Young people know too little about how our democracy works, and we fail to teach democracy to immigrants.

According to the Australian Historical Association submission to the Inquiry into Civics, ‘We are not producing students with a good understanding of our democratic system.’ The Chinese Australian Forum said that according to a Lowy Institute survey ‘only 36 per cent of Chinese Australians said democracy was preferable to any other kind of government, in comparison, 71 per cent of the Australian population preferred democracy…’ This increased to 48 per cent in 2022.

The story of Australian government ‘by and of the people’ began in the 1850s when our parliaments liberalised British parliamentary traditions. Democracy began peacefully, not by a horrifying civil war or revolution which pitted brother against brother. We were modest in ambition, with little attempt to create grand philosophical schemes for rebuilding a world that throws off such things.

The telling of our story is now usually criticism, even merciless criticism, or unenthusiastic, and unattractive. The resulting political controversy alienated people from Australian history.

History enrolments are falling and faculties closing. Perhaps we should be allowed the occasional triumph… Other countries have them.

The Historical Association says that there is now a need for the Commonwealth to develop ‘a compelling story of Australian Democracy’.

The curriculum taught in our schools is an obvious place to start. An independent curriculum authority (ACARA) develops draft curriculums, and these are approved by the Government Education Minister’s meetings.

But Sarah Henderson, the Federal Shadow Minister, said on February 17 that the regulator was unable to provide her with a complete hard copy of the current curriculum so that it could be understood. It must be accessed instead on the web in a complicated series of cascading hyperlinked web pages. Senator Don Farrell, Special Minister of State, set up the Inquiry into Civics in March, 2024, a good idea.

How Australian Democracy Works, edited by Amanda Dunn, may help develop a ‘compelling story’. In 29 chapters, we learn of the historical origins and nature of Australia’s democratic structure; how people vote and laws are made; how political parties formed and operate; ‘right-wing, left-wing, and woke’ (Sean Scalmer); how the law functions and much else.

Ms Dunn tells us that the book comes from our ‘intense debate about the Indigenous Voice’ and the lack of knowledge about our Constitution made apparent by that debate resulting from ‘a failure of civic education at school, perhaps…’ She does not say that better civics education would have led to the success of the Voice referendum. It would not have.

The Voice to Parliament referendum was heavily defeated, 60.06 per cent to 39.94 per cent of voters.

There are chapters on the ‘climate crisis,’ ‘first nations people’s rights’, the ‘long march’ to women’s equality, and how ‘demography is used for political gain’. For use in schools or elsewhere they would need balancing by ‘the other side’ of the arguments, for example the successful ‘No’ case for the Voice.

A range of other matters would be included in what are described as the ‘key challenges facing our democracy’. We need to answer the economic questions as well: ‘Who will make my family prosperous?’

This may be the main question asked by voters in the 2025 federal election. How the Government or Opposition answer may determine who forms government.

There is however no chapter about where our prosperity comes from, the economy, and how it is enabled or hindered by government.

‘Neo-liberalism’ led to ‘largely resilient living standards’ is the conclusion in the opening chapter by James Walter in passing, along with ‘a lucrative trade relationship with China’. However, he deals with a range of issues including the history of Australian democracy. He is critical of the colonists for not understanding the full nature of Aboriginal society, immediately. They hardly understood their own society. They were early modern people but did not, for example, record Aboriginal languages for others to learn.

There is an interesting chapter on ‘inequality’ and how Australia redistributes wealth by Peter Whiteford. But nothing on where the ‘wealth’ comes from so that it can be redistributed. That is Gough Whitlam’s black box of the economy ‘doing something’ while his fovernment introduces social reforms such as ‘no fault’ divorce. The next ALP government, that of Hawke and Keating, deliberately focused on the economy. Lessons had been learnt.

Nobel Prize winners Acemoglu and Robinson in Why Nations Fail discuss how liberal democratic government promotes wealth, and how the alternative, such as government by organised crime, does not. Perhaps the specifically Australian experience of this, with its problems and successes, would have been a useful series of chapters.

A particular question is how governments 1983-2006 achieved the ‘economic reform’ made currently impossible by politics. I suspect we cannot just demand the same policy changes again. New means of addressing growth may be reforming our duplicative and byzantine procedures for approving the new mining which could give us so much extra wealth.

These byzantine procedures regularly provide colourful media stories of absurd results.

State governments and parliaments are not discussed, but were for a time more influential perhaps than the federal government. Before Federation, there were self-governing colonies, with one man one vote and the pastoral and mining industries were built through hard work.

These are things that young people and those coming to our country to settle should learn about. But then the book might have been of an impossible length. Perhaps a second volume could be developed.

It is understandable that issues which we spend so much political debate on, such as consistently failing attempts to alter the Constitution should be discussed in at least two of 29 chapters. An obvious alternative view is why we spend so much time in ‘intense debate’ on proposed changes that were likely or certainly never going to succeed on the book’s own conclusions?

The story of Australian democracy is a positive one and can only help the social cohesion we have discovered we now need.

Reg Hamilton, Adjunct Professor, School of Business and Law, Central Queensland University