David Day on Labor icon Ben Chifley: "It seems in hindsight extraordinary"

How did a PM who only ever won one election become as iconic as Ben Chifley?

On this week's Afternoon Light Georgina Downer speaks with David Day to discuss Australia's 16th PM. The pipe smoking Bathurst train driver who suffered a trade unionist's martyrdom, before rising to become the architect of Australia's post war settlement. An endearing pragmatist respected even by his opponents, who ironically came unstuck in attempting to push beyond the welfare state towards fully fledged state socialism.

David Day is an Australian historian and author. Day has written widely on Australian history and the history of the Second World War. Among his many books are Menzies and Churchill at War and a two volume study of Anglo-Australian relations during the Second World War. His prize-winning history of Australia, Claiming a Continent, won the prestigious non-fiction prize in the 1998 South Australian Festival Awards for Literature. An earlier book, Smugglers and Sailors, was shortlisted by the Fellowship of Australian Writers for its Book of the Year Award. John Curtin: A Life was shortlisted for the 2000 NSW Premier's Literary Awards' Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction. He is the author of Andrew Fisher: Prime Minister of Australia and Chifley: A Life.

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