Jenny Hocking
Jenny Hocking is Professor and Director of Research with the National Centre for Australian Studies in the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences at Monash University. Jenny is widely published on aspects of contemporary Australian politics, national security and labour history.
A frequent political commentator, Jenny has addressed the National Press Club, the Australian Institute of International Affairs and the Sydney Institute and is a regular contributor of opinion pieces and book reviews to the Canberra Times, the Age, the Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald. She has also had recent appearances on Radio Netherlands, Australia Talks Back (Radio National) and The Law Report.
Jenny is the author of the acclaimed Lionel Murphy: a Political Biography (1997, 2000) short-listed in the South Australian Festival Awards for Best Non-Fiction, and has written two books on Australia’s counter-terrorism security legislation. Her biography of the late Australian author Frank Hardy was published in 2005 and was shortlisted in the New South Wales History Awards for 2006.
She is currently writing a biography of Gough Whitlam to be published by Melbourne University Press, and lives in Melbourne.
Books by Jenny Hocking
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Terror Laws: ASIO, Counter-Terrorism and the Threat to Democracy
The underlying concern of this book is the issue of balancing the needs for national security with individual rights and freedoms. Author Jenny Hocking argues that, in the light of September 11 and Bali, the security legislation proposed, and in part passed, by the Howard government compromises the separation of powers and individual legal and political rights.
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Frank Hardy: Politics, Literature, Life
This is the definitive biography of one of Australia’s most celebrated and controversial writers. A member of the communist party from an early age, Frank Hardy’s first secretly published novel Power Without Glory was the subject of an infamous criminal libel case. Hardy continued to challenge political and social issues with his writing until shortly before his death in 1994.
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Lionel Murphy: A Political Biography
Jenny Hocking's political biography of Australian attorney, politician and High Court judge Lionel Murphy created a sensation when it was first published in 1997. The book forced a reinterpretation of Murphy's considerable legal, social and political legacy. She argues that a long and influential career should not be obscured by the traumatic years before his death nor the media sensationalism since. The paperback edition is accompanied by a Foreword by Justice Michael Kirby, who reflects thoughtfully on Murphy's career at the High Court.
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Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History
Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History is the first definitive biographical study of the former Labor Prime Minister.
From his childhood in the fledging city of Canberra, to his extensive war service in the Pacific and marriage to Margaret, this excellent biography draws on previously unseen archival material, extensive interviews with family and colleagues, and exclusive interviews with Gough Whitlam himself.
Jenny Hocking's scrupulously researched biography reveals an extraordinary and complex man, whose life is, in every way, formed by the remarkable experiences of previous generations of his family, and who would, in turn, change Australian political and cultural developments in the twentieth century.
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