Time to reconsider Hugh Stretton's critique

June 18, 2026

“Australia has failed to embed research and innovation into its national identity… Countries that invest in research and development are investing directly in their future prosperity… Science, research and innovation have become politically important.”

These were the same mantras intoned by “Dawkins Reforms” apologists, aimed at critics of the 12/1987 Green Paper, who were said to be defending the “ivory tower establishment”, preventing Australia’s adjustment to the “new world order”. Ignored critics of the Dawkins reforms, like Hugh Stretton, considered the value of higher education to be under serious threat of a Government-induced commercialisation.

Carr’s article relies upon a latter-day upgrade of “anti-establishment”. His overview might be compared with the critique Stretton set forth in the 1980-90s, but Stretton’s critique of the Dawkins reforms focused upon Labor’s supervening neo-liberal ideological trust in markets, within which science and research would have to find their assigned place.

The article doesn’t refer to the contributions made by the Labor Party and Monash University to this historical decline of trust in public institutions and science. But back then both Labor Party and Monash were claiming to lead the way.

Revisiting Stretton’s critique of Dawkins might help us gain critical insight concerning public trust’s decline.