Last week, when Kevin Donnelly addressed a small gathering in Sydney, he identified the essential ingredient that has been missing from the debate about how this country’s history is being taught in schools.

In his view, the great flaw in curriculum development has been the push to ignore what he describes as Australia’s patrimony.

Donnelly’s assessment will infuriate those who seem determined to rewrite this country’s history to appease woke sensibilities. But he knows what he is talking about.

He co-chaired a review of the national schools curriculum and spent much of his life teaching English. He is now a senior fellow at the Australian Catholic University’s PM Glynn Institute.

This is how he described the problem at a seminar organised by Western Heritage Australia:

“Along with the convicts and the marines, two books arrived with the First Fleet. One was Blackstone’s Laws of England and the other was the King James Bible,” he said.

“It was only because of that influence that we are as we are today.

“When we look at the curriculum we should be acknowledging and celebrating what I call our patrimony, rather than ignoring it,” he told that seminar.

It is hard to disagree.

The influence of those books helps explain why this country has not fallen prey to the same authoritarian urges that afflict large parts of the region to our north.

Australia, like all democracies, is not perfect. Yet with all our faults, this country remains a bastion for liberty and human rights.

Despite what some might believe, those rights and liberties did not originate with some United Nations treaty; nor are they the gift of some benevolent government.

Human rights in this country can be traced all the way back to Judaeo-Christian values – as outlined in the Bible that came ashore at Sydney Cove in 1788.

The second book that came ashore that day, Sir William Blackstone’s recently published treatise, outlined some of the key principles of the rule of law that were later encapsulated in A.V. Dicey’s Introduction to the Study of the Law of The Constitution.

Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England was cited by Dicey and remains one of the source documents for Dicey’s great bulwark against arbitrary rule.

Volume one of Blackstone’s four-volume treatise, published originally in 1765, is devoted entirely to people’s rights, and found its way not just to Sydney Cove but to pre-revolutionary America.

This is just part of the patrimony that Donnelly fears has been overlooked by those who are seeking to purge our history of key building blocks in our civic development.

If the treatment of civics and citizenship in the latest draft schools curriculum for NSW is any guide, Donnelly’s fears may be well founded.

This version of the draft curriculum, which was made public this week, has some admirable features, but not nearly enough to respond adequately to Donnelly’s critique.

For the first time, every school student in the nation’s most populous state will be taught aspects of civics.

They will all be taught about the democratic responsibilities and the role of parliament, the Constitution and the concept of equality before the law.

For the first time, it will also be compulsory to study the development of parliamentary democracy, the division of powers and the separation of powers.

That brings NSW closer to compliance with a 2003 national agreement that outlined the minimum areas of civics and citizenship that should be taught.

But some of these terms have been included in the curriculum without a matching requirement for measurable results.

That is the difference between a teacher explaining something, and requiring students to demonstrate they understand.

In primary school, only senior students will be told about the origins and features of this country’s democratic system of government.

In the history syllabus for high school there are no corresponding outcomes where students could explore why civic rights, democracy and the rule of law changed over time.

Yet specific outcomes will be required when students are taught about key events in Aboriginal history and aspects of their struggle for rights and freedoms.

Analysis of the draft curriculum by the Rule of Law Education Centre concludes that if this draft is put into effect, children will not be given a balanced perspective on the colonisation of this continent.

There is no mention of the role of the law, courts, religion or the Judaeo-Christian heritage in colonial times.

It will be compulsory for children to study the Aboriginal experience of colonisation but this, according to ROLEC, provides only a “single lens” perspective by focusing on the experiences of one group.

The education centre believes the curriculum should teach the historical truth, but this should include other aspects of the formation of Australia – such as the British heritage and the experience of migrants.

Instead of making it mandatory to focus on the Aboriginal experience of colonisation, the education centre has urged the curriculum authorities to broaden this so it focuses on the entire experience of colonisation.

By all means make Aboriginal history mandatory – but only as part of a broader course on civic development that explains how democracy and equality of citizenship triumphed by taking root in a former penal colony.

If the goal is to create a nation of critical thinkers, free from bias, all relevant perspectives should be taught.