Marr wins 2013 John Button Prize

Journalist and author David Marr has won the John Button Prize for writing on Australian politics and policy for Quarterly Essay 47, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott (Black Inc.).

Marr, who receives a cash prize of $20,000, was announced as this year’s winner at a special event on Saturday 24 August as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival. At the event, former Federal Labor leader Mark Latham delivered this year’s John Button Oration, which examined the future of the Australian Labor Party.

The judges described Marr’s essay as ‘a powerful, nuanced and beautifully written account of the man who may be prime minister after September 7’. Former Western Australian premier Geoff Gallop said the essay explored the quality of leadership, and that ‘Marr has got us thinking about what we want from our leaders’.

Marr’s essay was selected from a shortlist of three, which included Tony Kevin’s self-published book Reluctant Rescuers: An Exploration of the Australian Border Protection System’s Safety Record in Detecting and Intercepting Asylum Seeker Boards 1998-2011 and Tim Soutphommasane’s Don’t Go Back to Where You Came From: Why Multiculturalism Works (NewSouth). To see the titles longlisted for this year’s award, click here.

The John Button Prize is awarded annually to ‘the best piece of thinking and writing on a subject of public policy’. Last year’s prize was awarded to Andrew Charlton’s Quarterly Essay 44, Man-Made World: Choosing between Progress and Planet (Black Inc.).

For more information about the award, click here.

Tags: awardsjohnbuttonprize

Category: Local news