Publisher's Synopsis
This book collects for the first time documents that disclose a stimulating tradition of Australian deliberation about politics and citizenship. Extracts are drawn from many genres through which ideas are promoted - speeches, journalism, books, pamphlets, parliamentary debates, party platforms and broadcasts, for instance. This collection shifts contemporary debate - away from preoccupations with culture and identity - to reassert the importance of the bargain that is at the heart of citizenship: what must I do for others? what am I entitled to demand? This is the fundamental bargain in politics: the point where we draw the line. What freedoms do we insist on? What are our reciprocal obligations? And who should share in these benefits? The way our predecessors resolved these questions produced the institutions we live with today. Listening attentively to their exchanges reminds us of the values that have underwritten Australian democratic institutions and public debate. They alert us to a cause of our current disillusion with politics - we have lost a sense of the relation between community aspirations and politics. Their debates remind us that in defining our citizenship, we say what we want our community to be. We must live together and the conversation about citizenship is about how we will live together. Since citizenship is a matter of politics (rather than of identity or culture), it must defended through conscious political settlements. This book shows us that, in pursuing such settlements, we can draw on a rich Australian heritage.
