No Need for the "Elite" to Cringe

The current republican debate shows that the cultural cringe is still depressingly prevalent among our elites.

The worthies who try to browbeat us into supporting their unpopular republican model with the claim that the planned November referendum will be a test of "national self-confidence" betray their own ambivalence and insecurity about Australia.  People who feel confident about their place in the world rarely need to resort to grand symbolic declarations of their independence.

Of all the arguments which might be offered in favour of a republic, the most pathetic is the one that we must show the world we are an independent and politically mature nation by the beginning of the new millennium.

My impression is that most ordinary Australians have a reasonably healthy and balanced sense of national identity, one that is neither strident nor defensive, but which involves a sound appreciation of the nation's many strengths and less numerous weaknesses.  They feel little need to become involved in the jittery efforts of our cultural elites to define and assert a national identity to some amorphous world audience.

Indeed, most Australians probably realise that the rest of the world rarely gives much thought to our constitutional arrangements, and doesn't care whether or not we become a republic.

Insofar as others do discuss and judge Australia in factual political terms (as opposed to the fantasies of wickedness promoted by many of our intellectuals), they are more likely to focus on its status as one of only a tiny number of nations that have had a continuous and thriving liberal democracy over the past century.  This achievement is the ultimate proof of Australia's political maturity and independence.

I make these comments as a mild republican.  I think that an Australian republic is desirable, not because we need a stronger declaration of nationhood, but because a hereditary monarchy offends the principle that all people are born equal.  In this respect I agree with Labor Senator Robert Ray, who argued some time ago that "republicanism represents a further assertion of democracy".

But regrettably, there are other aspects of our society that are also in conflict with important egalitarian principles.  If the price of solving Australia's more pressing problems of unemployment, growing income inequality, and an increasingly racialised politics was having to abide the monarchy for a few more decades, most of us would probably think it worth paying.

Linking a republic to the extension of democracy also strengthens the case for a president who would be elected by the people.  The Constitutional Convention's preferred model for a republic, in which the head of state would be chosen by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Parliament, clearly has not captured the nation's enthusiasm, despite its appeal to various political and business leaders.

But the Constitutional Convention, with half of its 152 delegates appointed by the government, and the other half elected in a poll in which only 46.5% of the electorate voted, did not represent a high-point in the nation's democratic history, whatever its boosters might claim.

Because we cannot really anticipate the kinds of constitutional problems we may face in the future, there are dangers in any course of action -- or inaction.  Of course there would be risks in a popularly-elected president, particularly one whose powers were not carefully defined.

The sense of legitimacy that such an elected head of state might feel would probably increase the likelihood of his or her intervention during times of political crisis or deadlock, such as occurred in the 1975 impasse over supply which led to the dismissal of Gough Whitlam's government.

The potential for such intrusion worries politicians, although I doubt that it should worry the rest of us to the same extent.  Such an intervention would almost certainly be rare.  But should it ever become necessary again, the actions of a president with a popular mandate would be rather less likely to bring serious long-term damage to the nation than the actions of an appointed president.

For instance, whatever one might think about Whitlam's dismissal, had it been carried out by a popularly elected president, the Labor Party would probably have been more circumspect about "maintaining the rage" that poisoned Australia's politics for so long.

I would take the arguments of those who warn of the dangers of an elected head of state more seriously if the same people were not so enthusiastic about introducing a new preamble into our constitution giving a special place to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

Such a preamble might sound reasonably innocuous now.  But it could provide considerable potential for some future activist High Court to encroach on the nation's integrity, particularly if the United Nations adopts the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with its promise of political self-determination and other separatist measures.

I am also unimpressed by the arguments of people like former Liberal Party Federal Director, Andrew Robb, who warned this week that a popularly elected president "sounds attractive -- until you realise that what you'll end up with is another politician".

There is nothing to fear from having ex-politicians as presidents.  Indeed, they are more likely to have an empathy with ordinary Australians than ex-judges, who would be major contenders for an appointed head of state, and who have come from a working milieu which is rather more rarefied than that of politics.

Sir Paul Hasluck and Bill Hayden were former politicians who became effective and widely admired governor-generals.  Indeed, if Mr Robb really finds the prospect of politicians so disturbing, it is reasonable to ask why he devoted a significant part of his professional life to getting them elected into government.

If the Constitutional Convention's republican model succeeds in the November referendum, the political and cultural elites will be satisfied, and will do their best to thwart any further changes for decades.  If it fails, we can be certain that the passionate supporters of a republic will try again soon.  But next time they may be less arrogant.

ADVERTISEMENT

In Search of a Degree of Common Sense

Beware of shonky degree programs which promise qualifications that could be worthless.  This was Education Minister Dean Wells' sensible caution to Queensland school leavers last month.

My only reservation is that the minister did not cast the net widely enough.  He was warning about private organisations which offer illegal or unaccredited programs to take advantage of the burgeoning -- and unhealthy -- pressures on young people to obtain tertiary qualifications, no matter what kind of future employment they may seek.

But although they may be legal, a number of universities offer courses which seem little better than the ones that Mr Wells had in mind.  Perhaps I am wrong, but I can't believe that courses like "Feminist Knowledges:  Challenges and Subversions", or "Soap Dish:  The Politics of Popular Narrative", are really likely to encourage intellectual rigour or a maturity and independence of thought.

Nearly all universities now have flourishing marketing departments producing glossy promotional brochures, stunning internet sites, and a panoply of advertising which promise potential students an irresistible mixture of educational excellence, career success and pure fun.  These departments solicit testimonials from students which tell of finding love, a wonderful job, and the meaning of life while obtaining their Bachelor of Cultural Studies or Master of Wisdom.

A simple anecdote can illustrate the consequences of such an approach.  I recently visited the library of my local university to read an article in the American journal Science, which is arguably the most important academic journal of its type in the English-speaking world.

Although the university offers a science degree, I discovered that the library does not carry this journal.  However it does subscribe to Vogue Living, Australian Bodyboarder, Surfing World, and a number of other lifestyle and recreational magazines.  Certainly, these are enjoyable publications.  Yet they are also evidence of a university with a strange set of priorities.

When criticised for surrendering their institutions to the very consumerism that academics are so quick to denounce everywhere else in our society, vice-chancellors declare that universities now have to be part of the "real world".  But attempts to emulate supermarkets and theme parks show a fundamental misunderstanding about the place of universities in the "real world", and the characteristics of good university teaching.  There can be no disputing that universities had to change to provide an education suitable for the economic and social environment of the coming century, which will place a great premium on having well-educated citizens with strong conceptual skills.

But unfortunately, there are a number of indications that universities are moving in the opposite direction.  Many academics talk, both publicly and privately, of the "dumbing down" of universities, as their administrations, with the collusion of other academics, pursue growth for growth's sake.

As the distinguished historian Emeritus Professor Frank Crowley writes in his privately published recent book, Degrees Galore:  Australia's Academic Teller Machines, this "quality-ignoring chase for student numbers" has damaging consequences:  "falling standards of admission and assessment, the fragmenting of knowledge into smaller and smaller units of speciality, the wasteful duplication of many degree programs, and chronic degree inflation".

And in an article published in Quadrant last year, Associate Professor Harry Clarke from La Trobe University made similar criticisms, claiming that "increasingly poor courses and programs have driven out the good in universities ... Far from encouraging excellence by offering intellectual challenge, courses are designed not to exclude even the academically weakest".

In a sense, many universities are operating something akin to a pyramid sales racket.  As the quality of the bachelor degree declines, more and more graduates feel compelled to enrol in higher degree courses, thus bringing in more funds and other benefits to the universities.

In 1988 around 30,000 students were studying for higher degrees in Australian universities.  By 1998 the number had rocketed to 88,000.  This massive rise is all the more remarkable given the introduction of substantial course fees in the intervening period.

No doubt some of this increase can be justified in terms of the higher levels of knowledge and skill required for success in many vocations.  But a very significant part of the increase is almost certainly the result of graduates attempting to retain the competitive advantage they were promised when they began studying for their first degree.

Eventually, masters and Ph.D. degrees will become almost as devalued as the bachelor degree.  Then some entrepreneurial university will introduce an even higher degree, and we will see thousands of people with doctorates enrolling for a Knighthood of Knowledge.

The opening up -- or "dumbing down" -- of universities has been done in the name of improving equity.  But in the long term, it is likely to have the opposite effect.  As university degrees become increasingly useless as a yardstick of genuine achievement, other considerations will become correspondingly important for success in life -- family connections, old school ties, and similar things that rightly upset egalitarians.

And while a degree was once pretty well a degree, no matter where it was obtained, there is a rapidly increasing status differentiation among Australia's 39 universities.  This differentiation is not always soundly based -- there are some areas of excellence in low-status regional universities, and pockets of real educational horror in some elite universities.

Throwing more money at universities is not going to solve this particular problem.  But one step in the right direction is the Federal government's plan to introduce a national voluntary performance test for students at the end of their undergraduate course, which would assess fundamental conceptual and practical skills.  Such a test would help to assess whether universities really are meeting their obligations to students and the wider society.

And, providing the test was demanding enough to achieve widespread credibility among employers and the public, it could reduce the need that bright students might otherwise feel to proceed to unnecessary second and higher degrees in which they have little interest.  A nationally certified bachelor's degree could become a better measure of educational attainment -- and therefore more desirable -- than an uncertified higher degree.  Universities would hate it.

ADVERTISEMENT

People's Tragic Tale of Culture Eroded and Renounced

The week before Christmas seems to have become the traditional time for the release of controversial judgements on Aboriginal heritage and land claims.

On 19 December 1995, the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Royal Commission presented its report;  on 23 December 1996 the High Court issued its Wik decision;  and on 18 December last, Justice Howard Olney of the Federal Court found that native title did not exist over land and water the Yorta Yorta people were claiming in Victoria and New South Wales.

There may be good reasons for this rather curious timing.  Perhaps judges hope the Christmas break will give people the opportunity to actually read their findings before launching into wild commentary.  But if this is what Justice Olney wished, he must now be feeling sorely disappointed.

A Yorta Yorta spokeswoman immediately used the "G" word -- accusing the court of committing "genocide".  The environmental group Friends of the Earth issued a press release stating that it was a day of "absolute shame" for Justice Olney and the Federal Court.

And in a less inflammatory tone, Australian Democrats Senator Lyn Allison said "the system is clearly inadequate if people robbed of their land title little over 100 years ago cannot affirm their traditional rights that extend back many thousands of years".

But if the senator's logic is accepted, the only way to make the system "adequate" would be to return all of Australia to Aboriginal ownership.  In a time scale encompassing thousands of years, why should people "robbed" of their land 100 years ago have more rights than those who lost their land 150 or 200 years ago?  And why should Aborigines be precluded from affirming their traditional rights over "robbed" land now held under freehold title?

One of the tragedies of human history is that so much of it is a tale of dispossession.  Many of the early settlers and convicts who came to Australia from the British Isles had themselves been "robbed" of customary rights to land, or were the descendants of such unfortunates.

As Justice Olney stated, the Native Title Act gave him no warrant "to play the role of social engineer, righting the wrongs of past centuries and dispensing justice according to contemporary notions of political correctness rather than according to law".  And as a former Aboriginal Land Commissioner, he cannot be portrayed as a crusty old conservative, seeking any excuse to reject a native title claim.  Indeed, I would be surprised if his findings in the Yorta Yorta case gave him any great pleasure.

A judge who was unsympathetic to the Yorta Yorta might have taken strong action against the two senior claimants who were caught out telling deliberate lies.  Personally, I believe that it was unwise to allow a lie under oath to go unpunished, because this sends out an unfortunate message, one that may ultimately ensure that our legal system really does become "inadequate".

I must declare a specific interest in the Yorta Yorta case.  I was called as a witness by some groups who were opposing the native title claim, although Justice Olney stated that the various anthropologists, historians and linguists who gave evidence did not have much influence on his decision.  Nevertheless, his findings are consistent with the arguments presented by those of us who appeared on behalf of respondents to the claim.

There was overwhelming evidence that the Yorta Yorta people had lost or abandoned those connections with the land that derived from a traditional system of laws and customs, or from anything that might reasonably be seen as a continuation of that system.  By ceasing to acknowledge and observe these laws and customs, the foundation of their claim to native title had disappeared, and the High Court has determined that in these circumstances native title cannot be revived.

The evidence did not just come from outside observers, but from the statements of Yorta Yorta themselves.  Justice Olney cited an 1881 petition in which ancestors of the present claimants said they had lost possession of all the land within their tribal boundaries and that they wished to change their old mode of life.

In the 1930s Yorta Yorta leaders were denouncing Australians who wanted to prevent them from adopting "the culture of the white man".  They argued that the only aspects of traditional culture that should be retained were items like corroborees, but only if they were treated in the same way that Europeans treated their old folk dances.

As recently as two decades ago a number of the most senior Yorta Yorta elders -- including some of the present claimants themselves -- were recorded as stating that the traditional culture had long disappeared, and that only the most scattered fragments had been retained.

Since that time, many Yorta Yorta have sought to revive aspects of their traditional culture.  In some instances this has meant adopting practices based on fantasies about the past.  A number of witnesses gave evidence about their commitment to the environment based on traditional customs, and said that they only took from the land and waters "such food as is necessary for immediate consumption".

As Justice Olney noted, this is commendable.  But it represents a definite break with traditional customs rather than any continuity.  Early observers were struck by the "very wasteful" way in which the Yorta Yorta and other Aboriginal people actually treated their resources, and their indifference towards conservation.  Contemporary Yorta Yorta have taken their cue from Friends of the Earth, not from their ancestors.

If people like Senator Allison really believe that the Yorta Yorta have suffered a serious injustice under the current law, they should campaign to change the law so that native title can be claimed by descendants of the traditional owners even if they have not maintained an appropriate connection with the land.  Senator Allison could give a wonderful start to such a campaign by allowing Aborigines to affirm their traditional rights over any land that she now holds, and convincing all her Democrat colleagues to do the same.

ADVERTISEMENT

Labor's Class of '98

The October 1998 election delivered 29 new recruits to Labor's 95 member caucus.  Is it a new guard or the old one in new clothes?  Of the 29, 18 captured seats from the Coalition.  These are the people who are cheered loudest in the party room at the commencement of the new Parliament.  After all, government is only won by taking seats from the other side.  Four of these were returnees, Horne (Paterson, NSW) Sciacca and Swan (Bowman and Lillee, QLD) and Snowdon (NT).

Some of the freshers already have form;  Cheryl Kernot (Dickson, QLD) of course courtesy of some late postal votes from holidaying teachers;  David Cox (Kingston, SA) a Gordon Bilney protégé and veteran adviser to Labor, especially Ralph Willis;  Graham Edwards (Cowan, WA) Vietnam veteran and former state Minister;  and Kevin Rudd (Griffith, QLD) former senior diplomat and confidente of Wayne Goss.  Kernot has shot straight to the front bench, and Rudd to the chair of the caucus National Security and Trade Committee a position for which he is eminently suited.  Rudd understands the game, his opening line in his first speech to the Parliament reads:  "Politics is about power ..."  He acknowledged the support of Swan, Sciacca and Senator John Hogg all AWU, despite the fact he is Labor Unity.  It was just a simple matter of geography.  He relied on preselection numbers in Ben Humphrey's old base and the best way to acquire them was to join the faction!

The real interest lies with the remainder, those who replaced retired Labor members.  More muted cheers in Caucus for this lot, but these will be the stayers, holding seats that survived the Keating rout of 1996.  Except that is for trade union official Bernie Rippoll in Oxley, Pauline Hanson's abandoned seat, but unlikely to be let loose from Labor's clutches in the foreseeable future ...

Of the 11 safe seats, including two new Senators from Queensland who take up their seats next July, 10 were held by men.  No fewer than 7 of the replacements are women.  This is a remarkable change.  One was even selected under a party rule which weighted her vote by 20%.  Kelly Hoare daughter of Bob Brown (Labor's, not the Green), won preselection by 1.2 votes!  The 11 retirees were senior members of Caucus, fully 8 had served as Ministers and 3 of these Cabinet Ministers, Peter Baldwin, Peter Morris and Ralph Willis.

Factionally, the ground has continued shift under the independents who are barely hanging on.  Barry Jones' replacement is Julia Gillard (Left) and Peter Morris', Jill Hall (Left).  Nevertheless, Kelly Hoare remains staunchly independent and Cheryl Kernot claims to be independent though her ideological home is with the left, who tried very hard to find her a "real" seat in NSW.  In fact the last Labor incumbent for Dickson was Michael Lavarch (AWU) and Cheryl has an AWU minder on her staff.  The remainder are factional replacements, Michael Danby for Clyde Holding (Right), Craig Emerson for David Beddall (AWU), Julia Irwin for Ted Grace (Right), Tanya Plibersek for Peter Baldwin (Left), Bernie Ripoll for Les Scott (AWU) and Nicola Roxon for Ralph Willis (Right).

In the Senate Joe Ludwig heir to the Bill Ludwig AWU throne replaces Mal Colston (it now becomes clear why Colston was allowed to warm the seat for so long!), and Jan McLucas replaces Margaret Reynolds (Left).  While the gender may change the faction does not!

The same generally holds true for those who won seats from the Coalition.

Roxon's (Gellibrand) party background is impeccable.  She was an industrial lawyer with Maurice Blackburn and Co. the firm in which John Button was a senior partner, the famous Maurice Blackburn who modified the party's socialist objective in 1921.  Prior to that she was an industrial officer with the National Union of Workers (the old Storeman and Packers, more affectionately known as the "stackers and wackers") the former leader of which was Simon Crean.  A strong advocate of greater access to the legal system but makes the mistake of many lawyers, equating access to the law with justice.

Just across the electoral boundary lies a new colleague, Julia Gillard in Lalor another industrial lawyer, this time on the left of the party, a follower of Martin Ferguson and devotee of Joan Kirner.  She is joined by Tanya Plibersek a Senator George Campbell staffer who spent most of her first speech saying she was sorry, to the Eora aboriginal people on whose "stolen land" Sydney is built, and for good measure the "Stolen Generation".  Another left-winger is Jill Hall (Shortland) backed by the CFMEU and the Maritime Union whose preselection numbers were so strong she was unopposed.  She has been quick off the mark and chairs the Caucus committee on Government Service Delivery.  Finally, Julia Irwin a 32 year veteran of the party who worked for Members Dick Klugman, Ross Free as well as her predecessor Ted Grace, is a fan of the last of the "Labor Mates", Laurie Brereton and Leo McLeay.

Queensland Labor was not so adventurous, the only woman apart from McLucas was Kirsten Livermore another left lawyer, in Keith Wright's old seat of Capricornia.  The new-comer very quick off the mark is Dr Craig Emerson former tax specialist in the Commonwealth Treasury, staffer to Hawke and head of Environment under Goss.  He chairs the Caucus Living Standards and Development Committee, again a strong appointment.  He is close to Bill Ludwig and will catch up with if not overtake his more senior Queensland rivals Sciacca and Swan pretty quickly.

ADVERTISEMENT

Our Stolen History

What is the problem with Australian history?  Australian is one of the world's oldest democracies, with a record of continuous democratic governance few countries can equal.  We are a pioneer of democratic governance -- adult suffrage, votes for women, secret ballots, preferential voting.

Australia is a country which, via federation, created itself as a national entity through democratic processes, entirely without bloodshed.  Surely a powerful source of national pride.

Yet public pride in the Australian achievement is not a notable feature of Australian public life.  Why not?

Part of the problem is our very success.  As Greg Craven has pointed out, we have lacked a tyrant.  We have never had to fight domestic enemies for our independence and freedom in the process of creating a national democracy.  The process of self-government and democratisation flowed naturally, amicably and peacefully from the normal legal processes of British rule.

Eureka Stockade has far more symbolic importance than any real historical role.  It had almost nothing whatsoever to do with the processes of building self-government and democracy -- the processes of self-government in Victoria were not notably different from that of any of the other colonies.

A history without major violence is easily seen as boring history (it was certainly my view when studying History at Sydney University).  That there was violence on the frontier between those (both black and white) pushing the boundaries of European settlement and those resisting (all black) is certainly true, but compared to the bloodlettings of European, or even American, history, it is pretty minor stuff.  (It is pretty minor compared to even the Maori Wars of New Zealand:  Aboriginal Australians having lacked the cultural unity and organisational sophistication of the Maori).

It led to us having what is easily seen as a boring, mindless constitution.  A "deed of grant of powers" rather than a stirring national document.  The obvious contrast is with the United States.  The US is an ideocratic state, a society built around a set of ideas.  Profound and stirring ideas are built into its constitutional structure -- so much so that US social democrats have ended up calling themselves "liberals" in order to be seen as being within their revolutionary settlement.

What are the ideas in the Australian Constitution?  Well, some pretty powerful ones, actually.  One is that power is properly divided -- between Federal and State levels of government, between judiciary, executive and legislature, between the Houses of Parliament.  This is an idea that does not sit all that well with many people:  witness the strong centralism of many Federal politicians and journalists, the resistance to Senate independence, the belief that Parliament should be content to be an electoral college for the Executive, the tensions over judicial activism.  The unitary majoritarianism of Westminister still has a powerful pull in Australia -- not least in the ALP.  The greatest exemplar of that has been oh-so-very Irish republican Paul Keating.  He claimed to be a rejector of an "outdated" British heritage while his actions constantly showed himself to be in thrall to the worst part of it.

Another idea in our Constitution is that constitutional sovereignty ultimately resides in the people, as only they, through referenda, can change the words of the Constitution.

This idea is also widely resisted.  The resistance of the electorate to voting "yes" to amendments (only 8, out of 42 -- or less than a fifth -- have passed the hurdle of a majority of electors in a majority of States:  29, or almost 70%, failed to get a national majority) is widely deplored.  The feeling is that the Constitution should have been changed rather more often.  To view the referendum mechanism as an expression of popular sovereignty rather gets in the way of that line of argument.

Similarly, suggestions that the referendum mechanism be extended are regarded with horror in many quarters.  To be an advocated of citizen-initiated referenda (CIR) is to mark one out as a nutcake or crypto-fascist.  The asinine nature of this should be supremely obvious -- not merely because jurisdictions of such democratic seriousness as California and Switzerland use CIR, nor that it has proven itself (for example in Italy over divorce law) to be an very useful mechanism for resolving social issues, but because the referendum mechanism is how Australia federated in the first place.  Our nation was created out of referenda!  But this has no continuing resonance in our public life.

If we had more pride in our history, there would be a greater sense of where our nation came from, why, and the ideas embedded in our founding document.  Indeed, we would have far more understanding of, and respect for, the Constitution as the founding document of our nation.

Is the lack of a tyrant, and the lack of violence, sufficient explanation for this lack of public pride?

I would suggest there are other reasons for this cultural gap, for this break in the transmission of values and ideas.

One reason is the lack of any serious historical sense on the non-Labor side of politics.  The second is the very tribal sense of history of the ALP.  The third is the "progressivist" domination of the Australian academy.

That the non-Labor side of politics lacks any serious sense of history is obvious to any serious observer.  The constant institutional reformulation of the main non-Labor Party -- from Fusion-cum-Liberal (1910), to Nationalist (1917), to United Australia (1931) back to Liberal (1944) -- has not helped.  That the 1917 and 1931 reformulations resulted from the inflow of Labor emigres exacerbated this further.  The failure to make effective reference during the Whitlam years to, for example, the South Australian Labor Government, during the Scullin ALP Government, replacing a deceased Country Party Senator with a Labor Senator is an instance of this lack of a sense of the past and its uses.  The Liberal Party could not even manage to come out with a 50th Anniversary history in 1994.  Until recently, it could not be bothered to put up pictures of its Federal Leaders who did not become Prime Minister in the entrance foyer of its National office.  This lack of a sense of history is a very important reason for the Liberals sustained incompetence in cultural battles.  Having Peter McGauran -- a junior Country Party minister not noted for his interest in matters historical and intellectual -- as Minister for the Centenary of Federation does not exactly contradict this feeble tradition.

The tribal sense of history of the ALP also "gets in the way".  The ALP very much regards itself as the true guardian of Australian nationalism.  There is a major problem with this conceit -- its almost complete irrelevance to the Federating of Australia.  That the ALP had effectively nothing to do with the creation of the Constitution, with the founding document of Australia, means the Constitution is a constant problem for it.  Labor's antipathy to the Constitution is continuing and deep-seated (a majority, 25 out of 42, amendments have been proposed by ALP Governments, only one, Social Services in 1946, has succeeded) and surely can be traced directly the fact that it completely fails to support the ALP's sense of its own heroic history.

Actually, the notion of the ALP as the true guardian of Australian nationalism has all sorts of problems.  It has been in power federally only a third of the time since Federation.  The first Asian, woman and black members of the Federal Parliament all came from the non-Labor side of politics.  Australia's role as a pioneer of democratic governance essentially pre-dates the ALP.  The PM who said Australia "would fight to the last man and the last shilling" for Mother England was Labor (Fisher) as was the only PM to appoint a member of the Royal Family as Governor-General (Curtin).  It was the ALP, under the Sainted Curtin, who twice turned down Menzies' offer of a Government of National Unity during the Second World War (an offer that British Labor under Attlee had no problem accepting in the UK) -- Labor's antipathy to coalition government and sense of political advantage being stronger than any concern over national crisis.  In power during three successive national crises -- the First World War, the onset of the Depression and the second half of the Second World War -- the ALP proved unable to take the strain in the first two cases, splitting and losing office;  while it held together third time around, but it took the decency of Chifley and Curtin to do it, and the strain killed Curtin.

The "progressivist" dominance of Australian academia completes the trifecta for the loss of history.  Australian humanities have tended to be dominated by people who "prove" their own moral superiority by sneering at the society around them and its history.  The formal content of the sneers change (once upon the time it was Australia's bourgeois and capitalist nature, now it is castigated as colonialist, racist, patriarchal and homophobic) but the modus operandi doesn't.  Any sort of positive rendition of Australian history is just too gauche for words in such circles.  Such problems are magnified by the difficulties for a "progressivist" rendering of Australian history inherent in the non-Labor domination of Australia's federal creation and political history.

So, with historically gormless Liberals -- who will, on past record, be completely unable to use the immense cultural resource actual history provides them -- historically embarrassed Labor and an alienated academy, one can confidently predict our Federation celebration will be a flop.  Lots of black armbands, precious little intelligent celebration and a general public -- who, quite rationally, think Australia has lots going for it -- feeling somewhat at a loss.  Welcome to the next millennium.

ADVERTISEMENT