The personal once observed firm borders during the farewell lap. Paul Keating didn’t make a farewell speech to parliament,deciding not to show after losing the 1996 election. In 2007,John Howard didn’t get the chance,having lost his own seat. Neither chose the public stage to effuse about their families. A new tradition,of thanks and graciousness and reaching across the aisle,then began to take hold. Departing members now routinely deliver thank-you lists. Few are colourful or memorable,thoughChristopher Pyne deserves an honourable mention for “I have seen some truly dreadful people come through here over the last quarter of a century. But I have seen many more outstanding people.”
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Books,with a special acknowledgement page,have documented this evolution towards public performances of personal gratitude. Sometimes it’s to thank the person who really wrote the book (for Prince Harry it was J.R. Moehringer,for John Howard it was himself),or to find out who the author’s friends are.
Trent Dalton has more friends than you,or he,can poke a stick at. Helen Garner and Tim Winton have just as many,but choose not to list them in their books. Meg Mason (Sorrow and Bliss) lists only her friends’ first names,a nice balance of public-but-not-too-public thanks.
Many writers thank their editors,benefactors and public funders. Many others pour out their gratitude in the expectation,often well-judged,that this will be their only book and only chance. Their Jen-and-the-kids don’t miss out.
It’s a recent thing. Tolstoy and Dickens weren’t big on acknowledgements. Nor was Truman Capote,who’d used up all his friendships within the pages of his books. In politics,at awards ceremonies,effusively thanking people crept into public life around the turn of the century and has become almost mandatory.
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The demand for acknowledgement can reflect an increasing expectation of honesty and transparency. It takes a village,doesn’t it? In 2023,when his bookThe Dogs was caught out lifting other people’s words on an industrial scale,Sydney author John Hughes waspublicly shamed. If only he had acknowledged his village as he stole from it,he might have indemnified himself. Acknowledgement can be as simple as covering your rear flank;non-acknowledgement as an attempt to cover your tracks.
The best literary acknowledgements are those that mean something else. e.e. cummings dedicated his bookNo Thanks to the 14 publishers who turned it down – and then listed them. P.G. Wodehouse acknowledged his daughter Leonora,“without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time”.
Spike Milligan dedicated a book to his bank balance. Gillian Flynn acknowledged her husband for one of her dark crime thrillers:“What can I say about a man who knows how I think and still sleeps next to me with the lights off?”
Authors can’t be blamed for putting energy into that one personal page. Politicians,on the other hand,can use the personal to their advantage,even on their way out the door. Morrison’s curries,his Sharks,his Jen-and-the-girls,could be viewed as attempts to convert a perceived public taste for the personal into political popularity.
The great irony of his valedictory speech was that he gave its second half-hour to his government’s record,which ended up,in May 2022,being entirely eclipsed by his public persona which,by then,gave the electorate sound justification to boot him out. Public taste might demand warmth,it might demand generosity,it might even forgive a bit of Jen-and-the-girls. It just ended up cooling to this particular persona.
As a post-career prime minister,Morrison held up Julia Gillard as his model. Gillard’s valedictory speech in 2013 was,at 1565 words,one-quarter as long as Morrison’s. Gillard,who shied from the folksy or faux-personal,left most of the thanking for behind closed doors. Herspeech is best remembered for the sentence,“what I am absolutely confident of is it will be easier for the next woman and the woman after that and the woman after that”.
As ever,she was the exception that proved the rule. If Morrison’s valedictory address prefigured anything,it was that this is a former PM heading into retirement with plenty more to say. Tuesday was the last time he could say it to an audience that was compelled to listen.
Malcolm Knox is a journalist,author and columnist forThe Sydney Morning Herald.