KING O'MALLEY : THE AMERICAN BOUNDER

King O'Malley has become a legendary figure in Australian Parliamentary history - a man of eccentric behaviour but with the strength and character to become a long-serving minister, a visionary who found many of his ideas unacceptable in his time, a flamboyant publicist whose exploits brought him close to ridicule, a foreigner who was fanatically Australian, a socialist who amassed a fortune through owning slum property.

Legends and mystery surround his name and are unravelled here by historian A.R. Hoyle: was he Canadian or American; did he found the Waterlily Rockbound Church; did he live in a cave in Queensland for two years being nursed to health by an Aboriginal? His love of storytelling led to many such beliefs.

O'Malley came to Australia as a young man and was soon succeeding as a super insurance salesman in Tasmania and then South Australia. His grandiloquence and Irish-American charm took him into the South Australian parliament where his weird campaigns for lavatories in railway carriages, seats for female shop assistants and the Married Women's Protection League won him notoriety.

His political career, aided by his style of 'spread-eagle' rhetoric, carried him into the Federal sphere and continue to be characterised by wild proposals, strong reformist policies and fervent industry. He became minister of home affairs, and his clashes with colleagues and the public services kept him in the limelight of politics.

A.R. Hoyle has built a lively and fascinating biography on his deep research into the life of one of our most colourful and enigmatic politicians.