‘Liberal democracies must face the uncomfortable memories of our past’

WATCH: Delivering the Colin Tatz Oration, hosted by The Jewish Independent, Tanya Plibersek rejected the federal education minister’s push to delete contested memories from the school curriculum

LABOR FRONTBENCHER TANYA Plibersek says liberal democracies can and must face uncomfortable truths because an honest reckoning with the past “separates us from totalitarians – people who want to erase uncomfortable memories from public life”.

Delivering the annual Colin Tatz Memorial Oration, hosted by The Jewish Independent, in NSW Parliament House on Tuesday night, the shadow education minister likened a persistent critique of the national curriculum, spearheaded by the federal education minister, Alan Tudge, to an authoritarian-style deleting of the past.

Tudge says he doesn’t want students to leave school with “a hatred” of their country. The minister has argued Anzac Day should be “presented as the most sacred of all days in Australia” rather than “contested”.

In her speech, which she themed around “the essential role that history plays in our democracy”, Plibersek rejected Tudge’s campaign, arguing that honest history is the hallmark of free societies, and the foundation of all moral progress.

“It’s one of the things that separate us from totalitarians – people who want to erase uncomfortable memories from public life,” she said.

Plibersek said she is “an optimistic person by nature – and a patriot who loves her country deeply – but how can we study the bravery of Gallipoli without also admitting the British command got it wrong?”

Plibersek said in her speech: “History shows us where we have succeeded. But history also shows where we can improve as a nation. 

“No serious athlete, or business leader, or scientist thinks they can ignore their past performance and still become better. They do the opposite. They probe, they analyse; they look for points of weakness. They’re hungry for the truth, because that’s what helps them improve.

“Only totalitarian regimes whitewash their history. It’s totalitarians who delete the past. Who deny people the truth. They’re acting not out of strength, but insecurity. “That’s why China seeks silence about Tiananmen Square. It’s why ordinary Chinese people still don’t really know what happened in Beijing in 1989.”

The Colin Tatz Oration was inaugurated last year in memory of Professor Tatz, a founding member of the advisory board to The Jewish Independent, who passed away in 2019.

Professor Tatz was a distinguished Australian academic, scholar and public intellectual across broad race politics, genocide, the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, and racism in sport. He was the director of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

READ THE SPEECH IN FULL

Photo: Tanya Plibersek delivering the Colin Tatz Memorial Oration at NSW Parliament House on Tuesday night

All photos: Giselle Haber