Political Ideas in Australia from European Settlement to Federation

From the earliest European settlement, Australia’s political culture has been shaped by ideas about the role of government and the nature of a just society. Transportation was the penalty applied to political radicals, who brought with them ideas about democracy. Wealthy settlers like William Wentworth reached back to the Magna Carta and ideas of representative government. While in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the “Australian Settlement” gave rise to a much more extensive role for government than in Britain or its other colonies of the time. Learn about the ideas that fed Australia’s unique political culture

DELIVERY MODE

• Face-to-Face

SUGGESTED READING

• Hugh Collins, Political Ideology in Australia, Daedalus, Winter 1985, vol. 114, No. 1, pp.146-169
• Causer et al (eds), Jeremy Bentham and Australia, UCL Press, 2022, ISBN 978-1-78735-820-1
• Nicholas Barry, Australian Political Thought
• Peter Cochrane, Colonial Ambition: foundations of Australian Democracy, Melbourne University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-052285-3315

COURSE OUTLINE

• Radical ideas of democracy in the early years of settlement
• Representative and responsible government and the influence of the Magna Carta
• Bentham’s utilitarianism and its contribution to early colonial administration
• The “Australian settlement” and the late nineteenth century “New Liberalism” in Britain
• Ideas of federation and the role of Henry Parkes

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Understand the fundamental ideas that have shaped the development of Australia’s unique political culture
2. Understand the different contributions to Australia’s political culture made by liberal, conservative and socialist ideas
3. Reflect critically on these ideas and discuss their continuing relevance to our current political debates