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Saturday, 1 November 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Having been Leader of the Opposition for 23 years Labour Party Leader Whitlam became Prime Minister in December 1972. He survived just three years. He was unceremoniously thrown out of office by the Governor General – the first time a Prime Minister was thrown out in that fashion in Australia.
After his death at the age of 98 years, the media – both print and electronic – gave him due credit on his achievements while exposing his failures. ‘Hero and Villain’ is how ‘The Australian’ in its weekend edition carried a feature on ‘The Whitlam Legacy’. Among other headlines used were: ‘Martyr for a moment, hero for a lifetime’; ‘The man who reached for the sky’; ‘A truly remarkable career’.
The articles highlighted the fact that the Whitlam Government brought about a vast range of reforms in the 1,071 days it held office between 5 December 1972 and 11 November 1975. A record number of bills were enacted and change swept through the nation. In the first year alone, 203 bills were passed – more legislation than any other federal government had passed
in a single year.
An online exhibition gave the viewers a chance to explore some of the achievements and reforms enacted by Whitlam.
One newspaper summed up the changes thus:
In the education sector, university fees were abolished and needs-based funding for government schools was brought in.
The health system was forever changed, with the introduction of Medibank, now known as Medicare.
The government established Legal Aid, created a national Family Court, and brought in the world’s first no-fault divorce procedures.
The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 and welfare payments were introduced to support mothers and the homeless.
The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 ratified the UN convention. The Aboriginal Land Rights Act passed, and the prime minister officially handed over the title deeds of traditional lands in the Northern Territory to the Gurundji people at Wattie Creek.
In the arts, the construction of the National Gallery of Australia was launched.
A record price of $1.3 million was paid for a painting (Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles) – the highest price paid for a piece of modern art. He established both the Australian Film Commission and the Australia Council.
Whitlam was the first prime minister to visit communist China, resuming relations after 24 years of diplomatic disengagement. He travelled widely, visiting Indonesia, India, Japan, the USSR, North America and Europe. He changed Australia’s stance on apartheid South Africa at the United Nations, and banned that country’s sporting teams from touring.
It also commented on the downside where the Whitlam Government was not spared from criticism and scandal. While a record number of bills passed the Parliament, 93 were knocked back by a hostile Senate.
The article said: “The Labour party won a double-dissolution election in 1974 but there was heavy criticism for its handling of the economy. The Central Government spending surged, wages exploded, industrial disputes escalated, inflation soared, and unemployment rose. The Government cut tariffs by 25% and boosted the Australian dollar by 25% against the US greenback.
“Money was at the centre of the scandal which eventually led to the Whitlam Government’s dramatic downfall. The beginnings of the ‘Loans Affair’, as it became known, came in late 1974 when senior ministers in the Government considered circumventing the Loans Council to raise US$ 4 billion from the oil-rich nations of the Middle East.
“A London-based intermediary was engaged, Tirath Khemlani, who promised to secure the money from OPEC sources. Treasury officials opposed the deal but, in any case, Mr. Khemlani never followed through with the money and the plan was officially abandoned.
“The ‘Loans Affair’ gave Opposition Leader Malcolm Fraser justification to block the budget bills in the Senate, and in October 1975, without supply, Parliament entered its worst stage of political deadlock. The Opposition hoped to force Mr. Whitlam into calling an election, but he refused. Instead, on Remembrance Day – November 11 – the deadlock was broken in an explosive move by then Governor-General Sir John Kerr.
“For the first, and so far only, time in Australian history, the Head of State used his Constitutional powers to dismiss the government of the day. With a simple stroke of the Governor-General’s pen, Gough Whitlam was no longer prime minister. Malcolm Fraser was appointed caretaker PM while the country reeled from the episode – now known simply as ‘the Dismissal’.
“Standing on the steps of Parliament House, the deposed leader made his now famous declaration: “Well may we say ‘God save the Queen’ – because nothing will save the Governor-General”. For Mr. Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser would go down in Australian history as ‘Kerr’s cur’.
“The Governor-General’s stunning move triggered angry public debate. Gough Whitlam maintained to the end that the crisis was political rather than constitutional, and could have been resolved, through political negotiation, in his Government’s favour.
“But a double-dissolution election a month later resoundingly confirmed Malcolm Fraser as prime minister and ended three years of extraordinary transformation under Whitlam’s Labour Government.”
