Jenny Hocking

Jennifer Jane Hocking is an Australian historian, political scientist and biographer.

She is the inaugural Distinguished Whitlam Fellow with the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University, Emeritus Professor at Monash University, and former Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University.

Her work is in two key areas, counter-terrorism and Australian political biography.

In both areas she explores Australian democratic practice, the relationship between the arms of government, and aspects of Australian political history.

Her research into the life of former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam uncovered significant new material on the role of High Court justice Sir Anthony Mason in the dismissal of the Whitlam government.

This has been described as "a discovery of historical importance".

The book traces Murphy's life from childhood to his role in the Labor split of the 1950s, his pioneering work as a senator and reformist Attorney-General in the Whitlam government, through to his rise to the bench of the High Court, and to his untimely death, amidst controversy, in 1986.

"The author discusses the issue of balancing the need for national security with individual rights and freedoms. The author argues that, in the light of September 11 and Bali, the security legislation proposed, and in part passed, by the Howard government compromises the separation of powers and individual legal and political rights."

"Christina Hill in the Australian Book Review describes this book as “a non-judgemental and informative life study: Hardy’s tireless political activism on behalf of the left, his work as a public figure and as a writer, his late career as a media personality, his disastrous private life (his drinking, gambling and serial adulteries) all flesh out the man and his world.”"

"This is Volume I of Gough Whitlam: The Biography. It is a biographical study of the former Labor Prime Minister of Australia. It traces his childhood in the fledgling city of Canberra, his extensive war service in the Pacific and his marriage to Margaret. The biography draws on previously unseen archival material, extensive interviews with family and colleagues, and exclusive interviews with Gough Whitlam himself. The biography describes Whitlam as an extraordinary and complex man whose life was formed by the remarkable events of previous generations of his family. It chronicles his role in changing the Australian political and cultural landscape."

This is Volume II of Gough Whitlam: The Biography.

She was born in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1954 and attended Lauriston Girls' School and then Monash University, where she graduated with both a Bachelor of Science and subsequently a Bachelor of Economics.

Hocking was particularly influenced at Monash University by Professor Ian Ward, a noted economic historian.

After graduating from Monash University in the late 1970s she worked as a printer for the underground Walker Press in Collingwood printing large format colour posters, political pamphlets, newsletters and booklets.

Neal Blewett stated that "There is no better account of how the triumph of 1972 turned into the catastrophe of 1975."

At the launching of the book, former Labor Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd says that "it lets us see who Gough Whitlam the person was before he became Gough Whitlam the politician".

Former premier of Western Australia, Carmen Lawrence, wrote: "It is a testament to Hocking’s research, her eye for the apt example, and her scholarship that she is able to expand our understanding of the man, and the influences that shaped such a significant Australia figure."

Hocking, a republican and member of the Australian Republican Movement executive, said of Queen Elizabeth II, “The monarchy is a very strange beast in which it’s both a political institution and a family... In fact, you know you might say in some key ways, the protection of the monarchy as an institution is actually damaging to the family as a human element.

Certainly the dynamics recently have suggested that that’s the case... she’s been a figure of stability and unity in managing those really difficult human aspects and human elements.” In 2022, Hocking said King Charles III had a "very well-known tendency to engage in the political space that really monarchs and monarchs-to-be should not be engaging in", had caused "a great conservatism in architecture" and engaged in "very party-political intervention" with respect to the black spider memos when he was Prince of Wales.

This second volume chronicles the period when Gough Whitlam swept to power in the election of December 1972, becoming Australia’s twenty-first prime minister.

In 1977 Hocking met her partner, Daryl Dellora, a documentary filmmaker.

Together they formed the film production company Film Art Doco,  and have co-scripted several award-winning documentaries including Against the Innocent (1988) and Mr Neal is Entitled to be an Agitator (1991).

The latter, dealing with the former High Court justice and Attorney-General Lionel Murphy, has been screened on ABC television.

Hocking holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Sydney, which examined the establishment of Australia's counter terrorism framework and was published as Beyond Terrorism: The Development of the Australian Security State in 1993.

The first edition of this work was published in 1997.

This is new edition with a Foreword by Justice Michael Kirby and an Epilogue "Did Lionel Murphy really happen?" by the author, 2000.

Since 2001 Hocking has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Lionel Murphy Foundation.

Hocking is the daughter of Frederick Hocking, a psychiatrist with a significant practice treating survivors of long-term trauma, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, and Barbara Hocking, the first barrister briefed in the Mabo case.

It is a new updated edition of this second book, with an additional chapter and Epilogue: “I never said I was immortal, merely eternal”, 2014.

In 2016 Hocking commenced proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia against the National Archives of Australia seeking the release of secret correspondence between the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, and the Queen regarding the dismissal of the Whitlam government.

These 'Palace letters' were held by the Archives and were under the embargo of the Queen, potentially indefinitely.

The case was unsuccessful in the Federal Court and in February 2019 an appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court was rejected by a majority.

However, in May 2020 Hocking's appeal to the High Court succeeded: in an emphatic 6:1 decision the High Court found that the Palace letters are "Commonwealth records" (not personal property) and instructed the Director-General of the National Archives to reconsider Hocking's request for access to the letters, as well as to pay all of Hocking's considerable legal costs.

The letters were released in full and online on 14 July 2020.

As a consequence of the importance of Gough Whitlam in Australia's political history, Hocking's books about him, and featuring him, have received considerable attention from public commentators, academics and politicians.

Overall, the response has been positive.

According to the judges of the Barbara Ramsden Award, the Whitlam biography was recognised as "an unusually thorough treatment and ... a monumental project ... reminiscent of the glory days of publishing".

Its quality was also highly praised:

Frank Bongiorno called it "A fascinating and important account ... and a tour de force as a piece of history ...".

Greg Kelton suggested it might be "the best Australian political biography In decades ... ".