Howard's End: a narrative memoir of political contrivance, neoconservative ideology and the Australian history curriculum

Abstract

In August 2006, Australia's conservative prime minister John Howard convened a history summit in Canberra. The purported goal of the summit was the framing of a nationally-acceptable curriculum in Australian history. However, as this article suggests, Howard's hidden intention was to use the summit as a device for introducing a narrowly traditionalist syllabus that would be personally pleasing to the prime minister. As it happened, Howard's plan encountered resistance from members of the history education community and, after several diversions and alarms, was discarded when the conservative coalition government was defeated in the general election of November 2007. The author was closely involved in these proceedings and this article constitutes a contextualisd memoir of events.

Keywords:

• curriculum politics
• history education
• Australia

Notes

 1. Taken from an uncorrected copy of Raphael Samuel's unpublished paper, which is in the author's possession. Samuel, an inspirational historian who taught at the trade union-connected Ruskin College, Oxford for most of his working life, left the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1956 and was instrumental in founding a successor political/intellectual movement known as the New Left. He remained a committed socialist until his death in December 1996 at the age of 61. Known to some as ‘Riffraff’ because of his fairly shambolic presentations, he enjoyed great personal support among his often ideologically quarrelsome colleagues who appreciated his enthusiasm and energy.

 2. The phrase ‘comfortable and relaxed’ was first used by John Howard in a 1996 accession interview (ABC TV, 5 October 1996) as follows: ‘I would like to see them [the Australian people] comfortable and relaxed about their history.’ A more detailed assessment of Howard's approach can be found in Errington and van Onselen's rather staid (2007) biography (van Onselen, an academic, is currently a ‘contributing editor’ at The Australian).

 3. Neoconservativism, in this article, is defined as a form of political belief that adheres to classically liberal non-intervention in economic and financial matters but, in an aggressive response to socialist collectivism and foreign non-democratic or anti-democratic political systems, is interventionist in foreign policy and in selected social matters, particularly in school education. For other, similar views, see Goldberg (2003) and Mandi (2004). In history education itself, neoconservatives are predominantly nationalistic in disposition and are generally in favour of highlighting the global benefits of a free market system, downplaying the significance of social history and stressing the value of European/US civilising influences. A characteristic episode in neoconservative interventionism in the US education system took place in the 1994–6 ‘History Wars’ documented in Nash, Crabtree and Dunn (1999). The late Rob Phillips's (1998) book covered similar UK territory.

 4. For more details of Howard's interest in history generally and in school history in particular prior to the period under review in this article see Taylor (2004). Between 65 and 70 per cent (approximately – it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction) of Australian students attend government schools.

 5. Several media outlets were accused of whipping up anti-Lebanese sentiment. Alan Jones, a controversial Sydney shock jock who had an on-air symbiotic relationship with Howard, was later found guilty of breaching the Australian Communications and Media Authority's Code of Conduct by broadcasting material ‘that was likely to encourage violence or brutality and to vilify people of Lebanese and Middle Eastern backgrounds on the basis of ethnicity’ (The Australian, 11 April 2007).

 6. A transcript is available at: http://australianpolitics.com/news/2006/01/06-01-25_howard.shtml (as at 14 August 2009). Howard and his speechwriter, John Kunkel, were probably unaware of the seventeenth-century Puritan origin of the phrase ‘root and branch’ – a reference to a small party that demanded the removal of bishops from the church.

 7. See ‘History back in schools’, The Australian, 5 July 2006, which commented: ‘If they [the states and territories] refuse [to accept the history curriculum] The Australian understands the government will consider making the teaching of Australian history a condition of its next schools’ funding agreement with the states.' There was strong speculation among informed observers (mainly non-Murdoch journalists) that The Australian had a pipeline to the PM's and to Julie Bishop's offices.

 8. An overview of the teaching and learning of Australian history in schools. Archived at: http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/policy_initiatives_reviews/key_issues/Australian_History/ (as at 14 August 2009). An edited transcript of the summit proceedings and a list of Summiteers can also be found at this site.

 9. Quadrant is a famously militant, Sydney-based neoconservative magazine. It played a key role in the Australian ‘History Wars’: see Macintyre and Clark (2004) and the last chapter of Taylor (2008).

10. Interestingly, from early 2006 to mid-2007 Melleuish published nine opinion editorial articles in The Australian, mainly on history education topics, clearly not his area of expertise.

11. A full list of the 23 participants and their biographical details may be found at: http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/policy_initiatives_reviews/key_issues/Austra lian_History/ (as at 14 August 2009). In summary, there were three teachers, ten academic historians, one curriculum official, one ex-politician, two conservative columnists, two Indigenous representatives, a conservative author who had written on multiculturalism, the secretary of DEST and two history educators. One of the history educators, Geoffrey Partington, will be familiar to UK history education specialists.

12. In Julie Bishop's pre-summit dinner speech (see her ministerial press release of 16 August 2006, ‘Forgetting our past, failing our future: the teaching of Australian history’), she also made the following highly significant comment: ‘History is not peace studies. History is not social justice awareness week. Or consciousness-raising about ecological sustainability. History is history, and shouldn't be a political science course by another name. This is a belief I know Bob Carr shares and his role in reinstating Australian history as a key subject in NSW provides a model for what I believe needs to happen on a national scale.’ History teachers in NSW protested against the inflexibility of the populist 1998 syllabus and in 2003 it was revised. Even the revised version is still unpopular with the NSW history teachers' subject association.

13. The teaching of Australian history in Australian schools: A normative view (Canberra). Archived at: http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/policy_initiatives_reviews/ key_issues/Australian_History/ (as at 14 August 2009).

14. Archived at: http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/policy_initiatives_reviews/key_issues/Australian_History/ (as at 14 August 2009).

15. His remarks may be found at: http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/policy_ initiatives_reviews/key_issues/Australian_History/ (as at 14 August 2009).

16. According to a reliable informant who was closely involved in the process.

17. The Rudd Labor government established a National Curriculum Board in 2008 which was morphed into the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority in 2009. See: http://www.acara.edu.au/default.asp

18. See Taylor (1981).