Beattie's $900k historian cops a bollocking ...
Excerpt from the Courier Mail:
War of the words
5 September 2007
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Dr Saunders, a former professor of history at the University of Queensland and now executive director of the Brisbane Institute, launched a bitter attack yesterday on Dr Fitzgerald, the Griffith University professor recently awarded a controversial $900,000 deal to write a history of Queensland.
The plum taxpayer-funded deal, which was awarded without a tendering process, raised eyebrows last month and sparked allegations of cronyism. Publishers expressed shock at the book's pricetag at the time.
The feud between Dr Fitzgerald and Dr Saunders risks casting a pall over a book that is meant to celebrate Queensland's sesquicentenary in 2009.
"Fitzgerald's already done a two-volume history of Queensland – what new insight is he going to provide?" Dr Saunders said yesterday.
"This is someone who's not exactly 'Mr-skilled-around-the-archives'.
"I have never seen Ross once at the archives. I don't think he's the top historian."
The criticism will be acutely embarrassing for the Government as it recently appointed Dr Saunders to the board of Q150, the body in charge of sesquicentenary celebrations.
She believes Dr Fitzgerald's new book will play second fiddle to Ray Evans' History of Queensland, published earlier this year.
"Ray Evans has just written a history of Queensland and Raymond is the top historian in this state who writes on the state," she said.
"Raymond's work did not cost the taxpayer one cent. Why do you need another volume when you've already got his history, which is the definitive work?"
Dr Saunders did point out that she had co-authored several works with Mr Evans.
The second volume of Dr Fitzgerald's earlier History of Queensland was pulped after a prominent Queenslander threatened legal action for alleged defamation.
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See - Beattie's $900k historian.
posted by Concerned Ratepayer at 5:57 AM
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Excerpt from the Courier Mail:
Queensland history book blasted by Opposition
6 September 2007
The furore over an official history of Queensland has spread to Parliament, with the Opposition accusing the Premier of wasting taxpayers' money.
Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney joined a growing band of critics questioning the legitimacy of the $900,000 taxpayer-funded book deal awarded to Griffith University academic Ross Fitzgerald.
Dr Fitzgerald scored the plum job to write a new history of Queensland to commemorate the state's sesquicentenary in 2009 without a public tendering process.
Mr Seeney used Question Time to chide Premier Peter Beattie over the deal, which has already raised eyebrows in academic and publishing circles.
"Why has the Premier given almost $1 million to Ross Fitzgerald, another Labor mate, without a tender process to write a history of Queensland when Raymond Evans, described as the state's most eminent historian, has just published the book A History of Queensland at no cost to the taxpayer?" Mr Seeney said.
Mr Beattie told Parliament that Dr Fitzgerald's book would prove a vital public asset.
"I make no apology for ensuring that a definitive history of Queensland is written as part of our great state's 150th birthday celebrations," he said.
The Opposition criticism comes in the wake of an attack on Dr Fitzgerald this week by Brisbane Institute executive director Kay Saunders.
Dr Saunders, a former professor of history at the University of Queensland and ex-wife of Dr Evans, said Dr Fitzgerald was the wrong man for the job.
She insisted Mr Evans' A History of Queensland, published by Cambridge, rather than Dr Fitzgerald's new work, would come to be regarded as the definitive text.
"If you're asked to do the Cambridge history of anything, that's so prestigious and usually considered the definitive work for your generation," she said. "For historians, it's like winning an Academy Award."
Dr Evans said he would have been prepared to update his Cambridge history in a new publication to mark Queensland's 150th birthday in 2009.
"I could have done a few more pages and brought it up-to-date and they could have co-operated with Cambridge to put out a bigger book," he said.
"Why wasn't this avenue explored? It looks like this was done in a very sort of pre-emptive kind of way."
12:58 PM, September 06, 2007
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