Talk:John Hewson

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[edit] "Most educated man to lead a political party

[Hewson] is the most highly educated man ever to have led a major Australian political party.

What about Doc Evatt? - Aaron Hill 02:07, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

A close call, but I think a Masters and a 1970s Johns Hopkins PhD in economics tops a Sydney LLD from the 1920s. Adam 02:53, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, if you want to split hairs, the LLD is classed as a "higher-doctorate" which outranks the PhD. These days it's usually awarded honorarily to people seen to contribute to the law (eg Peter_Ryan_(police_commissioner)). But all higher doctorates have a few academics who actually apply for the thing in house based on their research career. As far as I know no American institution awards higher doctorates. But the fact that Evatt's is from the 20's makes me suspect that it could have been a time before the LLB, which changes everything. (But I don't care enough to actually find out!) I think we should probably get rid of such a value-laden claim anyway. Nick 01:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia's LLD page, the qualification is seen as an equal to a PhD. Ed- 06:58, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the Wikipedia page says that American institutions award it as an honorary degree, never as a higher (ie earnt second) doctorate. In the USA the Doctor of Juridical Science (JSD is equivalent to a PhD. But "In the UK, Australia and New Zealand, the LL.D. is a higher doctorate usually awarded on the basis of exceptionally insightful and distinctive publications, containing significant and original contributions to the science or study of law." But I really don't think this is worth worrying about! I have removed the offending sentence as it was an unencyclopaedic wank anyway. Nick 19:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Style

While this article is well written, I fear a lot of it includes unsourced analysis that isn't suitable for an encyclopedia. Many sentences claim to know the mind of the Australian people as a whole, Hewson's motivations and Keating's motivations. While most of them are 'reasonable' they fail to meet WP:Verifiability standards, and probably need to be removed or attributed to notable analysts. Ashmoo 03:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

In particular I question how the following statements could be verified:

• In this role he performed well against the dominating Treasure, Paul Keating.

• Hewson was determined to make a break with what he saw as the weak pragmatism of past Liberal leaders.

• The package was at first well-received, and was welcomed as an idealistic alternative to the rather cynical pragmatism which had come to mark the Hawke government

• Hawke and his Treasurer, John Kerin, were unable to mount an effective response,

• Keating's campaign was demagogic and in some would say unfair

• Hewson had never imagined the possibility of defeat, and for the rest of 1993 he seemed to be in shock.

Ashmoo 03:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a fine line between describing what occurred and stating an opinion about what occurred. These sentences, IMO, well and truly cross that line. Rebecca 04:54, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Well then, if no one else objects I'll start removing/NPOVing them. Rebecca, why did you remove my section names? Ashmoo 00:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I had another look, and it appears that we edited simultaneously an my edit was lost. I merged our edits under that assumption. Ashmoo 00:58, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The edits look fine by me. It's made some of the prose a bit clunky, but it's not too bad, and took out some opinion which really did need to go if without a source. Rebecca 01:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)