Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the really great joys of my life has been a love of history. I often think that, no matter the horrors of politics or the disagreeable days that we all live through, we can all find solace in or indeed learn lessons from history. Even in really dark times, one can draw upon Sir Winston Churchill, crouching in his study as the Nazis bombed London in 1940. We can read of the gossip about and the sexual antics of the rich and famous in Gore Vidal’s memoirs. I like that as well. We can draw courage from reading about Sir Edmund Hillary scaling Mount Everest and from reading the story of the Anzacs.

I was just speaking to Senator Hill before. He is a man who understands history. He said, ‘Brett, in politics, too, we learn from history. History gives us a sense of proportion and a sense of perspective.’ I think many of us think that no-one has ever experienced the woes and sometimes difficult days we have in politics, but the Greeks and the Romans showed that indeed they did, and we share their experiences.

When I was a kid, I was much more interested, I have to admit, in sport and in adventurers. I used to read about Sir Ernest Shackleton and his great memoir South, about Sir Edmund Hillary and about the cricketers. In more recent times, I have been more inspired perhaps by thinkers and scientists, humanitarians, and, I admit, sometimes politicians and statesmen. Perhaps we call statesmen politicians who have got over politics. One thing that never changes is that when we look back at history we see ourselves. We look at the distant mirror, and what comes back is the human condition. Whatever changes, that never does.

To be honest, one of the disappointments I have is that when I talk to schoolkids in Queensland—I am sure it is the same throughout the country—most children at primary school but particularly at high school do not share my love of history. They think history is boring. They think that it has nothing to do with their lives, that history is about dead white men and that it is not really relevant. If I am to test them on the history of the 20th century—the bloodiest century in the history of mankind—and ask them about World War I, the Second World War and the Cold War, many will say, ‘Brett, I’m not interested in that. That didn’t happen in my lifetime’—as if to say, ‘It doesn’t apply to me.’ No-one who is cool and ‘with it’ would know about things like that, would they? No-one who is truly modern would spare a thought about Mao Tse-tung.

The other day I did take interest and, indeed, some delight in the Prime Minister’s remarks about the teaching of history in his speech to the National Press Club on 25 January. The Prime Minister reminded us that fewer than one in four Australian secondary students takes a history subject, and even that history, he argued, ‘has succumbed to a postmodern culture of relativism where any objective record of achievement is questioned or repudiated’. As senators know—as you know, Mr Acting Deputy President Marshall, as my colleagues opposite know, as my friends on this side know—I have spoken so often in this chamber about my view that the greatest failing of the left in the 20th century was to largely fall for the great lie of moral equivalence; in other words, that all political systems are somehow equal and that they are all legitimate reflections of different cultures and different political cultures. That is why I always, when I go to a school and I see Ho Chi Minh, freedom fighter, and George Washington, freedom fighter, equated, I cringe. That worries me.

Secondly, the Prime Minister argued:

In the end, young people are at risk of being disinherited from their community if that community lacks the courage and confidence to teach its history.

That assessment, of course, is quite right. What is important is to attach our children to the community, to their country, to their culture and, indeed, to this civilisation. The great Anglo-American historian Professor Simon Schama—many of you will know of Professor Schama—wrote:

History is written not to revere the dead but to inspire the living. It is part of our cultural bloodstream of who we are. And it tells us to let go of the past even as we honour it, to lament what ought to be lamented and to celebrate what should be celebrated.

In a way, history, if it is taught well, is exciting and is made relevant, can far better attach children to their communities. With many of the problems that face Australian life today throughout the country, all Australians of whatever background would be better served by better history.

I want to briefly touch upon what I see as a concern—that is, while I agree with the Prime Minister that we should revamp and revitalise history teaching in high schools and, indeed, in primary schools, I am worried about who teaches the history teachers. Of course, that happens at universities. The Senate is aware of my concern with often left-wing bias at universities. I had a friend the other day who sent me an email that accurately describes the depth of the problem that we face in trying to obtain a history in this country of our failures, sure, but also of our achievements—the great landmark achievements that this country has made over the last 200 years, which is now, of course, one of the most successful democracies on earth.

A conference entitled ‘Relaxed and Comfortable? Challenging John Howard’s Australia’ is held, the email says, to mark the 10th anniversary of the election of the Howard government to office in 1996. Conference panels will seek to address the following themes: ‘Re-thinking history? How have Howard’s and his government’s uses and misuses of history strengthened their politics? How can Left/radical histories inform our present impasse? Should we rethink historical symbols and languages in order to combat Howard’s victories? If so, how?’ Other conference sessions include: ‘What is the place of the contemporary Labor Party in the struggle against Howard?’ And, finally: ‘Is there life after Howard(ism)?’ That is being held under the auspices, I understand, of the University of Melbourne.

My concern is that while we talk about all sorts of diversity in universities—cultural diversity, religious diversity, gender diversity and so on—we do not talk about political or ideological diversity. You can be whatever you like, as long as you are left wing. There is little pluralist debate in universities; certainly the orthodoxy is Left. As that affects our history teaching, particularly in departments of humanities and social sciences, what do we do about it? How can we be assured that those departments will teach well the history teachers that teach our children history?

I think we have to do several things. We have to ensure that left-wing bias is not entrenched in the hiring and firing of staff, in the grading of students, in the reading lists and curricula, and in the selection of speakers on campus. We also have to ensure that the university administration remains neutral on substantive disagreements that divide researchers. This is a terribly difficult topic.

In the United States, 21 state legislatures have before them legislation which they describe as an ‘academic bill of rights’. It has already been passed in several states. That academic bill of rights seeks to ensure several things. It seeks to ensure that academics are hired, fired, promoted and granted tenure on the basis of their competence. No-one should be hired, fired, promoted or granted tenure on the basis of their political or religious beliefs. It seeks to ensure that students should be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines that they study—not on the basis of their political or religious beliefs. It seeks to ensure that curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should reflect the broad spectrum of significant scholarly viewpoints.

I do not think that this is necessarily about imposing legislative schemes on universities. I am hoping, however, that universities can be persuaded to adopt diversity in politics, as they have in other areas. In other words, I am hoping that they can be encouraged to do the right thing and to follow their charter of free intellectual inquiry. That will involve encouraging universities to review their student rights and campus grievance procedures to ensure that intellectual and political diversity is explicitly recognised, protected and adequately publicised to students. I know that some universities do that already, and they do it well. Others do not do it quite so well.

I do not want physics professors to be able to denounce the Howard government in a course on quantum mechanics. I think that an academic bill of rights for Australia is long overdue and it would better our education system, particularly history education. If we are serious about revitalising and revamping history, we should start at the top: the universities that teach the history teachers.