Handbook

This course introduces students to the great controversies of Australian politics. It will give you the opportunity to understand the debates, the history, and to decide where you stand.

The course introduces the big debates through a historical approach. Most of the key divisions in Australian politics have evolved over many years.  Whether we are debating democracy, the beliefs of the major parties, economic equality, free markets, unions, race, multiculturalism or feminism, there is a long history. We start at Federation and we follow the debates through, watching how they evolve to the current day.  This allows you to follow the big personalities, the big issues and the big ideas through time.

The course also takes a theory approach, introducing you to the major schools of western political thought that have driven these debates.  It gives you an overview of the major schools of political theory and explains how they developed in response to practical politics. It allows you to compare these different schools of thought, explore the ideas in their real life context, and learn how the ideas played out in practice when reforms were rolled out in Australia.