives?

On this week’s Afternoon Light Georgina Downer speaks with Joshua Black about the art of ‘performance politics’ – the weaponisation of autobiography and memoir to achieve political ends. Their conversation tracks the transformation of Australian political culture, from one where politicians refused to tell stories out of school, to one where in Netflix-style documentaries the leading participants reveal every gory detail about the intrigues of Australian political life.

Want to learn more about Australia political memoir? Listen to these episodes of Afternoon Light:

Scott Morrison, ‘We are political tradies… we fix the stuff that needs fixing’ Liberal Governance

Alexander Downer & Tony Parkinson on the life & times of Australia’s longest serving Foreign Minister: “We took a view”

Joshua Black, ‘Scandals or Spectacles’ Australian Political Memoir

Joshua Black is a lecturer in Australian Political Studies at the Vice-Chancellor’s Centre of Public Ideas, University of Canberra. In addition to working in government as a ministerial speechwriter, he has taught at several Australian universities and published widely on Australian politics. He has been a Palace Letters Fellow at the Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Australia Institute. His latest book is Performance Politics: Australian politicians and the stories they tell.