17 February 2009
An education in politics
The book discusses what Australia’s political parties stand for now and what they represented in the past.
RMIT Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Margaret Gardner AO, with Dr Andrew Scott at the launch of the book.
Dr Scott catches up with graduates Clare Phelan and Erica Dixon, who were politics students in his first year at RMIT.
A new textbook by RMIT University academic Dr Andrew Scott offers a comprehensive and lively introduction to modern Australian political issues and their historical origins.
Politics, Parties and Issues in Australia – An Introduction aims to give tertiary and secondary school students a broad understanding of the many ways politics touches our lives.
Dr Scott, who has taught politics and related subjects at RMIT since 2000, said the book was created as a resource for students and teachers but would appeal to anyone looking for an overview of Australian political issues.
“This book stems from my approach to teaching, which is based on the premise that politics is about the clash of different ideas and interests,” he said.
“The passions involved in politics should not be drained in an unrealistic quest for ‘objectivity’.
“Rather, the sharing of views should be encouraged in classrooms and tutorials, to open up questions and to provoke the expression and discussion of different ideas.”
The book was recently launched by RMIT Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Margaret Gardner AO, at a function attended by many of Dr Scott’s former students.
“Politics students at RMIT come from a broad range of programs, including social science, psychology, international studies, youth work, environment, journalism and legal studies,” Dr Scott said.
“This is a combination unique to the University, which reflects its distinctive history among Australian higher educational institutions.
“It’s made for lively and passionate debate in tutorials, as students bring all their diverse approaches to the issues at hand.”
Dr Scott said young people were often unfairly considered politically apathetic.
“In the book, I show how young people are in fact making a big difference in politics through their distinctive voting patterns,” he said.
“Young voters not only tend to support candidates for change, they are vital in mapping out the common ground between the new social movement of the environment and the ‘old’ labour movement.
“This is encapsulated in the widely-heard slogan that declares there will be ‘no jobs on a dead planet’.”
The book is Dr Scott’s third, with previous publications the result of his honours and doctoral research on the labour parties of Australia and Britain.
Indigenous issues are given considerable prominence in the book, including the importance of the national campaign to close the 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
The significance of the Apology to the Stolen Generations is also discussed, with consideration given to the question of whether the Federal Government should take the next step of adopting all the recommendations of the Bringing Them Home report, including reparations for the victims of the child removal policies.
Politics, Parties and Issues in Australia – An Introduction (Pearson Education Australia, $47.95) is available from the RMIT Bookshop.
