Ozymandias in Oz

SS: What happened next?

EB: My team organised a dig. It was easy at first, just removing the sand. But then we hit a hard layer that consisted of shredded election pamphlets.

SS: Was this a valuable finding?

EB: I think so. Every school child knows about Shakespeare, Shelley and Beethoven; we are all aware of The Godfather, Picasso and The Beatles and everyone knows Plato, Aristotle and the Bible, but who would have guessed that Australia was once home to the world's greatest treasurer? Did you know that, back in the early 21st century, Australia had an education revolution?

SS: Were there problems deciphering these documents?

EB: Initially, yes. For example, consider this extract found in the first weeks of digging: "Australia must be repositioned for growth, with a re-interfacing of the digital superhighway so that our country is at the cutting edge of the knowledge-based post-industrial paradigm. Academics in the research space need to push the envelope and start to think outside of the circle, square and box. Academic research should aim to make Australia an innovative, seamless, borderless, world-class, business-facing country going forward."

SS: What does that mean?

EB: We're still working on it.

SS: What happened next?

EB: It took a while but we finally broke through the pamphlet barrier to find a layer of political speeches, Hansard extracts and thousands of pages of legislation - everything from tax codes, superannuation and the incomprehensible output of a long-forgotten agency called TEQSA. One folder contained something called university compacts - pages and pages of meaningless drivel. It would be hard to imagine a more depressing pile of sludge. It is fortunate that no one today remembers any of it.

SS: Is this when you made your discovery?

EB: Yes. Packed in among the flotsam and jetsam was an interview given by an obscure parliamentary backbencher called Jamie Briggs in which he denounced research in the arts and humanities as "wasteful". In his remarks, he sneered at philosophy, frowned on history and wrinkled his lip at anthropology. He assessed research projects by their titles and rejected any that did not appear to lead to "practical" economic outcomes that increased gross domestic product.