Janet McCalman AC

'Life and Politics is bumpy', so says Janet McCalman AC, a super smart lady born in 1948 who has been a lifelong Labor Party supporter and fabulous historian-writer here in Melbourne. Janet's books include 'Struggle Town' (1984), 'Journeyings', (1993) a story about class and education along the 67 tram, to 'Sex and Suffering'. Her family has French roots in North Africa and WWI created a big trauma line through it. Her parents met through the Communist Party. Janet came on, in part, to let us know about the Labor Academy, an independent group supporting traditional labor values. She says Labor people are terrific human beings. The Academy's latest little red book is '12 things you need to know about Labor'. It was published in January this year. It's highly accessible and includes chapters like 'Doing stuff together: collectivism and the social contract'. We look forward to taking a look at that and we thank Janet very much for joining us this week.laboracademyvic.au