New books by George Megalogenis and Paul Strangio consider 21st century Australia: a time of rapid social change with many politicians stuck ‘in a white-bloke past’.
Articles on Australian political history
Displaying 1 - 20 of 51 articles
The Twilight of Exceptionalism is a story of problems unsolved and potential unfulfilled.
The job of leading the country has undoubtedly grown more challenging in the past quarter century. But much of that has been brought on by the leaders themselves.
The federal Liberal Party has not had a leader from Victoria since 1990. It says a lot about its electoral slide and its shift to the right.
Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ has raised questions about whether it is intended as an alternative UN. Australia should be wary of turning its back on the UN now.
Improving productivity – producing more with less – has been the focus of many Australian governments since federation.
Dorinda Cox has left the Greens to join Labor. She is the latest in a long line of politicians elected under one party banner but serving under another.
It’s not in the Constitution, but convention has always held that a prime minister should be drawn from the House of Representatives rather than the Senate.
If they want to ever win government again, the Liberals will need to look at party and policy reform – and widen their appeal to new parts of the electorate.
From handling town hall hecklers to swaying voters through podcasts and online algorithms, Australian election campaigns have transformed in recent generations.
Gaffes are littered throughout Australia political history, some with more serious consequences than others. They all shape our politics, for better and worse.
Laws governing how the records of Australia’s political past are kept need to be overhauled.
Politicians often wheel out the phrase, but what does it really mean? We examined newspaper articles from before Federation to track how it was used.
Hundreds of Australians wrote to Jackie Kennedy after her husband was killed. The letters paint a revealing portrait of who we were and who we wanted to be.
For over 100 years, the Victorian school curriculum has failed to give generations of students the chance to learn about Indigenous political movements.
It is notoriously difficult for referendums to succeed in Australia – but there are lessons from those that have gone before about how to improve their chances.
In the US, presidents can serve a maximum of two terms or eight years. Should a limit be placed on political leaders here?
In years gone by, former prime ministers were often trusted confidants to their successors. Not so these days, when the trend has been for former leaders to make a swift exist from the parliament.
Despite all the arguments flying around the Voice offers one simple thing: a long overdue way for Indigenous consensuses to develop and find their rightful place in national politics.
These histories remind us how long First Nations people have waited for political recognition in this country – and that, compared to other former colonial sites, Australia is the exception, not the rule.
Top contributors
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Director, Vice-Chancellor's Centre of Public Ideas (CoPI) and Donald Horne Professor of History and Public Ideas, University of Canberra
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Emeritus Professor of Politics, Monash University
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Lecturer in Australian Political Studies, University of Canberra
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Senior Lecturer in History, Australian Catholic University
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Professor Emerita in Constitutional Law, University of Sydney
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Professor, Canberra School of Government, University of Canberra
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Associate Professor of History, UNSW
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Lecturer, Politics and International Relations, Australian Catholic University
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Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Monash University
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Associate Professor School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University
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Professorial Fellow in History, The University of Melbourne
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PhD Candidate, UNSW
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Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Queensland, The University of Queensland
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Senior research fellow, University of Technology Sydney
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Associate Professor of History, CQUniversity Australia