A Long March- Kim Carr

Kim Carr will be in conversation with former ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Chubb as he discusses his new book A Long March where he provides a comprehensive analysis of today’s political landscape told through the life of one of the ALP’s longest-serving members. 

About A Long March

In 1975, as Gough Whitlam’s government hurtled towards its demise, a nineteen-year-old arts student at the University of Melbourne, Kim Carr, began a long march. Raised in an avowedly blue-collar household headed by his boilermaker father, Carr eschewed what he regarded as the fripperies of student politics and went directly for the real thing. He joined his local Labor Party branch, signing up as an active soldier in the labour movement.

Forty-nine years later, Kim Carr is still part of the Labor army. He served in the Senate for twenty-nine years, and was a minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments, a secretary of the Socialist Left faction and a national convenor of the Left.

A Long March tells a rich and engaging story about a long life in Labor – the often fraught processes of the formulation and development of policy, the maintenance and manoeuvrings of factions, the personal enmities and conflicting ambitions, and the raw use of power inside party forums, political offices, unions, the caucus, the front bench and the bureaucracy. It also looks forward, addressing a key question: how should Labor argue the case for a workable, appealing, durable version of social democracy for twenty-first-century Australia?

This is a comprehensive analysis of today’s political landscape told through the life of one of the ALP’s longest-serving members.

About Kim Carr

The longest-serving Victorian Labor senator in history and former tech-school teacher, Kim Carr was drawn to politics by the transformational possibilities of science and education. He was elected as a senator for Victoria in 1993 and retired at the end of his term in June 2022. Following Labor’s election win in 2007, Kim was appointed Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, and he also served as Minister for Manufacturing, Defence Materiel, Human Services, and Higher Education. In 2022, Kim was made an honorary fellow of both the Academy of Technology Science and Engineering (ATSE), and the Academy of the Humanities (AHA). He was also awarded the Academy of Science Medal, becoming only the second politician to receive this honour, after Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1990. Kim is currently a Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University, and a director of the Made in Australia Campaign Limited.

‘Kim Carr was a dominant figure in politics – a lion of the Left, and the eventual father of the Senate. His ‘long march’ covers three decades of Labor history, from the trenches to the cabinet table. A fascinating journey that reveals the heart of the lion.’ Steve Bracks

A Long March- Kim Carr will be available for purchase after the event. Pre-event book signings will be available from 5.30pm and again after the event.

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