Power is the only measure of a politician that matters.
How they win power. How they wield power. How they
lose power. This new edition of an Australian classic
features a new introduction by the author taking into
account the latest developments in Australian politics.
Catch and Kill is an inside account of the beguiling and
nomadic nature of that unholy trinity of politics. Taking
us into the inner sanctum of state and national politics,
Joel Deane investigates how four friends – Steve
Bracks, John Brumby, John Thwaites and Rob Hulls
– beat the factions, won office in Victoria, achieved
progressive reforms, then tried to hijack Canberra. ‘We
were’, Bracks says, ‘a government that could catch and
kill its own’.
Drawing on dozens of interviews with key figures, Deane
provides a candid insight into the triumphs and failures
of the Bracks-Brumby government, as well as those
of its federal and state counterparts. He also shines a
light on the personalities behind these decisions – their
ambitions, their passions and their disappointments.