Not Just For This Life: Gough Whitlam Remembered

CONDOLENCES

TRANSFORMATION

INTRODUCTION BY LAURIE OAKES

Faced with concern about what one party official termed ‘the confusion of incessant decision-making’ in his early months as prime minister, Gough Whitlam told an ALP National Executive meeting: ‘I am not going to leave behind a society which is not demonstrably different from the one we inherited.’ He meant it, and he had no truck with those who argued that he should hasten slowly. It was almost as though he knew his government would have only a limited term and he was determined to accomplish as much as possible in the time available.

What happened between 1972 and 1975 was far more than proof of Paul Keating’s dictum that ‘if you change the government, you change the country’. Australia was transformed, and vastly for the better. This brief period of remarkably creative politics produced profound and lasting reforms that could not have been so broadly conceived or so firmly implemented by a lesser man. The list is long, ranging from the introduction of the most civilised and sensible divorce laws in the world to legislation against restrictive trade practices, from a fundamental change in Federal-State financial relations that saw money poured into education and health, to a coming of age of Australia’s foreign policy.

Much of what Whitlam accomplished had been heralded in his earliest speeches after election to parliament. Two decades before becoming Prime Minister he was lecturing the House on the need for Canberra to play a greater role in such State activities as hospitals, schools, housing, power, surface transport, soil and water conservation. I remember as a young journalist being ear-bashed by him over a cup of tea about section 96 of the Constitution. That is the section that says the Federal Government ‘may grant financial assistance to any State on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit’. Whitlam saw how this could allow the Federal Government, through ‘tied’ grants, to determine priorities and impose policies in fields over which it technically had no constitutional power.

His determination to achieve a more independent approach to international affairs also emerged early. When I found myself in the small press party accompanying then Opposition Leader Whitlam on his historic 1971 visit to China, I researched a speech he had given as a relatively new backbencher in 1954, calling for the recognition of the Communist Government in Beijing. Just 20 days after the 1972 election he brought that about, announcing Australia and the People’s Republic of China had reached agreement on mutual recognition and the establishment of diplomatic relations. It was the most dramatic example of what Whitlam described, in a speech in Washington a few months later, as Australia trying to ‘break out of a kind of ideological isolationism which has limited the conduct of our affairs in the past’.

Whitlam did not last long as Prime Minister, but the changes he brought about were built to last. Australia, when he left the Lodge, was a very different country from the one that existed when he took office.

Political journalist Laurie Oakes has worked in the Canberra Press Gallery since 1969, is the winner of several Walkley Awards and was inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame for services to television journalism in 2011.

In Australian politics there is now a dividing line. You can carbon date the dividing line at 1972: pre-Whitlam and post-Whitlam.

Wayne Swan, Member for Lilley

It may well be one of the great defining qualities of great political leadership to unchain a society from its past. That in its essence epitomises Whitlam’s greatness.

Kim Carr, Senator for Victoria

TONY ABBOTT

MEMBER FOR WARRINGAH (NSW) • PRIME MINISTER • LIBERAL • B. 4.11.57

After 23 years of coalition government, Australians wanted change. It was time, as the famous campaign song proclaimed – probably the only campaign song that anyone can now remember. Whitlam represented more than a new politics; he represented a new way of thinking about government, about our region, about our place in the world and about change itself.

Nineteen-seventy-two was his time, and all subsequent times have been shaped by his time. His government ended conscription, recognised China, introduced Medibank, abolished university fees, decolonised Papua New Guinea, transformed our approach to Indigenous policy and expanded the role of the Commonwealth, particularly in the field of social services. These were highly contentious at the time; some of these measures are still contentious; but, one way or another, our country has never been quite the same. Members of his government displayed the usual human foibles, but, support it or oppose it, there was a largeness of purpose to all his government attempted – even if its reach far exceeded its grasp, as the 1975 election result showed. He may not have been our greatest Prime Minister, but he was certainly one of the greatest personalities that our country has ever produced. And no Prime Minister has been more mythologised.

I FEEL BEREFT, AS IF I’VE BEEN ORPHANED. HE WAS SUCH A STRONG FIGURE AND SO INFLUENTIAL AND MADE SUCH AN IMPACT ON OUR COUNTRY. I AM FEELING THE LOSS OF HIM LIKE A CLOSE, PERSONAL FRIEND. HE CHANGED SO MANY THINGS FOR THE BETTER IN OUR COUNTRY AND HE WILL BE SADLY MISSED. SINCEREST CONDOLENCES TO HIS FAMILY.

LESLEY FROM THE ACT

BILL SHORTEN

MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG (VIC) • LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION • LABOR • B. 12.5.67

No-one who lived through the Whitlam era will ever forget it and perhaps nobody born after it can ever imagine it. Gough’s ambition went beyond his desire to serve our nation. He wanted to transform it completely, permanently, and he did.

Today, I submit that like no other Prime Minister before or since, Gough Whitlam redefined our country and, in doing so, he changed the lives of a generation and generations to come. Think of Australia in, say, 1966: Ulysses was banned, Lolita was banned. It was the Australia of the six o’clock swill, with no film industry and only one television drama, Homicide. Political movements to the left of the DLP were under routine surveillance. Many Australians of talent – Clive [James], Barry [Humphreys], Germaine [Greer], Rupert [Murdoch], Sidney [Nolan], Geoffrey [Robertson] – as a matter of course, left their home, their native country, to try their luck in England. Yet Gough reimagined Australia, our home, as a confident, prosperous, modern and multicultural nation where opportunity belonged to everyone.

The Whitlam government should not be measured in years but in achievements. Whitlam defined patriotism as seeing things that were wrong about Australia and trying to change them. In 1970, he was referring to our unacceptably high infant mortality rate amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, our immigration policy based on race, our support for the Vietnam War. Whitlam said that a true patriot does not try to justify unfairness or prolong unfairness but tries to change it, and change it he did. Our country is most certainly different because of him. By any test, our country is better because of him. Gough Whitlam spent his political life reaching for higher ground.

JOHN FAULKNER

SENATOR FOR NEW SOUTH WALES • LABOR • B. 12.4.54

By 1972, Whitlam’s and the ALP’s time had come. In 1972 a simple slogan encapsulated the country’s readiness for change: ‘It’s Time’. It was time. The list of the Whitlam government’s legislative reforms is familiar to us all: replacing Australia’s adversarial divorce laws with a new, no-fault system; introducing Australia’s first federal legislation on human rights, the environment and heritage; establishing the Legal Aid Office, the National Film and Television School, the Australian Development Assistance Agency, the Prices Justification Tribunal and the Trade Practices Commission; introducing sweeping electoral reforms – the vote for 18-year-olds, Senate representation for the territories, and the cause of a lifetime, ‘one vote, one value’; establishing the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Law Reform Commission, the Australian Film Commission, the Australian Heritage Commission, the Technical and Further Education Commission, a national employment and training program; launching construction of the National Gallery of Australia and making the Australia Council a statutory authority; vigorously promoting the arts, including the then controversial purchase of Blue Poles; improving the position of women and our Indigenous population through reforms such as laws banning discrimination on the grounds of race and sex, equal pay for women in the Public Service and the creation of a separate ministry responsible for Aboriginal affairs and instituting Indigenous land rights; ending the last legal vestiges of White Australia; creating a single Department of Defence rather than separate departments for Army, Navy and Air; establishing the Royal Commission on Human Relationships; slashing tariff barriers by 25 per cent; ending conscription; establishing Medibank, the precursor to Medicare; implementing education reforms like needs-based funding for schools and free vocational and university education, and introducing the Tertiary Education Assistance Scheme; changing the national anthem to ‘Advance Australia Fair’; replacing the British Honours system with the Order of Australia; abolishing appeals to the Privy Council; replacing the Postmaster-General’s Department with Telecom and Australia Post; and foreign policy achievements such as diplomatic and trade relations with the People’s Republic of China.

THOUGH YOU MAY NOT BE IMMORTAL, YOUR LEGACY WILL BE ETERNAL. THANK YOU FOR YOUR VISIONARY LEADERSHIP. OUR COUNTRY IS A BETTER PLACE FOR IT.

CLAIR FROM NSW

Medibank and fair electoral boundaries were rejected by the Senate twice, to become matters resolved by a double dissolution – or so we thought. The measures were again rejected by the Senate, went before a joint sitting and were passed. Gough was, if nothing else, determined.

TANYA PLIBERSEK

MEMBER FOR SYDNEY (NSW) • DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION • LABOR • B. 2.12.69

Ihave often thought it was fitting that Gough Whitlam was Australia’s 21st Prime Minister, because with Gough Whitlam Australia came of age. An Australia that once thought small was asked to think big. An Australia once closed and inward looking opened to the world. Gough rejected those old ideas of what Australia should be and led us to what Australia could be.

ALANNAH MACTIERNAN

MEMBER FOR PERTH (WA) • LABOR • B. 10.1.53

Iremember, when I was around seven or eight, sitting at home in our housing commission house being full of Melbournian pride. I recall saying to my sister: ‘Aren’t we lucky? We are living in Melbourne, and Melbourne is the capital of Victoria, and Victoria is the best state in Australia, and Australia is the best country in the world!’ My older sister looked at me and said: ‘We are a pissant, insignificant nation that is led around by the nose by America, and we are the laughing stock of the world.’ I did not realise until 1973 just how profound the black cloud that had descended upon me as a result of that conversation was.

I remember very clearly a moment in February 1973. It was a Saturday morning. By this stage I had moved to what was truly the best state in Australia. I was going into my Saturday morning job. I hopped off the bus. It was a beautiful sunny day, and there was the Perth Town Hall in all its glory. Suddenly I felt this black cloud lift. I felt so proud to be an Australian. I felt that we were now truly a nation that we could be proud of, a nation embarking on an independent foreign policy, a nation that was accepting the proper rights of Aboriginal people, a nation that was allowing women freedom, and a nation that was focusing on great social justice issues such as education. It was a magic moment. And for that I will always deeply thank Gough Whitlam and the work that he did, particularly in that first 100 days that led to this great energy.

I KNEW THIS DAY WOULD COME BUT SOMEHOW FEEL THAT IT IS STILL TOO SOON TO LOSE GOUGH WHITLAM. AS I STOOD IN FRONT OF MY TV AS I HEARD THE SAD NEWS I WAS OVERCOME BY EMOTION. OF COURSE IT’S ALWAYS SAD TO HEAR OF DEATH, BUT WHY WAS I SO DEEPLY MOVED TO TEARS AT THE NEWS OF GOUGH WHITLAM’S DEATH? MAYBE IT’S THE REALISATION OF HOW TO A LARGE EXTENT OUR CURRENT SOCIETY AND WAY OF LIFE HAS BEEN SHAPED BY THAT LONG LIST OF POLICIES HE BROUGHT IN ALL THOSE YEARS AGO. I MEAN WHAT A DIFFERENT SOCIETY WE WOULD ALL BE LIVING IN HAD HE NOT COME TO POWER. THAT’S HUGE. WE WON’T EVER FORGET YOU.

MELINA FROM QLD

The Whitlam years were really transformative… There was definitely, as Paul Keating said, a ‘before Whitlam’ and an ‘after Whitlam’ Zeitgeist. That is not to deny that under Holt and Gorton some modernising had commenced. But it was a crack in the wall. What happened with Gough and his government was that the windows of this country were opened and the energising breezes of modernisation swept throughout the land. It has been extraordinary to be reminded, since his death, of the reach of his government. The number of areas that were changed and changed very profoundly, the areas of policy that he penetrated within his time, has been truly amazing.

DOUG CAMERON

SENATOR FOR NEW SOUTH WALES • LABOR • B. 27.1.51

When I came here from Scotland in 1973 I could not believe that there were still people in the western suburbs of Sydney who did not have reticulated sewerage. That was probably the second shock – after realising that there was no colour TV in this country! It just showed that we were not at the cutting edge of social and economic reform in the seventies in this country. In the early seventies to have Gough Whitlam lay out such a prodigious position on social and economic change was fantastic, to me personally it was a great thing. To put sewerage in the outer suburbs of our cities was great – as were changes on local government and gender and racial discrimination. Coming from Scotland in 1973 I could not believe that Indigenous people could not go into some areas of pubs. They were being told that they could not have a drink in a pub. To me, that was just unbelievable. And it was one of Whitlam’s programs that made sure discrimination was gone.

I came here from the British health system in 1973. When I was told that I had to take out private health insurance to make sure my family was looked after it was a foreign thing to me, as a beneficiary of the health system in the UK, to see how far back the health system in Australia was. Health was another example of the Whitlam approach to bringing about change that was good for society and good for individual Australians.

In 1973 we were in what was still a pretty rugged society. What comes to mind is the 1973 rugby league grand final, between Manly and Cronulla, where we were watching people nearly beating each other to death on a football field. I could not understand what was going on. That was the society we had in 1973. But we have come a long way and changed a lot of things since that