AustLit

‘When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’ Robert Manne was speaking with Geraldine Doogue, on Radio National’s Saturday Extra. Responding to a question about his political journey (and under no illusion that he was quoting Keynes, to whom the line is often misattributed), he was talking in a painful whisper, having recently undergone a laryngectomy. The voice was still recognisably his: to Manne’s relief, a silicone prosthesis has obviated the need for an electrolarynx. And the sentiment was familiar, too. Manne, after all, has always been open about his changes of political allegiance—an openness caught (or trumpeted) in the title of his 2005 collection of essays and articles, Left, Right, Left.' (Introduction)

'By now, the Robert Manne essay is a well-established form – four decades at the centre of public life will do that. Whatever the topic, his pieces tend to possess certain qualities: an almost lawyerly emphasis on fact and argument over style and rhetoric; a professor’s sympathy for the world of ideas over the muck of institutions; an unfashionable willingness to change his mind without worry or shame; and an overwhelming focus on public questions over private struggles.' (Introduction)