The history summit.(Letter to the editor)

SIR: I was interested to read John Hirst's response (April 2007) to Keith Windschuttle's Latham Lecture (January-February 2007). As a good historian Dr Hirst would want me to correct some significant errors in his letter. These are as follows.

In his list of three questions from the Summit's list of questions he cites one of them as follows: "Why were the Australian colonies so prosperous?" Now Dr Hirst would know that in the report of the Summit sub-committee the actual question was, "What was the basis of Australia's prosperity? How was the prosperity distributed?" What was a rather innocuous question has become a rather leading question designed to allow teachers to go on about the evils of capitalism.

Dr Hirst says that the questions are designed to remedy "the partial treatment of subjects now so common". He quotes the war question as an example. The sub-committee recommended that there be fourteen questions and that only eight of them needed to be treated. In fact it would be possible for a teacher to exclude Australia at war from what he or she taught. It would be possible for a teacher to exclude any political or economic history and to concentrate exclusively on questions regarding identity, race and gender.

Dr Hirst claims that his plan was introduced from the chair by him "without any prior consultation with anyone". However, on the night before the Summit, Dr Hirst approached me and told me that he had discussed my paper with a number ...