At IPAA Queensland we strive to provide the public purpose community with a suite of insights that seek to challenge your thinking and keep you informed. As we approach the end of another year, we are delighted to share a sample of books that kept some of our Council and our contributing experts challenged and informed this year.
Check out the list below:
Title: Is that you, Ruthie?
Author: Ruth Hegarty
Recommended by: Tanya Hornick, IPAA Queensland Secretary and Vice President
Abstract: ‘Is that you …?’ Matron’s voice would ring out across the dormitory. In that pause sixty little girls would stop in their tracks, waiting to hear who was in trouble. All too often the name called out would be that of the high spirited dormitory girl Ruthie.
In the Depression years Queensland’s notorious Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission became home to four-year-old Ruth until her late teens when she was sent out to serve as a domestic on a station homestead. Ruthie is the central character in this lively and candid memoir of institutional life. Her milestones and memories reflect the experiences of many dormitory girls. The strong and lasting bonds that developed between them helped to compensate for family love and support denied them by the disruptive removal policy of the day.
Title: The Power of Geography
Author: Tim Marshall
Recommended by: Deidre Mulkerin, IPAA Queensland President
Abstract: Tim Marshall’s global bestseller Prisoners of Geography showed how every nation’s choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Since then, the geography hasn’t changed. But the world has.
In this revelatory new book, Marshall explores ten regions that are set to shape global politics in a new age of great-power rivalry: Australia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Greece, Turkey, the Sahel, Ethiopia, Spain and Space. Find out why Europe’s next refugee crisis is closer than it thinks as trouble brews in the Sahel; why the Middle East must look beyond oil and sand to secure its future; why the eastern Mediterranean is one of the most volatile flashpoints of the twenty-first century; and why the Earth’s atmosphere is set to become the world’s next battleground.
Delivered with Marshall’s trademark wit and insight, this is a lucid and gripping exploration of the power of geography to shape humanity’s past, present – and future.
Title: Rethinking ObeCITY
Author: Dr Robyn Littlewood
Recommended by: Gemma Hodgetts, IPAA Queensland Councillor
Abstract: Today, nearly half of all Australian adults are living with at least one chronic disease; many of us (2 in 3 adults, 1 in 4 children) are living with overweight and obesity and if nothing changes, the next generation of our beautiful Australian children will experience a shorter life expectancy than their parents, for the first time in history. More importantly, no one person is at fault; it’s the environment that is having an impact, and it’s hurting us.
Throughout her 25-year career as a dietitian, Professor Robyn Littlewood has helped thousands of children, adults and families begin their health journey.
“When you know the facts, and what’s really going on around you, life becomes just a little easier. That is exactly what this book is meant to do.”
Rethinking ObeCity will support you to re-engage with your city; your beautiful, busy, progressive, exciting city; on your terms.
Title: The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy
Author: Näku Dhäruk
Recommended by: Professor Susan Harris Rimmer, Griffith University
Abstract: In 1963—a year of agitation for civil rights worldwide—the Yolŋu of northeast Arnhem Land created the Yirrkala Bark Petitions: Naku Dharuk. ‘The land grew a tongue’ and the land-rights movement was born.
Naku Dharuk is the story of a founding document in Australian democracy and the trailblazers who made it. It is also a pulsating picture of the ancient and enduring culture of Australia’s first peoples.
And it is a masterful, groundbreaking history.
Clare Wright’s Democracy Trilogy began with The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka and continued with You Daughters of Freedom. It concludes with this compulsively readable account of a momentous episode in our shared story.
Title: Demon Copperhead
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Recommended by: Andrew Metcalfe AO FIPAA, IPAA National President
Abstract: Demon Copperhead is a once-in-a-generation novel that breaks and mends your heart in the way only the best fiction can. Demon’s story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking ‘like a little blue prizefighter.’ For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise. In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty and addiction aren’t ideas. They’re as natural as the grass grows. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he’s willing to travel to try and get there. Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.
Title: Mean Streak: A moral vacuum and a multi-billion government shake down
Author: Rick Morton
Contributor: Peter Bridgman, Barrister and Consultant
About the Book: Only governments can achieve really large social outcomes. Almost $270Billion is dedicated to cash transfers and welfare support in the current federal budget. Can expenditure be reined in? Who managed such vast government programs? Are programs well targeted? Can public servants protect the budget as well as the public interest?
If you’re up for something gripping reading this summer, how about 500 pages on a massive government failure? Rick Morton is a journalist (not a public servant). He gives us an inside look at Robodebt—a government scheme intended to automate welfare debt recovery. It was a tragic disaster. Thousands of Australians were wrongfully charged with debts they didn’t owe, and the human toll was devastating. The Royal Commission into the scheme, led by Queensland’s former Chief Justice, Cate Holmes, didn’t mince words: “Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals.” Morton’s book is a deep dive into how a policy idea went so disastrously wrong. He takes aim at the venality, incompetence, and cowardice (Holmes’ words) that allowed the scheme to happen in the first place. It’s an eye-opener, offering public administrators a mirror we should all look into. Morton’s sharp writing makes this a truly compelling read.
Title: The Chairman’s Lounge: The Inside Story of how QANTAS sold us out
Author: Joe Aton
Contributor: Professor Ken Smith AO, Queensland University of Technology
About the Book: The factors which negatively affected trust in one of Australia’s iconic brands being trashed in the lead up, during COVID and after. A story of executive greed, private value dominating public value and corporate responsibility, anti-competitive behaviour and the lack of focussed, independent and critical governance controls.
Title: The Great Wave. The Era of Radical Disruption and the Rise of the Outsider
Author: Michiko Kakutani
Contributor: Professor Ken Smith AO
About the Book: Explains the massive challenges to democracy across the world, and particularly in the US. But also using Hokusai’s iconic Japanese image of the wave to describe a historical time of massive change and disruption, and how it can either crush us or provide a platform to ride to progressive re-invention.
Title: Shades of Grey
Author: Jasper Fforde
Contributor: Professor Helen Sullivan, Australian National University
About the Book: Hundreds of years in the future, after the Something that Happened, the world is an alarmingly different place. Life is lived according to The Rulebook and social hierarchy is determined by your perception of colour.
Eddie Russett is an above average Red who dreams of moving up the ladder by marriage to Constance Oxblood. Until he is sent to the Outer Fringes where he meets Jane a lowly Grey with an uncontrollable temper and a desire to see him killed.
For Eddie, it’s love at first sight. But his infatuation will lead him to discover that all is not as it seems in a world where everything that looks black and white is really shades of grey . . .
If George Orwell had tripped over a paint pot or Douglas Adams favoured colour swatches instead of towels . . . neither of them would have come up with anything as eccentrically brilliant as Shades of Grey.
Title: You Don’t Have to Have a Dream: Advice for the Incrementally Ambitious by
Author: Tim Minchin
Contributor: Mark Le Dieu, IPAA Queensland Councillor
About the Book: Charlie Mackesy meets Kurt Vonnegut, in the first non-fiction book from Tim Minchin: a beautifully idiosyncratic celebration of life, art, success, kindness, love and thriving in a meaningless universe, drawn from three iconic graduation speeches.
Title: The Future Normal
Author: Nick Barter and Christopher Fleming
Contributor: Samay Zhouand, IPAA Queensland Councillor
About the Book: This is a book for leaders who think about legacy, their own and the one their business is leaving. Yet, none of us get to write our legacy, that is for those who come after us. This book and the lessons within will enable you to improve yours.
Title: Why We Get the Wrong Politicians
Author: Isabel Hardman
Contributor: Dr Scott Prasser, IPAA Queensland Councillor
About the Book: One of the UK’s stars in political journalism asks why we lost faith in politicians – and how we can fix our system of government. Politicians are consistently voted the least trusted professional group by the UK public. They’ve recently become embroiled in scandals concerning sexual harassment and expenses. Every year, they introduce new legislation that doesn’t do what it sets out to achieve – often with terrible financial and human costs. But, with some notable exceptions, they are decent, hard-working people, doing a hugely difficult and demanding job.