A review of Christopher Pyne's book

When Christopher Pyne’s A Letter to My Children was launched, a bunch of radical students mounted a violent demonstration. The actual cause was rather vague (it always is) and, after reading this book, shouting and throwing things seems remarkably inappropriate. For this is a very gentle, calm book, even loving in its way.

It is not a guns-blazing political manifesto or a swingeing attempt to settle old scores. Pyne is willing to discuss his views and his political career but the book’s core is his relationship with his father, which emerges as the motivation to dedicate himself to a job that is, in many ways, pretty awful.

Pyne’s father, Remington Pyne, was an ophthalmologist who branched out into craniofacial surgery. He clearly wasn’t in it for the money: his wife, Christopher’s mother, often complained that he treated too many people for free. His response was that some people had no money to pay, so he would charge well-off people a bit more. Along the way, he established an organisation to help children with dyslexia and contributed to a range of other good causes. He was generally successful, although one of his projects, a sheep farm, did not do well because he treated the animals as pets.

The large family seemed to be happy, not affluent but comfortable enough to put money into the children’s education. For Christopher, this meant a Jesuit-based education, and he readily mixed the message of serving others with his father’s ideas of doing whatever you can to make the world a better place.

The central tragedy of the book is that Remington died at the age of 59, when Christopher was 20. As a result, Christopher’s four children never knew their grandfather; the book is his way to both let them know him and explain why Christopher felt impelled towards a family-unfriendly path.

And certainly the life of a politician is far from pleasant. Whatever you do, a large number of people are going to complain about it. If you rise through the ranks and reach a position of power, the reward is that even more people will complain and attack you more viciously. No, that is not the whole picture: Pyne accepts the realities of politics, especially in a reformist government, but he emphasises that all the trouble is more than balanced by the opportunity to do useful, important things.


Perhaps this is why many of the people who have got to know him seem to like him. Indeed, Annabel Crabb provides a warm-hearted foreword to the book. Pyne notes that he gets on well with ALP headkicker Anthony Albanese, although they agree on very little.

Anyone wanting a detailed discussion of policy issues will not find it here. That is not the point of the book. But what it gives is more than good enough, and its chord of humanity sounding in the raucous political environment should be appreciated.

Spectatator 

3 comments

Isn't the whole point of a review to give your own personal opinions and not those taken from a newspaper?????????

Re this bit about his ophthalmologist father Remington:

"His response was that some people had no money to pay, so he would charge well-off people a bit more."

Why didn't he carry the cost? Why make other patients pay for his so called "free" services to the poor? 

Do not know if the book is true ???

But it appears the father was a good man coming from a not toowell off family yet still providing towards a lot of good causes like establishing an organisation to help children with dyslexia.

Over the past few years we've had a lot of politicians like Hawke Gillard etc. and now Pyne publishing books about themselves ... cannot help but wonder whether the Taxpayer is paying for this ???

Maybe that is why they need these perks of expensive offices

and staff in retirement ?

I think this sounds s wonderful book about a remarkable man. I think Adelaide is well served by such people as Remington there is definitely a sense of public service in the Adelaide better off. 

I think it goes all the way back to the way SA was setteled . 

3 comments



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