ABSTRACT
Born amid tumultuous events, educated at ancient schools and universities in the heart of England, it was no surprise that history fascinated the young Pat Weller. On 13 September 1944, as the Western Allies fought their way into France in the sixth year of a world war, Pat Weller was born into a medical family. On 30 July 1966, the day that England won the World Cup, Pat Weller graduated from Oxford, and three months later he caught a plane to Sydney, arriving the day Galilee won the Caulfield Cup. The historian in Pat Weller knew how to organise and make sense of a vast array of data, while the political scientist used the information to interrogate arguments about power at the centre of government. The chapter seeks to understand the way Australia is governed, and reaches for conclusions on the difficulties of political leadership.
