The Dawkins revolution: 25 years on

Dawkins took on his critics and sought to overwhem them and out-manoeuvre them.

Dawkins was in a fight that he could have easily lost.

The demands of that fight put a lot of pressure on his staff and his departmental officers, as well as himself.

Political reform is not for the faint hearted. It is not a parlour game.

Dawkins chose to play the game hard.

He was determined to win the argument and get the biggest changes he could.

He would never have been content with 'canniness'.

Dawkins always knew, perhaps intuited, that big changes have the best chance of lasting the distance.

Too often reforms like these get captured by the internal stakeholders, those with most at stake in an immediate sense.

The Dawkins revolution was not about universities, it was about delivering economic and social benefits from a bigger higher education sector to the Australian community.

This approach helped Dawkins win the political argument, but it did not endear him to many people in the higher education sector.

But now it is 25 years later, and about 8 ministers from both sides of politics have succeeded Dawkins as higher education minister.