Australian Policy and History
Connecting historical research to current-day policy issues
How our research drives national understanding
Australian Policy and History promotes historians as constructive participants in the public policy debate. We look beyond the academy, to connect with policymakers, the media and the public, and to consider the ways that our knowledge and expertise can contribute to the advancement of Australian society.
Our research areas
We believe that historical knowledge is crucial for providing context and understanding in relation to the many public policy challenges we face, including:
- democratic decay
- social cohesion
- national security
- foreign policy and defence
- economic inequality
- housing affordability
- climate crisis.
Turn research into positive impact
Do you want your research to contribute to the advancement of Australian society? Work alongside leading academics, and connect with policymakers and the public, to solve complex problems.
Our researchers
The Australian Policy and History is home to a network of distinguished researchers who promote historians as constructive participants in the public policy debate. The network is led by historians in the Deakin Centre for Contemporary Histories:
Dr Mia Martin Hobbs is an ARC DECRA fellow at Deakin University. She in an award-winning historian of war and its legacies, undertaking a transnational history with women and minority veterans from the War on Terror.
Dr Geraldine Fela is a Deakin University Postdoctoral Fellow at Deakin University. Her research traverses histories of gender and sexuality, labour, social movements and medicine. She is presently working on a social history of the Howard government.
Featured projects
We seek to promote historians as constructive participants in the public policy debate, emboldening them to look beyond the academy, to connect with policy makers, the media and the public, and to consider the ways that our knowledge and expertise can contribute to the advancement of Australian society.
Challenging Anzac: Stories that don't fit the legend
The Anzac legend has shaped Australia’s national identity for more than a century. Yet many experiences of war do not fit comfortably within this. In Challenging Anzac, leading historians explore some of these stories and reveal how episodes in Australia’s war history that unsettled the Anzac legend have been elided or adapted to ‘fit’ the legend. Edited by award-winning historians Mia Martin Hobbs, Carolyn Holbrook and Joan Beaumont, Challenging Anzac examines how the reality of warfare has always been at odds with mythic representation and considers why, despite this, the Anzac legend has survived.
Hear Director Mia Martin Hobbs on Conversations with Cornsey about the importance of bringing unheard veterans' voices into public debate on war.
Gold standard: the Hawke government 40 years on
Was the Hawke government ‘the gold standard’ for federal government in Australia? A stellar line-up of historians, social scientists, politicians and journalists sheds valuable new light on the policies, politics and personalities of the Hawke government and asks: What lessons can it offer in the art of reformist government? How do its legacies continue to shape Australian society?
Watch a recording from the Museum of Australian Democracy of this conference looking back on the Hawke government – one of the longest-serving and most transformative in Australian political history.
Contact us
We’d love to hear from you! For all general enquiries and submissions, please contact Dr Mia Martin Hobbs.
