Gareth Evans

'This book shows Gareth Evans arrayed in all his colours. The cyclonic temper is there. So is the intellectual daredevil who won his wings as Biggles. The explosive, sharp workaholic emerges restlessly from this book. But also the politician of substance and imagination and the Australian who won great respect in the United Nations and around the world. The question that leaps out form these pages is: What next?' Justice Michael Kirby 'We can easily see from this book why Gareth Evans was one of the best and most widely respected Foreign Ministers in the last few years. High intelligence and principle added to a razor-sharp wit ensured that he was a controversial figure, but one who left the world better than he found it. If we're all lucky, there will be other jobs for him on the international stage.' Right Honourable Christopher Patten CH, former Governor of Hong Kong 'As well as his achievements as Australia's finest foreign minister, Gareth Evans's drive, idealism and intelligence contributed to many of the important changes in Australia in the 1980s and 90s. Keith Scott's highly readable book shows how and why.' Paul Keating, former Prime Minister of Australia 'This book reveals Gareth Evans as a complex figure, impatient, energetic, ambitious, visionary, yet sometimes prone to misjudgment when spinning his grand designs.' Paul Kelly, International Editor, The Australian This is the story of an unusual politician a rational intellectual who has been described as garrulous, impatient, generous, energetic and at times abrasive a young man from a working class suburb of Melbourne who achieved status as one of Australia's great Labor politicians and most accomplished foreign minister. Gareth Evans has been one of the most newsworthy politicians of the last three decades. Here is the first detailed account of his life from childhood to the present, a vivid picture of the man in his times and a revealing look at the influences which defined him as a politician - the student leader and young man stimulated by the intellectual ferment of the 1960s, the Vietnam years, the civil libertarian of the early 1970s, the up-and-coming politician inspired by the Whitlam Government, the pragmatic Labor minister, and the foreign minister appointed as the Cold War ended and the restructuring of global and regional order was up for debate. For thirty years Gareth Evans has been at the heart of the struggle for reform - to remake the ALP in the wake of the Dismissal, to reform federal law, to make the Constitution fit the times, to respond to the legitimate aspirations of the original Australians, to give Australia an active place in the world. More a loner than tribal, more analytical than intuitive,

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Abbreviations Prologue 1 The Evanses of Yea 2 A Tramways Man 3 A Bright Boy 4 A Young Rationalist 5 Student Activist 6 Oxford and Marriage 7 A Modern Socialist in Victoria 8 An Intellectual Among Unionists 9 Lawyer and Libertarian 10 On the Make 11 Biggles 12 Following Gough 13 Down the Mines 14 Front Man for Reform 15 A Foreign Minister for the Times 16 The Odd Man In 17 A Search for Community 18 International Statesman 19 Peaks and Troughs 20 Return to Opposition Endnotes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Keith Scott has worked as a journalist for the Canberra Times and the South China Morning Post. From 1990 to 1993 he was media advisor to Gareth Evans, then Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. He currently works for the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and is researching a Masters thesis in political science.