Dreamers and Schemers delivers a comprehensive overview of Australian political history from 1788 until the election of the Albanese Labor Government in May 2022.
The time scale necessitates a fairly high-level view and that has disadvantages. But it does have the advantage of revealing patterns in time. One of these patterns is the dreamer/schemer dichotomy or rather, symbiosis. The Dreamers include Barton, Deakin, Chifley and Whitlam. Schemers are too numerous to mention. Periods of rapid change were followed by periods of relative stability or even stagnation.
Another pattern is the relationship of crisis to reform in Australian politics. Federation followed the depression of the 1890s. The Chifley Government’s reconstruction agenda followed World War II. And the Hawke governments neo-liberal reforms followed a decline in our terms of trade. So it is, the pandemic and a newly assertive China has been followed by the election of a reform minded Labor government.
Bongiorno sees that what is distinctive about Australian politics. It’s the relationship between the collective as expressed in government and individual rights, is harnessed for the furtherance of individual rights. His conclusion is optimistic. Apropos the 2022 Federal election he writes ‘for a moment it seemed possible that the nation’s imaginative energies were not yet completely exhausted’.
Reviewed by Grant Hansen
OTHER TITLES BY THIS AUTHOR
The Eighties by Frank Bongiorno
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