AustLit

'A little while ago a friend of mine shared an anecdote concerning her father when he was her age and attending the University of Sydney. In the retelling, he’s marching alongside a misaligned peer—a young politician—who objects to (then) recent cuts to education funding. The image is not unlike that of a scene written and directed by Shonda Rhimes (a truly dramatic TV-series concept that must be optioned immediately). The contingent press forward, bunched up together as they riot and pound the campus pavement, righteously projecting their voices outward. It’s a typical slice of Australian #stupol history and still resonates. At family dinners her father now shares a very different sentiment: ‘If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.’' (Introduction)