Bob Hawke once said that Don Dunstan was Australia's most influential Australian politician. This the first comprehensive biography of Dunstan, the transformative and much loved former Premier of South Australia 1967-68 and 1970-79. He was a larger than life character, and unlike most state premiers, had a huge national profile.
People still remember Dunstan for his pink shorts and championing of sexual rights, but his impact was much wider than this. Against stiff opposition from Adelaide's conservative establishment, he pioneered legislation of Aboriginal land rights, consumer protection laws, abolished the death penalty, relaxed censorship and drinking laws, as well as decriminalised homosexuality. He is recognised for his role in reinvigorating the social, artistic and cultural life of South Australia during his nine years in office, remembered as the 'Dunstan Decade'. He was a friend of Whitlam and had a hand in national ALP social policies of the Whitlam era, including abandoning the White Australia Policy. While in office, he even found time to publish a bestselling cookbook.
'This is an honest account of the rich life of a courageous and complex man....Whitlam and Dunstan were the Washington and Jefferson of modern Australian Labor politics.' - Mike Rann, former Premier of South Australia
