In this special summer series of the Afternoon Light podcast you can enjoy the presentations delivered at our November 2023 conference entitled ‘The Menzies Ascendency: Implementing a Liberal Agenda and Consolidating Gains 1954-1961’. This fifth episode features David Furse-Roberts’ paper ‘Standing for the ‘most ample provision in respect of old age and sickness’: The Menzies Government and health reform’, Damien Freeman & Andrew Bragg’s paper ‘Menzies, Hasluck, Wentworth and Indigenous Peoples’ (begins 19:35), and Julian Leeser’s address ‘Menzies on Presbyterians, Catholics and Jews. Lessons on religious freedom for today’ (begins 40:19).

Dr David Furse-Roberts is a Research Fellow at the Menzies Research Centre. He holds a PhD in history from the University of NSW and is the editor of Howard: The Art of Persuasion (2018) and Menzies: The Forgotten Speeches (2017). Since joining the MRC in 2016, he has written for Quadrant, Spectator Australia, and other publications on the history and contemporary relevance of liberalism in Australia. In 2021 he published God and Menzies: The Faith that Shaped a Prime Minister and his Nation.

Dr Damien Freeman was the Principal Policy Advisor at the PM Glynn Institute, ACU and is the author of several papers for the Centre for Independent Studies including “Radical Conservatism: tradition as a guide to change” and monographs including Killer Kramer: Dame Leonie - a woman for all seasons and Abbott’s Right: the conservative tradition from Menzies to Abbott as well as the editor of numerous collections including Faith’s Place: democracy in a religious world.

Senator Andrew Bragg is a Senator for New South Wales with a particular interest in the history of the Liberal Party and Indigenous affairs, having written Buraadja: the liberal case for national reconciliation.

Julian Leeser MP has been the Federal Member for Berowra since 2016. He was formerly Shadow Attorney General and Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs, and prior to entering parliament served as Executive Director of the Menzies Research Centre. Julian is the first Jewish person elected to the House of Representatives from New South Wales for the Liberal Party.