Top Blokes: The Larrikin Myth, Class and Power

Quarterly Essay #83

by Lech Blaine

Who can be a larrikin and how is it used politically?The figure of the larrikin goes deep in Australian culture. But who can be a larrikin, and what are its political uses?This brilliant essay looks at Australian politics through the prisms of class, egalitarianism and masculinity. Lech Blaine examines some “top blokes,” with particular focus on Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese, but stretching back to Bob Hawke and Kerry Packer. He shows how Morrison brought a cohort of voters over to the Coalition side, “flipping” what was once working-class Labor culture. Blaine weaves his own experiences through the essay as he explores the persona of the Aussie larrikin. What are its hidden contradictions – can a larrikin be female, or Indigenous, say? – and how has it been transformed by an age of affluence and image?

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Australia, Essays, History, Audiobook

156 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2021

About the author

Lech Blaine is a writer from Toowoomba, Queensland. His work appears in The Best Australian Essays, Meanjin, The Guardian and The Monthly, among others. His work has been nominated for several prizes and he was an inaugural recipient of a Griffith Review Queensland Writers Fellowship.

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes I really don’t pay nearly enough attention to things. I read an essay in The Monthly – something I ‘sort of’ subscribe to (I bought a subscription for a friend, and I sometimes read articles from it) and the one I read must have been written by this guy – but I assumed it had been written by the guy who wrote The Game, about Scott Morrison. The shorter version of this essay was a long and involved discussion of why ScoMo, the leader of the Australian Conservative Party (confusingly called the Liberal Party) had changed Rugby codes (from a rah-rah team to a working class team – being from Melbourne, I know nothing about Rugby, and not even by choice) and how much this clear lack of loyalty annoyed Albo (the leader of the Labor Party – the left out the U in labor is because, well, ‘you’ don’t belong in the Party and you might as well know that from the get-go). Albo was particularly pissed off because he has been a supporter of the Rabbitohs since birth – perhaps even earlier, I don’t pretend to understand that shit – and changing sporting codes would be like changing religions or going through an unintended sex change or something. I ho-ed, I hummed, I didn’t pay as much attention to who wrote the piece as I should have.

Then I read The Game and was waiting for the discussion on the Sharkies (ScoMo’s adopted team) to start and it never did. Well, it sort of did – but not ‘really’ like it had in the essay.

I’m not sure the version in the essay was in this ‘extended essay version’ either, but I figure this is the person who wrote the original essay.

The idea of a larrikin needs explaining. Australian myths and most Australian characters have penises. It is a requirement – not in the least bit optional. Australia is a masculine country: a drunken, gambling, slap-ya-on-the-back, f-kin top place for mates, mate. All of our myths are about blokes. If women appear at all, then they are there purely for a root (sexual intercourse) or to cook something not too effeminate, and almost certainly involving steak and potatoes. A larrikin is both male and somewhat anti-authoritarian – this is probably what distinguishes him from the other male lead character, the mate. The larrikins in this essay are somewhat less than properly anti-authoritarian – proving that the convicts were accompanied by prison guards. In fact, a central theme of this essay is that what a larrikin now means has been appropriated by the Liberal Party to mean ‘Howard’s Battlers’ – that is, tradies who now earn over $150,000 a year (placing them in the top one or two percent of the population) and who now vote as consistently Liberal as their fathers had once voted Labor. The old ‘working class’ have become the new negatively geared CUBS (Cashed Up Bogans) who were told in the last election that if they voted Labor they wouldn’t be allowed to drive their monster-truck anymore, but would have to drive tinkertoy eCar – and that would mean no more weekend, since electric cars don’t have the power to pull a boat.

What is interesting in this essay is how the Liberals are now better at imitating bogans than the ALP – despite many of the ALP actually being bogans, well, if a lawyer can really be a bogan. A bogan is someone from the working class in Australia – essentially, it is the Australian equivalent of Chav in the UK. The Bogan river being as far west as you can go in New South Wales while still remaining in the state, and the further west you go in Sydney, the more working class you are likely to become – so, a bogan means to be as lacking in class as it is possible to be. It has been adopted as a term of endearment by the people who everyone else would define as bogans anyway – what Bourdieu would refer to as choosing what has already been chosen for you.

Australia will be going to the polls in a couple of months. I’m hoping (but anything but certain) that the ALP will win. I am hoping this mostly because I believe the greatest existential threat to Australia (in terms of climate change, competent government, not having a war with China, surviving the pandemic) is another 3 years of the Liberal-National Party coalition. But this will be a fight to the death between ScoMo (a nickname he literally had made up for him, probably following input from a dozen ‘focus groups’) and Albo. The irony, as pointed out by the author here, is that ScoMo has essentially stolen Albo’s identity. The main interest in the election – other than the question of whether Australia will have a future – is which of these two gentlemen will play a better version of a bogan larrikin, the pretender or the person who has lived that persona all his life.

This essay is a brief history of the blokes who have been in charge of the two major parties in Australia since Whitlam – although, Menzies does get a mention in passing. I think what is most interesting in this is how the leaders have defined their masculinity and how that masculinity has become increasingly ‘boyish’ over time. I find it almost impossible to imagine Paul Keating attending a football match (of any code). But now, I can’t imagine anyone becoming Prime Minister of Australia who didn’t follow football – or, at least, pretend to? Even Malcolm Turnbull got into trouble for saying AFL was more exciting than Rugby. It is hard to imagine anyone would give a stuff about this – but in Australia today this is what we have degenerated into. Electing someone not interested in football would be like the US electing an out Atheist.

The author makes it clear that ‘larrikins’ have never really been all that they were cracked up to be. Lawson, our true-blue Aussie poet and short-story writer of the working class, we are told twice, asked a sketch artist to give him thicker wrists. I like a lot of Lawson’s writing, but it also fits within the bushman, mateship, ever so softly-spoken homoerotic myth of Australian maleness – the sheep weren’t the only ones nervous at night when the drovers lay under the starry dome.

Australia needs to reinvent itself, it needs a vision of being male that is more inclusive than sucking piss and watching footy – but with both sides of politics struggling to claim the larrikin myth, I guess that isn’t likely any time soon.

[Rhys Parry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lech strips the costumes off the Australian political class in a scathing and hilarious way.

[Gordon Barlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best QE in a while, up there with Men at Work: Australia’s Parenthood Trap, Faction Man: Bill Shorten's Path to Power, or The White Queen: One Nation and the Politics of Race.

There is a large focus on the phony larrikin persona of Morrison however the essay also digs into how pretty pretty much every prominent public figure can't help but chase after it, from Hawke to Howard to Packer.

Interesting exploration into the old clichés and assumptions of Rugby vs Rugby League as well, and all the stereotypes of each fanbase that go with them.

9/10.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, fascinating piece.

Blaine first intended the essay to “reclaim the working class larrikin from the cosplay coalminers of the Coalition and the billionaire squatters camouflaged as down to earth swagmen”. But by the end it was unravelling a more complicated story, of the intersection of class, culture and race.

In general, the essay provoked a bile induced rage as the ‘ScoMo’ construction is effortlessly deployed (‘ploy’ being the operative) and transformed into larrikin messiah, “leading aspirational battlers in regional Queensland to the Promised Land of tax cuts for the North Shore and soaring profits for mining tycoons” - Solidarity!

ScoMo isn’t your ‘mate’. He’s got his mates.

[Simon Pockley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read in one sitting so 5 stars. I laughed and shook my head at the mediocrity of our political representatives who feel the need to fabricate their persona. By way of an in-joke, "er... how good is the Quarterly Essay?"

Lech Blaine's essay is a sustained and virtuosic piece of vitriol in the larrikin tradition about which he writes - so convincingly. Anyone with any doubt about the writing-on-the-wall for the failed man from marketing would enjoy this essay. The thought that we might not have to see his smug smirk again is very attractive.

A pity Lech left out any insightful analysis of Barnaby Joyce the ex-Riverview accountant financed by water thieves to become a sexually predacious and corrupt politician. He then masquerades as a larrikin farmer by putting on a wide-brimmed hat. Maybe there was just too much material available. But within the context of the duplicity of so many PMs (Barnaby is currently acting PM) it could have been fascinating.

Australia...has been hijacked by a pack of fabricated larrikins and bona fide bullshit artists.

The straw that will break the camel's back among voters of both genders is the creeping realisation that Morrison is incompetent and shirks responsibility.

I'm with you John, bring on Penny Wong.

Australians are crying out for a sober statesman, not a beer -breathed bloke bellowing "Go Sharks!"

Before reading this, and as I'm just as average as the next Australian who loathes and laments our broken system of Government, the only light in a very dark tunnel was the 2013 Henry Parkes Oration by Ted Mack (RIP) who discovered just how broken it was and was one of the few to proposed a new model.

[lucinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up - very fascinating and insightful look into the hollowed out shell of the larrikin ideal and it's political co-opting. Will probably read anything Lech Blaine writes at this point.

[hayls 🐴 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best QE for a while. Really thorough political history of how Australian pollies have co-opted the idea of the larrikin for political advancement, dividing the country into stereotypes in the process. Stereotypes which we’ve all bought and self-organised into. All in our echo-chambers on the internet in a circle jerk getting off on our correct opinions.
This speaks to the shift to the right seen in the US and Europe; previously labour voting blue collar workers voting for conservatives who actually share little in common with them, while labor/the left in general moves towards the cosmopolitan progressive class who claims solidarity with the less privileged in society without having much actual lived experience with them. Class in Australia is real, and denying it with a national mythology of equality and mateship perpetuates it.

[Rob Donnelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic Quarterly Essay - a forensic, funny, insightful journey through the world of fake bloke personas, class divisions, shifting allegiances, and all the associated bs that is modern Australian politics.

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pretty disappointed with this essay. Maybe I’m just missing the whole point (possible) or maybe Lech didn’t really have one. To me this was a potted history of Australian politics - with lots of prior knowledge assumed about certain events. I’m not sure what he ultimately meant by the larrikin myth, other than all prime ministers have pretended to be someone they’re not. His focus on rugby league as a key decider for voters was hard to relate to as someone who does not follow it nor lives in a state where rugby is dominant. At these times I wondered if the significance was being overstated because of Lech’s personal interest in it. I found the references to his brother John somewhat distracting and found his final reference to John did not seem to ring true (dyed in the wool Liberal supporter and ScoMo fan suddenly says he won’t vote Liberal in 2022 but we’re not really told why). Much is implied but I would have liked to see some key points spelt out more clearly.

[Maya Ranganathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incisive and comprehensive examination of the genesis and evolution of the Australian ‘Larrikin’ ideal, and in particular, it’s appropriation and exploitation by politicians. Blaine definitely doesn’t tread lightly here - most of the men he references (both on the left and the right side of the political spectrum) emerge as ignorant at best, and Machiavellian at worst. His portrait of ScoMo is particularly scathing, revealing the artful and insidious callousness behind the bumbling, curry-loving, rugby-league supporting, ‘Scotty from marketing’ image. My favourite observations would have to include Blaine’s suggestion that Julia Gillard was, in fact, Australia’s most genuine Larrikin, as well his contention that for all their emphasis on anti-authoritarianism and ‘mateship’, Australians are far more law-abiding and conformist than they realise.

[Arthur Banos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this a very readable essay on Australian politics. We are truly governed by second rate people.

[Andrew Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

As with many of the essays in the Quarterly Essay series, this one is held back by being very scattered. The author can't seem to construct a big-picture argument and just stick to it. Rather than cutting into the concept of the 'Larrikin myth', he gives us a whirlwind run-down of the last 50 years in Australian politics, which moves so quickly that you need to already know most of the story in order to understand any of it. He talks again and again about the 'Larrikin myth', but he barely spends a sentence on explaining what that myth is or how it came to be. In the end, we don't gain much insight beyond the already-well-known fact that underprivileged people who achieve upward social mobility often imitate those who were born into privilege, and the privileged-born often imitate the less fortunate in order to paint themselves with a sheen of Aussie authenticity. Not quite Earth-shattering stuff.

While reading this essay, I was reminded of an Adam Curtis documentary, e.g. Hypernormalisation. Both the essay and the documentary aim to look at the constantly-shifting sands of politics and to find the feelings & thoughts that are slowly driving them from underneath. Curtis does this by finding a small handful of historical people who seem to exemplify the movements of the times, and to delve into what made those people tick. In hypernormalisation this was Hafez al-Assad and Donald Trump, and Curtis' genius is that he can make the individual into a microcosm of the collective. Lech Blane had several opportunities to do this, but he kept missed the mark. Rudd & Morrison, Hawke & Keating, Banjo Paterson & Henry Lawson - all of these were building up to be great exemplars of his thesis, but he couldn't stick to the idea long enough to make it resonate.

[Jeremy Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent look at the rise of the larrikin politician in Australia, privileged private school boys who go on to cosplay as rugby league fans who love meat pies. As well as the opposite side, the true blue working class blokes who did their best to appear as intellectuals.

This is good for understanding the completely fabricated image of Scott Morrison, and also the history of why that image became so important.

It touches on the need that both parties feel to appeal to tradies and miners, though it probes this kind of shallowly. While it talks about the importance of some of these districts to winning elections, it doesn't really reconcile that with the surprisingly small proportion of Australians that the mining industry actually employs.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man oh man did reading this make me feel simultaneously very smart and very stupid. I’m trying to start understanding politics and this was a fascinating look into class and political parties in Australia

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doesn't read much like a usual QE at all and is better for it, a really interesting read. Sorry I reflexively judged it badly before reading because it didn't have the usual references.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal.

[MBC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anything that condemns Scott is worthy of your time. This included.

[Nell Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a sometimes oblivious member of the progressive inner city bourgeoise, this was an important and insightful read about class in Australia, and how class warfare and “larrikinism” gets weaponised by politicians.

[Susan Wishart · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting political essay. No political parties escape the scathing criticisms of Lech Blaine. He advances the case that political leaders ( almost exclusively male) use a superficial Aussie larrikin persona to appeal to the majority of voters, while actual substance has been greatly eroded.
Whatever your political leanings this is a thought provoking piece.

[Timothy Dymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lech Blaine starts his Essay with the question ‘Who wants to be a battler?’ A lot of people apparently - particularly politicians. However it’s clear that the desire to identify a battler only occasionally requires an actual familiarity with 'battling to survive’.

Blaine’s ‘Top Blokes: The Larrikin Myth, Class and Power’ is a combination of political analysis and stream-of-consciousness memoir. He bounces between a deconstruction of Scott Morrison’s political strategies, to a history of the Aussie Larrikin myth, to an assessment of Labor’s electoral coalition issues, to a biographical outline of his own moves between a ‘working class’ and ‘university educated’ life. Insofar as the Essay has a basic message, it would be this:

Australia – a nation of self-proclaimed straight shooters – has been hijacked by a pack of fabricated larrikins and bona fide bullshit artists. For a quarter-century, Australia’s conservative establishment has profited from pitting working-class battlers against the inner-city elite, coalmines against universities, larrikins against feminists and gays, patriots against Aboriginals, Muslims and asylum seekers.

What does the political Left do in such an environment? Blaine broadly endorses the Anthony Albanese approach. ‘Albo’ basically wants Labor to appeal to the 2-3% (at least) of voters who didn’t vote for them in the 2019 election, not just the 48% who did. This is immensely frustrating for many progressives, who feel that the price of dropping the more ambitious policies in Labor’s previous platform just isn’t worth it. However Blaine sees the problems for the Left as cultural rather than all about policy. He quotes Constitutional Law Professor Megan Davis – 'a proud Cobble Cobble woman from regional Queensland'

She consistently hears Australia’s academic and media elite register disdain for working-class people. “Class is the last taboo,” says Davis. “Clever progressives buy into so many negative tropes about poor and uneducated people. And they would do it to no other group of marginalised people.”

The question of how the Left reaches the working class, in an era where trade union collectivism has been replaced by an aspirational, materialist individualism as ‘working class identity’, is not really fully answered in this essay. Indeed it’s hard to think of definitive answer given that the actual working class is extremely diverse in both its views and interests. The value of Blaine’s essay is that he unpacks many of the unspoken assumptions about class, identity, and masculinity that persist in Australian politics - both inside and outside the Canberra bubble.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was timely given the looming election. Does the ‘Aussie larrikin’ still exist or has it morphed into something else entirely? Why do politicians feel the need to reinvent themselves to serve the ‘larrikin myth’? Australians have been manipulated.

[Cat Colwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining and insightful. Decades of political and cultural context.

[Ron Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I subscribe to the Quarterly Essay and enjoy reading them. This one was similar to the previous essay by George Megalogenis, it covered recent Australian politics.
Lech Blaine is a young talented writer. I had read reviews and excerpts from his acclaimed first book, Car Crash, A Memoir. I have also read a number of his stories published in The Monthly. I would recommend you go to his web site https://lechblaine.com and read some of his work. He is a talented writer who conjures some great expressions and phrases. He could be seen as a 2020s Clive James.
Top Blokes travels a variety of tracks with the main one being the public persona of our political leaders and specifically Scott Morrison and his created image of the daggy football loving dad.
Blaine takes on a journey investigating the qualities of our prime ministers since Menzies. We stop off at each station to inspect and review their qualities, backgrounds and personal images they created.
Authenticity is the political buzz word of the 2020s. Many politicians try to create an aura of realness about themselves. They try to project an image that many in the electorate will identify with. Some are more successful than others. Those men of both the Liberal and Labor parties try to project an image of being a top bloke. A guy you’d have a beer with and invite to a barbie.
It is interesting that the essay does not deal greatly with female political leaders. I suppose one limiting factor has been that we have only had one at the federal level! Consider, Carmen Laurence, Joan Kirner Anna Bligh, Kristine Keneally were female premiers and Julie Bishop was deputy PM. Annastacia Palaszczuk and Gladys Berejiklian are incumbent premiers. He does mention Penny Wong. There are many who believe Wong and Tanya Plibersek would be more electorally popular than Albo. I am of the belief that Julie Bishop would have been a better PM than ScoMo.
Throughout the essay Blaine makes mention of his own family and their views and aspirations. Coming from a similar family, son of a house painter, who grew up in a fibro house, my own family has the range of political and social beliefs that the Blaine family has.
In the recent pass it has been difficult for the ALP to meet the economic needs of the “white working class” in the outer suburbs and provincial cities and the wishes of the more educated, socially aware inner city types. Conservative politicians and media have successfully wedged the ALP over issues like climate change, refugees, sexual identity. Throughout his essay Blaine deals with this crucial issue.
I am a fan of that working class game rugby league and as I write this my team, South Sydney, have just qualified for the grand final. At the public school I attended I played league in a most successful team, however, it was always the first fifteen who received the most praise even though they were mediocre. Up until the invasion of Pacific Islanders players I viewed union as the Liberal Party at play!
Blaine exams ScoMo’s conversion from union to a supposed diehard Cronulla Rugby League fan as part of his show of larrikinism and being a beer drinking top bloke.
In March 2020 at the beginning of the lockdown he said, “The fact that I would still be going on Saturday speaks not just to my passion for my beloved Sharks; it might be the last game I get to go to for a long time.” He was criticised for this I and I think he ended up not going.
Blaine examines this idea of the larrikin in Australian culture. He writes about Paul Hogan and his character Crocodile Dundee, Kerry Packer, Bob Hawke all grasped at the façade of being an ocker larrikin.
John Howard did not choose larrikinism he manufactured his “Howard battlers” and “appealed to them through his suburban ordinariness – barbeques, cricket, the annual holiday at the same beachside resort, jogging in a shiny tracksuit festooned with logos.”
Blaine retells the fascinating account of how Morrison usurped Michael Towke for the seat of Cook. All Australians should know this story.
So, will Anthony Albanese take the ALP to the government benches at the next election? Is Albo the Labor Party’s Howard? Would Labor have won the 2019 election if Albanese had been the leader, as the membership had wanted? Things seem to be turning. The COIVD pandemic appears to be demonstrating Morrison’s poor leadership skills. Some say a week is a long time in politics. Several months till the election is an eon or two.

Some examples of Blaine’s turn of phrase.
Lebs are just Arabic bogans.
Jones whipped white larrikins from the southern suburbs into a furry about brown larrikins from the western suburbs.
Never get in the way of a GPS boy with mates in high places.
The Sutherland Shire was the land of the stoned surfer and the cashed-up tradie, two constituencies united by Southern Cross tattoos, Such Is Life bumper stickers and cravings for Toohey’s New.
Scotty from marketing was the suburban version of Barnaby Joyce. Barn cosplayed as a god-fearing farmer, who opposed abortion, gay marriage and Chinese communists, while rooting staffers and cosying up to mining tycoons.
Albo and ScoMo are the Pizza Hut and Domino’s of Australian politics.
Abbott’s Liberal Party became the political arm of the mining industry, and News Corp the media arm.

[Jim Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A review of Australian political history, told through the nation’s obsession with the larrikin myth.

Lech Blaine, a young man who grew up in the unfashionable zones of south-east Queensland - the same district that gave us Pauline Hanson - looks at how being (or pretending to be) a no-nonsense, rugby league-loving, salt-of-the-earth anti-establishment larrikin became the template for any politician wanting supreme power in Australia.

Of course, the recentish exemptions are the two patricians of the 70s - Whitlam and Fraser. But from Hawke onwards, it’s been about appearing to one of the common people - even if the persona is entirely confected.

The incumbent PM Scott Morrison, an eastern suburbs, rugby union-loving ‘silvertail’ is the most obvious example of this cosplay at work, but even Hawke himself came from a Congregationalist family and was a Rhodes scholar.

Throughout the book, Blaine lists examples of toffs and supreme capitalists pretending to be dinkum blokes - Kerry Packer and all that ilk of foul-mouthed, inverted snobs who used their lack of culture to convince the real working people they were on their side.

Personally, I find this silvertail-fibro dichotomy a bit tired and more a media story than a real description of how power works in this country. And there’s a lot here that is just raking over the coals of people and events of the past decade that have already been well documented.

With Albo (the real deal larrikin) up against Morrison (the fake tradie) in the coming election, it would appear to be happening all over again. However, I suspect that the theme of this election will be more about intelligent and liberal Australian women having their say…..at long bloody last.

[Darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lech artfully deconstructs the many inherent contradictions, inconsistencies and anomalies of the Aussie larrikin. Can you be a larrikin without a working class background? Does gender and race exclude someone from being a larrikin? Is there any underlying meaning in the larrikin now that is has been bastardised by right wing pundits and politicians? By questioning such Lech highlights the often misunderstanding of what it is to be larrikin.

Building on his conceptual understanding of what it means to be a larrikin, Lech provides a historical survey of larrikin that ensures is it not ahistorical. Ultimately, the reader can both understand the variety of manifestations of the larrikin in the public square but more aptly in there day to day living.

Whilst at times the underlying argument seems to sway and lack a consistency, by the end of the essay it crystallises. He argues that whilst there are exemplary examples of Larrikins they are often wrought with inconsistencies that deem them to not be larrikin. Said trend, Lech posits, has only been unmasked in recent times, especially with the draconian COVID measures.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was Ok. A retelling of recent Australian politics with a focus on prime ministers. Not many new insights. Describes how climate change policies were torpedoed, I think. Could have done with more on Julia Gillard, Penny Wong , Tanya Plibersek, but, as the title says this essay is mostly about men. More on Greens and more on WA would interest me. Also that Anthony Albanese is initially just as boring as John Howard was initially boring, so that may give him an advantage over Scomo, or something like that, maybe clutching at straws. It was interesting to read about Lech's brother John's opinions and voting . Also that the author was named after Lech Walesa, I wonder how he pronounces Lech? Eastern states focus on rugby league and rugby union was new to me, I don't think rugby has so much prominence in my home state of WA. Totally impressive essay if you keep in mind that the author, Lech, is only in his twenties! If you are interested in faked and real larrikinism this essay is for you.

[Sam Schroder · Rating 3 out of 5]

This QE discusses the ways in which personal image and sound bites have taken over from policy substance in Australian politics before reaching further in to the ‘Aussie’ psyche to question ideas around who qualifies as a larrikin and who is shut out from this quintessential notion of a ‘top bloke’.
I have to say this was a disappointing QE for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t think there were any revelations or new ideas - Blaine just seemed to revisit a lot of well-traversed content, like the Cronulla riots, and say things that have been said before. And second, I found Blaine’s writing style really disjointed and frustrating to read. For me, the whole essay needed a tight edit for tense and sudden topic changes in the middle of paragraphs. But maybe I just wasn’t into it? Because, you know, ScoMo’s a dickhead n that.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible Essay and it is gobsmacking as to how we perceive our leaders. Few characterised in this book come away unscathed, particularly the 'Top Bloke' that graces the front cover. I was never a huge fan of John Howard but a majority of the populace could at least identify with him. A growing number of people consider Morrison inept - even more so if you read this book - but really can't believe that anyone would call his attempts at being a 'knockabout' as genuine. Can't remember a book in which I've highlighted so many passages but one short line sticks out more than most when describing ScoMo - 'smirk and shirk'. Honestly, if you even have a passing interest in Australian politics, this would be a very good buy.

[Jack Corkill · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s always interesting reading the Quarterly Essay’s a few years past its publishing date. This is because of the current state of Australia post pandemic with a strong Albanese Labor government following the 2025 election.

My point of view is that Albanese (at this moment) has stayed true to his roots and doesn’t give an impression of trying to be someone he isn’t. On the other hand, it seems as though Susan Ley is having to adjust her views to the whim of the National Party. This is interesting given the comments in the essay about Labor’s empty policy fruit bowl.

The essay descriptions and information on other key Australians such as Kerry Packer, Bob Hawke and Murdoch were interesting and helped to articulate feelings humans have to assimilate with each other.

[Loki · Rating 5 out of 5]

An investigation of how the rich and powerful of Australia have hijacked and hollowed out the Aussie conception of the larrikin, along with a searching examination of the flaws endemic to that concept, and biographical sketches of some of our better known examples of the breed - not so much actual larrikins as the men - and they are all men - who have cynically played the larrikin card for political advantage. Along the way, how these ideas play into the rise of the Howard battler, and how, of all of them, there is none more cynical in his deployment of the larrikin trope than Scott Morrison. Not one.