Political leadership was a focal point of public discussion in Australia early this year, and it has resurfaced again lately. In August last year, Angela Woollacott published the first comprehensive, scholarly biography of Don Dunstan, the democratic socialist Premier of South Australia 1967-68 and 1970-79, who did much to transform the nation. This paper will look at the recent national conversation on political leadership through the lens of published reactions late 
last year and early this year to Don Dunstan: The visionary politician who changed Australia (Allen & Unwin, 2019).

Angela Woollacott is the Manning Clark Professor of History in the School of History, RSSS, at ANU. She is a former president of the Australian Historical Association, and has served on advisory bodies for the Reserve Bank of Australia, and the Historical Research and Publications Unit of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Her most recent book is Michelle Arrow and 
Angela Woollacott (eds.), How the Personal became Political: The Feminist and Sexual Revolutions in 1970s Australia published by Routledge in May.