George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Trood for his question and acknowledge the serious interest that he has displayed in this important issue for as long as he has been a member of the Senate and indeed before. Like Senator Trood, I am the parent of secondary school age children and like most Australian parents, I think, we share a concern at the evident decline in emphasis on literary studies in general and the study of Australian literature in particular in Australian schools. Too often, I am sorry to say, that decline has been driven by ideologically obsessed teachers unions and state education departments enslaved by postmodernism and corrupted by cultural relativism, which sneer at the notion that our greatest literature is a priceless heritage. The editorial writer of the Australian newspaper last Thursday I thought captured the problem very well—