Downfall

How Labor lost the race -- how Bill Shorten could save the party - and why it matters.
In the 2007 election, led by Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard they smashed the Howard government and made the country look fresh and optimistic again. But under the sunny exterior lurked unchecked tensions, corrupt members, factional warlords, leadership woes. Now, Labor's pains have become the Abbott-led Coalition's gain. For journalist and former Young Laborite, Aaron Patrick, Labor at its best is a force for good. But until it addresses the rot at its core, voters will continue to abandon it. In his gripping book, Downfall, Patrick shows how Labor came to be in the mess it's in - and what it needs to do to get out of it. Fast paced and intensely readable, Downfall is a troubling portrait of a once-great institution in decline.