In the days since the death of Australia's 21st Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, the national expressions of emotion have been remarkable.
From collective grief, gratitude and admiration has come an overwhelming acknowledgement on all sides of politics that Gough Whitlam changed Australia, for the better.
It is an assessment that 40 years ago, as Whitlam faced hostile crowds, plummeting support and the personal devastation of his unprecedented dismissal by the Governor-General, would simply have been unimaginable. But it is a testament to the impact of Whitlam's vast reforms that as the damaging divisions caused by Sir John Kerr's dismissal of Whitlam have faded, we can reflect on the government, its reforms and the exceptional man behind them.
We see Gough Whitlam now as a great moderniser, a politician who strode across the Australian political scene in the 1970s and dragged it out of the sleepy quiescence and limited aspirations of 23 years of continuous Liberal-Country party government.
But Whitlam's political trajectory was more complex and more interesting than this simple depiction of him as a late 20th century moderniser suggests. He was an unusual politician – educated and patrician yet the grandson of a criminal, supremely confident yet notably self-deprecating, quick tempered and quick witted, arrogant yet diffident – unlike any other politician Whitlam took command of every aspect of the comprehensive program for change that would transform Australia.
"Gough Whitlam: His Time", launched by Kevin Rudd at Museum of Sydney, with author Jenny Hocking in Sydney Source: News Corp Australia
The origins of this reform agenda, while distinctly and proudly modern, can be seen in the experiences of Australia's war-time Labor Prime Minister John Curtin. To Whitlam, Curtin was 'our greatest Prime Minister' and the words chosen to open Labor's 1972 campaign launch reflected this, for they were also the words of John Curtin; "Men and women of Australia''.
More than any other episode, it was the Curtin government's unsuccessful 1944 referendum on post-war reconstruction and democratic rights that made a committed Labor politician out of Gough Whitlam. The referendum's radical proposals for expanded federal powers to enable post-war rebuilding, "to lay the foundations for a new social order'', for the recognition of fundamental civil and political rights and social justice, were decades ahead of their time.
They foreshadowed both the expanded federal responsibilities in health, welfare and education later overseen by the Whitlam government, as well as the protection of basic rights and freedoms that were its hallmark. In 1945, two days after the death of John Curtin, Gough Whitlam joined the Australian Labor Party.
Former PM Gough Whitlam with Senator Gareth Evans in 1991. Picture: Michael Jones. Source: News Corp Australia
When Whitlam came to the parliament in 1952, the Curtin-Chifley years already seemed a life time ago as the Labor party began its dramatic post-war decline, torn apart by bitter infighting and recrimination.
By the time he took on the leadership in 1967, after seven years as Deputy Leader, there was scarcely a single plank of the party platform that had not been revised, reworked or would soon be agreed. These were the makings of the expansive reform agenda, formidably known as 'the Program', that Whitlam would take to both the 1969 and the 1972 elections.
With his election victory in 1972, Whitlam described the result as "a command to perform'' – and perform he did, from the earliest days.
The first Whitlam government was a government of two, a 'duumvirate', Whitlam and his Deputy Lance Barnard taking all 27 ministries between them (Whitlam generously agreeing to 13 while Barnard took 14) while marginal seats were still being counted. It was a marker of things to come as the duumvirate made 40 decisions in barely two weeks – a mix of the momentous and the symbolic, but all heralding the arrival a new government and a new way of thinking about Australian politics.
Gough Whitlam: His time Source: Supplied
Draft resisters refusing to serve in the Vietnam war were released from jail, Communist China recognised, the end of British imperial honours and a new national anthem announced, the equal pay for women case reopened, Aboriginal lands right acknowledged, International Covenants signed, grants for disadvantaged schools announced, preference for Australian-owned firms in government contracts, increased federal funding in education and health, new grants for the arts, and the Australian delegates at the UN General Assembly were instructed to change the previous government's votes on policies relating to Rhodesia and also, for the first time, to vote in favour of self-determination and independence for colonial nations.
The duumvirate was just the beginning of a period of dramatic, obstructed and yet ultimately successful change. The figures tell the story: during the three years 1972-75 of the Whitlam government the Opposition controlled Senate rejected 93 Bills — more than it had rejected in the entire previous 71 years combined. But despite this exceptional level of obstruction, a record number of Bills also passed under the Whitlam government. Collectively, these gave substance to what Whitlam called, the "three great aims'' of the Program: "to promote equality; to involve the people of Australia in the decision-making processes of our land; and to liberate the talents and uplift the horizons of the Australian people.''
It is a unique, empowering and eternal legacy.
JENNY HOCKING IS A PROFESSOR AT MONASH UNIVERISTY IN MELBOURNE AND AUTHOR OF GOUGH WHITLAM: HIS TIME.
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