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Root and branch renewal of history speech. One response to the debates that developed in the
days and weeks following Howard’s Australian Day Address was:
McKenna accuses the Prime Minister of seeking a “comfort history...packaged,
devoid of a critical eye and without any capacity to threaten national myths” as part
of an “attempt to nail the national creed to the door at a time of national anxiety over
cultural difference”. “This is the last thing that will attract young Australians to
studying Australian history,” he says. (Hope, 2006, p. 27)
The speech garnered a significant amount of public attention with commentators levering
from this speech examples of state-based curricula seen as lacking intellectual rigor.
Donnelly, in agreement with John Howard of the state of History curricula in Australia,
asserted that History teaching has been in decline since the 1970s, due to the view that
“...left-wing academics, education bureaucracies and professional associations have
embarked on the long march through the institutions to overthrow more conservative
approaches to education” (Donnelly, 2006e, n.p.). Drawing a sensationalised connection
between these academics and Mao’s long march is then further reinforced by Donnelly’s
linking of the SOSE and History curriculums to Holocaust denial stating that due to the
alleged view “...that different versions of the past are of equal value...allows revisionist
historians to judge past actions in terms of what is now considered politically correct”
(Donnelly, 2006e, n.p.). Unfortunately any potential constructive contribution to the debate of
the intellectual values of the SOSE and History curriculums and the inclusion of Australian
history content (both very important topics) is lost by sensationalist claims such as “taken to
its logical conclusion” (Donnelly, 2006e, n.p.) topics such as Holocaust denial will be taught
in Australian classrooms.
In an almost rare praise of teachers, Queensland History education academic, Deborah
Henderson responded in a letter to the Editor to The Courier Mail writing,
Howard needs to sit in a history classroom. There he would observe young
Australians not only engaged in rigorous intellectual work but also learning more
about the processes of causation, continuity and change that have shaped their nation
and world. He would see students posing questions, weighing up evidence, making
decisions and debating points of view. Then he might realise why the skills of
historical inquiry are such valuable life skills. If he spent time in the classroom,
Howard might also note the levels of empathy and understanding students develop
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