In NSW there are two statutory authorities which have responsibility for the design of syllabi and the award of secondary education certificates. The Secondary Schools Board, which administers the School Certificate, covers the years 7 to 10. The Board of Senior School Studies, which administers the Higher School Certificate, covers the years 11 to 12.
The chief virtue of Machine Politics is its revelations concerning hitherto difficult to obtain information on factions within the ALP and on trade union affiliations and party membership in each of the state and territorial branches.
Published shortly before the formation of the Social Democratic Party, Dr Owen’s book is important both as a diagnosis of the Labour Party and for the impressions he gives of the “Gang of Four”.
Members of the Labor Party who are not enamoured of the pidgin Marxist rhetoric that often passes for analysis among the Socialist Left would do well to read Susan Crosland’s biography of Anthony Crosland. It is a valuable introduction to the mind and character of her husband.
Alan Reid’s introduction to the re-issue of Warren Denning’s handsomely illustrated Caucus Crisis contains a revealing memoir of the author of the classic account of the Scullin government and the Great Depression.
Studies of the workings of the Labour Party usually concentrate on the workings of Labour Cabinets, the intellectual pretensions of its leaders and the ideological significance of Annual Conference decisions. For this reason most of the literature does not score the tunes to which the party is marching.
Kim Beazley in his Foreword to Michael Thwaite’s book Truth Will Out comments that the Petrov affair is in the memory of the political professionals rather than the public and argues that it was the performance of Dr Evatt rather than the Petrovs’ revelations that was decisive in shattering the ALP’s electoral standing in the 1950s.
Usually the reminiscences of veteran Communist Party of Australia (CPA) members hero worship the Party, report tit-bits of gossip, re-evaluate while conceding a few trifling errors in CPA policy or tactics over the years, so as to enhance the credibility of their story. Consequently such memoirs are boring, to be avoided except as a cure for insomnia.
“It is only because modern labourites and socialists have neglected their own history, and no longer read their theoretical classics, that these strains of liberty, industrial democracy, workers’ self-government, have been forgotten and their lessons for today neglected.”
Mr Santamaria is the most controversial and politically most influential Catholic layman in Australia’s history. To most ALP stalwarts Mr Santamaria is the political equivalent of what Professor Moriarty was to Sherlock Holmes.