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  • Party Animals

  • The Secret History of a Labor Fiasco
  • By: Samantha Maiden
  • Narrated by: Leah McLeod
  • Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (47 ratings)

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Party Animals

By: Samantha Maiden
Narrated by: Leah McLeod
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Publisher's Summary

Secrets, lies, lawyers and covert recordings. If you thought the 2019 election was just about a death tax that didn't exist, you're in for a surprise.

From the dark arts of the dirt units to the role of billionaire Clive Palmer, this is the untold story of an election debacle. The Labor Party was the unbeatable favourite to win the 2019 election right up until the polls closed and voters delivered the surprise verdict. 

If the results staggered pundits, they also shocked Bill Shorten and his frontbench, who had spent the final weeks of the campaign carefully planning for their first days in office.

Party Animals uncovers the secret history of a Labor fiasco, the untold story behind Scott Morrison's miracle.

©2020 Samantha Maiden (P)2020 Penguin Random House Australia

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Contrived Voices

Not a bad analysis of the election process and the outcome but spoiled by the contrived voices used for quotes.

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2 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Error-riddled reading marred fairly interesting book

This was largely a recitation of already well-known (and, in some cases, practically antiquated) political events and anecdotes. Its real value lay in the sprinkling of quotes from the first-hand interviews with insiders who, in the main, were keen to point fingers at others to divert blame from themselves for Labor’s 2019 loss. That was interesting stuff.

While not the author’s fault, the audio book was so replete with mispronunciations - both of well known individuals’ names (eg. Loughnane) and of ordinary words (eg. stipend, seconded, etc) - that it was occasionally painful to listen to. Surely they could’ve gotten someone a bit more literate, if not familiar with the political protagonists, to read the book?

Sam Maiden would be cringing if she listened to it.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Narrator almost unbearable.

The subject matter is laid out well and keeps your interest. Narration constantly undermines content with terrible interpretation
of the character's intent using inflections incongruous to the real text.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

An insight

This account of an Australian Institution is well worth the read; the style of delivery is good. But oh my God the voices leave a lot to be desired. One could say type cast.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A must read to soak up the current election spin

Any political animal should listen just to remind themselves of the spin that we swallowed without critical analysis last time. It will equip you better this time around.
People doing voices of the opposite sex doesn't sell well to me. It's no deal breaker but the attempts at Albo's voice made me tsk every time.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Quit with the dumb voices!

This was a really interesting book.

The retelling of it was totally ruined by the stupid voices done by the narrator - although I have to give credit that she did get the Pauline Hansen voice quite well, which made me snort.

Next time - don’t bother with voicing, just tell the bloody story.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Incredibly detailed!

This is an incredibly detailed review of what went wrong and right for Labor (and the Govt) in the lead up, and immediately following the 2019 election.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

The value (or otherwise) of good narration !!

I'm sure the underlying story might be interesting however the Narrator spoilt the whole show. I'm sure Leah McLeod is a professional however her attempts to 'Portray' countless different politicians, media etc, (Mostly Men) in different voices, just simply did not work. I gave it a good hard go and I love political commentary but I couldn't get much past half way on this one. I you thrive on this genre like me, don't go here....

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Good book, buy the hard copy instead

Good book but the narrator is too fast and doing people’s accents is very distracting - I which I had just brought the hard copy. Next time the author needs to narrate her own book.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Well researched and insightful

Party Animals is very well researched and i recommend it to anyone with an interest in politics, regardless of their own political alignment. My only criticism is that i felt the narrator's voice mimicking of quotes to be sometimes unpleasantly patronising.

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