Education Myths

Myths are common currency in Australian politics: That John Howard, Paul Keating, Bbb Hawke – depending on your political allegiance – changed the definition of unemployment when it has been unchanged for 50 years; that the states never abolished the taxes they agreed to abolish in return for the GST when they abolished the four they agreed to years ago; that the 1967 referendum made Aborigines citizens, gave them the vote or got them counted in the census when it did none of these; that the Australian Constitution contains a section that allows the states to introduce racially discriminatory voting requirements when it contains a section that punishes any state that does so by reducing its seats in the House of Representatives; that Jim Killen won his seat in 1961 on Communist Party preferences when he won it on DLP preferences.