Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Shaun Crowe

Shaun Crowe

Shaun Crowe recently completed his doctorate at the Australian National University, writing about political parties and Australia democracy.

Shaun Crowe reviews 'The Surprise Party: How the Coalition went from chaos to comeback' by Aaron Patrick

January–February 2020, no. 418 16 December 2019
You didn’t have to be Antony Green to know that by seven o’clock on election night things were looking very bad for Bill Shorten. The problem itself wasn’t complicated. While all the available polling suggested that Labor would gain support, the majority of booth results said that Labor was going backwards. Numbers were breaking for Scott Morrison, with the Liberal National Party driving a b ... (read more)

Shaun Crowe reviews 'Rusted Off: Why country Australia is fed up' by Gabrielle Chan

November 2018, no. 406 25 October 2018
I have only been to Harden-Murrumburrah once, the small town where journalist Gabrielle Chan moved in 1996, leaving the Canberra press gallery to live on a farm with her husband. It was on the way back from a football match in Cootamundra, in the middle of another grim Canberra winter. After a tough win, we all jumped on the team bus and pub-crawled our way through various country towns, arriving ... (read more)

Shaun Crowe reviews 'On Borrowed Time' by Robert Manne

May 2018, no. 401 24 April 2018
By now, the Robert Manne essay is a well-established form – four decades at the centre of public life will do that. Whatever the topic, his pieces tend to possess certain qualities: an almost lawyerly emphasis on fact and argument over style and rhetoric; a professor’s sympathy for the world of ideas over the muck of institutions; an unfashionable willingness to change his mind without worry o ... (read more)

Shaun Crowe reviews 'Please Explain: The rise, fall and rise again of Pauline Hanson' by Anna Broinowksi and 'Rogue Nation: Dispatches from Australia’s populist uprisings and outsider politics' by Royce Kurmelovs

December 2017, no. 397 22 November 2017
More than any other political party in Australia, One Nation represents a puzzle for commentators. When trying to explain its support – which has hovered around ten per cent since its revival in 2016 – the temptation is to look for subtext, something deeper, beneath the surface. Could the party’s cultural pitch really be a code for economic concerns, with immigration a metaphor for the genui ... (read more)

Shaun Crowe reviews 'Reboot: A democracy makeover to empower Australia’s voters' by Richard Walsh

September 2017, no. 394 29 August 2017
For the past few years, teaching at the Australian National University, I have asked first year politics students whether they would personally consider joining a political party. The question usually produces a few enthusiastic Labor activists, one or two Greens members, and the odd brave Young Liberal. Once, a student flirted with the Sex Party. But the overwhelming majority, though intelligent ... (read more)