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oversimplified and shallow analysis of the syllabus, intended for a popular audience, Bolt’s
main concern over the syllabus is the left-wing ideologies that present overtly in the syllabus,
citing examples such as “…students in Year One and Two are already being blooded in the
war against sexism, being told to study “perceptions of gender roles in various settings”,
“equality of opportunity” and “stereotypes related to work roles” (2000, n.p., emphasis in
original). In his commentary, Bolt criticises and blames the Beattie Labor government for the
syllabus, writing:
…the Beattie Government’s education experts have launched the most radical
attempt in Australia to indoctrinate children in key Left-wing-values.
Or, as the syllabus itself puts is, teachers much teach the “key values of
democratic process, social justice, ecological and economic sustainability and
peace.”
Teach the good opinions. And don’t fuss too much about facts. (2000, n.p.)
The Queensland response to Bolt’s article sustained attention on this curriculum issue, a
significant point given that school topics are usually included in media reports as one topic
issues. On September 16, 2000 The Courier Mail published a response, written by leading
history educators in Queensland universities, who, in acknowledging the controversy
surrounding the SOSE syllabus, offered an alternative perspective to the one that had become
publicly dominant. Hoepper et al., while considering debates over curriculum not negative in
essence, wrote “...debates, when rigorous, informed and balanced, are valuable” (2000, p.
19), but noted that the multiple perspectives which had been forming on the merits of the
SOSE syllabus were focused on three main issues of the curriculum (which they claim had
become intertwined) that had attracted particularly high levels of criticisms and confusion:
the place of history and geography in schools; the need for rigor in the curriculum; and
developing understandings of the purposes of education.
Bolt maintained his criticisms of the SOSE syllabus and other areas of the school curriculum
he believed to be linked with the ongoing history/culture wars throughout the time period to
2007. His views were buoyed perhaps in part by then-Prime Minister John Howard’s
conservative approach to education and ‘three-cheers’ view of Australian history, and
enjoying popularity due in part to the dominant discourses of conservatism, supported by
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