AustLit

In response to a 'renewed interest in political and social questions, particularly by young people', a group of Melbourne University students founded the quarterly magazine Dissent in 1961. The group described themselves as 'democratic socialists', and, suspicious of political parties, aimed to give voice to those not strictly aligned with the Labor or Communist movements. Dissent has been seen as a secular version of the Catholic magazine Prospect (also produced at Melbourne University). Indeed, several former editors of Prospect were founding editors of Dissent.

Providing a forum for the discussion of social, cultural, economic and political issues, Dissent attracted a diverse group of contributors who have gone on to careers in government. These include John Button, Ralph Willis, Race Matthews, Gregory Clark, Alan Lloyd, Gareth Evans, David Scott, John Patterson and Kim Beazley. Also publishing book reviews, short stories, poetry and essays on the arts, Dissent attracted contributions from writers such as Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Bernard Smith, Harry Heseltine, Michael Wilding, Laurie Clancy and Barry Oakley. Special issues concentrated on subjects like education, women's issues and abortion, and Dissent overtly opposed the Australian and American involvement in Vietnam.

Dissent aimed to provide an alternative view to writers associated with other magazines (particularly Outlook and Twentieth Century) by representing the view of a younger generation to which the editors believed the Labor Party should appeal. In Writing in Hope and Fear, John McLaren argues that 'by taking the new culture as a matter for serious analysis, and incorporating it in political discourse, Dissent gave it a respectability that helped to make it a part of the cultural formation of a generation rather than a passing fashion of youth.'

Dissent was guided by a series of editors until 1974 when editorial duties were undertaken by an Editorial Board. Dissent continued with this arrangement for another four years, ceasing production at the end of 1978.

In the early 1950s several members of Melbourne University's Newman Society were regularly contributing articles to the Catholic Worker and other journals. Opposed to B. A. Santamaria's promotion of the Catholic Church as an unquestionable authority over the behaviour of Catholics, they urged a more analytical approach to the 'standard Catholic way'. When some of their contributions were rejected by established journals, the group founded Prospect, declaring in the first number their aim to foster 'Christian expression to critical, cultural and social problems and those crises that become focused in the universities'.

Edited by Paul Simpson, who was assisted by members of the Newman Society such as Vincent Buckley, the first number appeared in late 1958. Appearing quarterly, Prospect published the work of many prominent writers, including Buckley, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, James McAuley, A. D. Hope, Gwen Harwood, Evan Jones, Rodney Hall and R. A. Simpson. While many contributors were non-Christian and contributions weren't strictly religious, Prospect remained committed to the cause outlined in its first number.

By 1961, the transience of many members began to cause problems, and separate editorial groups in Sydney and Melbourne made communication difficult. Furthermore, Prospect lost a number of its members to the secular magazine Dissent. Following attacks on the journal from the left and right in 1962, Prospect began to lose the energy of its early numbers. In Cutting Green Hay, Vincent Buckley attributed the subsequent closure of the magazine to the mobility of editors, the lack of a permanent editor, a failure to divide labour and divided intentions. The last number of Prospect appeared in late 1964.