Present at the creation: giants of the ’80s leave the stage, with lessons still relevant

With memorial services for Andrew Peacock and John Elliott today in Melbourne, we’re farewelling two important figures in the establishment of the Australian neoliberal model.

They’re part of a broader loss of the cast of the dramedy that was Australian public life in the 1980s, which is increasingly hard to tell apart from The Gillies Report that caricatured it so devastatingly — a feeling not helped by the fact that both were so easily impersonated by Max Gillies. Peacock the Melbourne Liberal from central casting complete with tan and Gucci luggage, Elliott the spivvy, beer-chugging corporate raider.