Tiberius with a Telephone

Winner of the 2020 National Biography Award and the 2020 NSW Premier's Non-Fiction Award.

The oddly compelling story of a man regarded as Australia's worst prime minister.

Tiberius with a Telephone is the biography of William McMahon, a significant, if widely derided and disliked, figure in Australian politics in the second half of the twentieth century. This book tells the story of his life, his career, and his doomed attempts to recast views of his much-maligned time as Australia's prime minister.

After a long ministerial career under Menzies, McMahon became treasurer under Harold Holt and fought a fierce, bitter war over protectionism with John McEwen. Following Holt's death in 1967, McEwen had his revenge by vetoing McMahon's candidature for the Liberal Party's leadership, paving the way for John Gorton to become prime minister. However, almost three years later, amid acrimony and division, McMahon would topple Gorton and fulfil his life's ambition to become Australia's prime minister.

In office, McMahon worked furiously to enact an agenda that grappled with the profound changes reshaping Australia. He withdrew combat forces from Vietnam, legislated for Commonwealth government involvement in childcare, established the National Urban and Regional Development Authority and the first Department of the Environment, began phasing out the means test on pensions, sought to control foreign investments, and accelerated the timetable for the independence of Papua New Guinea. But his failures would overshadow his successes, and by the time of the 1972 election, McMahon would lead a divided, tired, and rancorous party to defeat.

A man whose life was coloured by tragedy, comedy, persistence, courage, farce, and failure, McMahon's story has never been told at length. Tiberius with a Telephone fills that gap, using deep archival research and extensive interviews with McMahon's contemporaries and colleagues. It is a tour de force - an authoritative and colourful account of a unique politician and a vital period in Australia's history.

'This is, as others have remarked, biography at its best- diligently researched, with detail nowhere else examined, and a demonstration of fine judgement concerning the crucial interplay between personal disposition, role demands, and historical context.' - James Walter, Australian Book Review

'A welcome addition to prime ministerial biography ... An engaging and informative read.' - Troy Bramston, The Australian

'This is the most detailed investigation and explanation of what happened ... Completing a biography of this scope is an enormous undertaking, and Patrick Mullins does it with considerable skill ... Mullins conveys the turmoil, the atmosphere of crisis, the bickering and the bloodletting that marked this extraordinary period of Australian political history.' - David Solomon, Inside Story