Religion, class and nation in contemporary Australian fiction

Writing on the interplay of class and religion in the formation of the Australian party system, Judith Brett (2002) draws attention to the tendency for Australian historians to valorise class-based explanations over any others. Brett questions the emphasis on class as the determining factor for political allegiance among Australians, and suggests that the role of religion has been largely ignored by historians writing in the last sixty years because of their bias in favour of a classbased explanation. It would seem that there is similar bias in literary criticism, with class-based assessments predominating over other approaches in Australia.