The Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, has organised an Australian History Summit for August 17, 2006. Very few Australians would realise that this is just the latest episode in the federal political tampering with our Australian history. This summit has all the hallmarks of coalition re-writing of history from above that has already occurred in relation to the official history of State Aid to church schools in the last year. For information of this official History of State Aid in Australia from colonial times to the present see Press Releases 130 and 140 at  www.adogs.info/pr130.htm  and www.adogs.info/pr140.htm   *

Readers should first note that Julie Bishop is not aiming to maintain the integrity of Australian History as such. Her aim is the "strengthening the place and maintaining the integrity of Australian History in the school curriculum". The Coalition approach to this Summit and the official history of State Aid has absolutely nothing to do with scholarly integrity but everything to do with a guided, State approved process and outcome.

The Minister and her advisers have carefully accepted acceptable persons to carry out their task at both the Australian History summit and the official history of State Aid.

We have been informed by the Minister, Julie Bishop, through her News Release and newspaper articles, that she has chosen "the sensible centre of debate". Not surprisingly, this approach was endorsed by Jesuit trained Gerard Henderson in a newspaper article:

" A balanced group of people in the middle of the debate"

DOGS have been aware of this political and media trick since the 1960s. Often DOGS and Santamaria were excluded from debates on this very basis. It is a way to avoid many fundamental issues.

DOGS would not have chosen any of the twenty two selected invitees to Julie Bishop's Australian History Summit.

Another concern of the Minister and her advisers, when selecting her invitees to the History Summit, was their concern that there was "too much political bias" being taught in Australian History. Once again, this sentiment was endorsed by Gerard Henderson, when he declared that he was "concerned about the prevalence of the left wing interpretation of Australian History."

 Julie Bishop, and her right wing bedfellows should be more concerned about the wholesale writing out of key elements of Australian history, particularly since the early 1960s. But then, a lead balloon would float before the revelations available on this website appeared in an official history proclaimed from the top down.

The Minister declared that she is concerned about political correctness - what a joke. She is part and parcel of the political correctness machinery.

The following statement by Julie Bishop is political correctness writ large:

"History of our parliamentary democracy, the Rule of Law, and the Enlightenment, which were all aspects of our nation's past bequeathed to us as part of our European inheritance..."

DOGS note that our key democratic principles on which our society is based were not bequeathed by persons known as "Europeans" but basically, by non-Catholic English speaking persons from the British Isles, some of whom were descendants of those fleeing the religious wars of Europe. The peculiar Australian situation in the nineteenth century enabled the Chartists, the religious dissenters, the secularists and Christian socialists to have a far greater influence and impact in generating the Australian democratic solution to the class creed, and caste structures of the Old World than in the British Isles.

Where were the French, German, Spanish, Italian, Spanish, Polish institutions and values incorporated into Australia before 1900? Even as late as 1945, those in the English speaking world were fighting the fascism and Nazism along with their collaborators in Europe so that their democratic institutions could survive. And then through the " ratlines" some of the European Nazi and fascist collaborators ended up in Australia .

DOGS suspect, with good reason that Julie Bishop has a partisan view of Australian history She is peddling a lie and a gross distortion to appease the anti-British anti-Protestant dissenting elements  in Australian education, academia and the media. If Julie Bishop wants to indicate concern for the promotion of historical understanding in educational institutions, she should encourage students to ask  questions of their past rather than force their own politically correct  interpretation upon the next generation.

 Julie Bishop has either forgotten or never  learnt the lessons from authoritarian regimes like those in Russia where history was constantly re-written to suit the political climate to the constant bemusement and amusement of the Russian people themselves.

The Julie Bishop history summit is a sick joke!

*In relation to Pr 140, DOGS would appreciate any information which readers could provide us about the educational background of Professor R. Selleck.

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