Gough Whitlam, Australia’s great reforming Prime Minister
has died, aged 98.
He came to power on December 2, 1972, in a wave of national
enthusiasm for change after 23 years of what some have called the “Laissez
Faire” era of Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies. Whitlam’s 1972 “It’s Time!” election
campaign grabbed the imagination of voters seeking some action after 23 years
of Menzies’ “steady as we go” governments.
After a frenetic three year reign as Prime Minister, Whitlam
was dismissed in dramatic circumstances by Governor General, Sir John Kerr, on
November 11, 1975, Remembrance Day. As with the moon landings in July, 1969, and
the JFK assassination on November, 22nd, 1963, every Australian alive
at the time can remember where they were and what they were doing when they
first heard that Gough Whitlam had been sacked. I was teaching the year seven
class at Donnybrook District High School when a colleague rushed into the room
at about 10-00am to give me the news. He was ecstatic. I was dumbfounded,
heartbroken and very soon filled with rage that such a coup could have
occurred. That afternoon I drove 40kms into Bunbury and joined the Labor Party.
Whitlam’s death has rekindled flames lit by journalists such
as Troy Bramston and John Pilger, both of whom earlier this year, claimed that the
CIA was involved in Whitlam’s removal. Troy Bramston, of The Australian
newspaper, wrote in The Australian on February 18, 2014, that Christopher
Boyce, a former CIA agent, gaoled for twenty five years for selling secrets to
the Russians, had recently appeared on the CBS Dateline programme and told
journalist, Mark Davis, that the Whitlam dismissal was “a coup” executed by the
U.S. and tantamount to the “velvet glove version of the government overthrow in
Chile.”
The CIA had form in this regard. It is almost universally
accepted that the CIA was deeply involved in the removal of Indonesian
President Sukarno in 1965 and the bloody coup in 1971 by Chile’s General Pinochet
that ended in the death of another reforming socialist leader, President Salvador
Allende.
Christopher Boyce, whose life story was told in the motion
picture, “The Falcon and the Snowman”, starring Sean Penn, first made known his
belief of CIA interference in Australian politics and the trade unions in a
1982 interview with Ray Martin on Channel Nine’s Sixty Minutes. He expounded on
his views in the SBS Dateline interview in 2014.
Troy Bramston quotes Boyce in the SBS interview as saying,
“Whitlam was viewed as an Australian Ho Chi Minh. He was taking Australia into Socialism. You
could not mention Whitlam’s name without the spooks in there (Pine Gap) just
looking nauseated. He was a threat to the programme.”
When Kerr dismissed Whitlam, Boyce claimed that there was
“jubilation” and “relief” within the CIA.
Boyce said, “To me that was a coup. You Australians can call
it whatever you want. I cannot sit here and prove it. But I believe it.” As a
CIA insider, Boyce’s views and opinions must carry some weight.
John Pilger does offer some proof. On his website on March
16, 2014, and again in the Guardian newspaper on October 23, Pilger referred to
the connection that Sir John Kerr had to the CIA. Sir John was an intelligence
officer during World War 2. Pilger says that Kerr received money from the CIA
and had in fact met with CIA agents two days before he dismissed Whitlam.
As a lead in to his story, re- printed in The Guardian
two days after Whitlam’s death, John Pilger wrote, “In 1975 Prime Minister,
Gough Whitlam, who has died this week, dared to try and assert his country’s
autonomy. The CIA and MI6 made sure he paid the price.”
Pilger notes that during the Whitlam years, 1972-75, an
American commentator wrote that no other country “had reversed its posture in
international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution.”
Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility. He abolished
royal patronage, moved Australia toward an unaligned movement, supported ‘Zones
of Peace’ and opposed nuclear weapons testing. Whitlam was not happy that the
United States controlled Pine Gap, a spy facility on Australian soil.
Whitlam knew that many in the conservative ranks were
beholden to British and US intelligence and US foreign policy. Days after his
election, says Pilger, Whitlam ordered that his staff not be vetted or harassed
by ASIO, clearly believing it would be leaked to the CIA. In 1973, Whitlam’s
government further angered and alarmed the CIA when Attorney General, Senator
Lionel Murphy, led a government raid on the ASIO offices in Melbourne.
Pilger also states that leaked WikiLeaks documents disclose
the names of well-known politicians of both parties, including a foreign
minister and future prime minister, who were Washington informants in the
Whitlam years.
When Whitlam and his ministers publicly condemned Nixon’s
bombing of Vietnam, Pilger says that a CIA Station Officer in Saigon said, “We
were told the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese
collaborators.”
Whitlam wanted to know if and why the CIA was running a spy
base at Pine Gap. When he did not receive satisfactory answers he threatened to
close it down. This really shook the Americans. Pilger says that documents
leaked by Edward Snowden now reveal Pine Gap to be “a giant vacuum cleaner
which allows the US to spy on everyone.”
Pilger also says he was told by Victor Marchetti, the CIA
officer who helped set up Pine Gap, that “This threat to close Pine Gap caused
apoplexy in the White house…a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion.”
In 1974 the White House sent Marshall Green to Canberra as
US Ambassador. Pilger claims Green was an
“imperious and sinister figure who worked in the shadows of America’s ‘Deep
State’. Known as the Coup Master, he
played an important role in the 1965 coup against Sukarno. One of his first
speeches in Australia, to the Institute of Australian Directors, was described
by an alarmed member of the audience as ‘an incitement to the country’s
business leaders to rise up against the government.’"
In 1975, according to John Pilger, Whitlam discovered that
the Americans and the British were working together against him. Clyde Cameron,
a Whitlam minister told Pilger, “We knew that MI6 was bugging cabinet meetings
for the Americans.” Pilger adds that in the 1980s, senior CIA officers revealed
that “the Whitlam problem” had been discussed with some urgency by CIA
Director, William Colby and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy
Director of the CIA said: “Kerr did what he had to.”
In his article Pilger writes that on November 10, 1975,
Whitlam was shown a telex from Theodore Shackley, the notorious head of CIA’s
East Asia division. Shackley had helped run the coup against Salvador Allende.
Shackley’s message, read to Whitlam, said that the Prime Minister of Australia
was a security risk in his own country.
The day before, on December 9, Sir John Kerr, a former
Australian intelligence officer with close links to the CIA, had visited the
headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia’s national security
authority, where Pilger says, he was briefed on the “security crisis.”
Pilger claims that on November 11, the day Gough Whitlam was
going to inform parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia, he was
summoned by Kerr and sacked. Pilger concludes his article, “invoking some
archaic vice regal ‘reserve powers’, Kerr sacked the democratically elected
Prime Minister. The “Whitlam Problem” had been solved and Australian politics
never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.”
During his long life Whitlam always dismissed any talk of
the CIA being involved in his removal. He always blamed “the coup” on Sir John
Kerr and the then Chief Justice and former Liberal Party cabinet minister, Sir
Garfield Barwick, for their collusion and ill formed legal opinions. Most
constitutional experts now tend to agree with Whitlam that Kerr and Barwick
were in error.
In essence, Whitlam’s dismissal occurred because the
conservative forces of the Liberal Party and the Country Party (now the National Party) so loathed the Labor
party that they were prepared to trash well established parliamentary
conventions in order to regain power.
Since Federation in 1901, the convention had always been
observed that the Senate would never block Supply. That is, the Senate would
never reject a government money bill put forward by the majority party in the
House of Representatives. Whitlam came to power in December, 1992. The liberals
blocked Supply twice, in mid-1994 and again in October, 1995.
In 1994 Supply was blocked by then Liberal leader, Sir Billy
Snedden. Whitlam went to the polls for a half senate election and subsequently
Supply was passed. In October, 1975 new Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser again
blocked supply. Whitlam toughed it out. Then, as many Liberals were wavering,
he sought a meeting with the Governor General for another half senate election.
The reason that the Senate was able to block Supply was due
to the fact that the Liberal/Country coalition had trashed another
parliamentary convention regarding the replacement of senators who resign,
retire or are deceased. Since Federation in 1901, every casual vacancy in the
Senate was filled by the respective state government appointing a person from
the same political party as the senator who had left position.
When Gough Whitlam came to power this convention was
blatantly discarded and the Queensland and NSW governments maliciously and
gleefully filled casual Senate vacancies with people who would vote against
Labor. By this means the Liberal/National parties gained control of the Senate
and put in to effect their plan to block Supply. Of course, without Supply, the
government can raise no money, no public servants, policemen or soldiers will
be paid and the country will come to a standstill.
It may also be pointed out that Whitlam had always faced a
hostile Senate. From Federation until 1972, during the lifetime of governments
of various political hues, the Senate had blocked 63 pieces of government
legislation. It had never blocked Supply. In the three years of the Whitlam
government the Senate blocked 78 pieces of legislation, 15 more than in the
entire history Federation up to that point. It also blocked Supply twice within
twelve months. Clearly the conservatives did not like being in opposition and
they definitely did not like Gough Whitlam. They were prepared to go against
long established parliamentary conventions to get rid of him.
At the same time newspaper mogul, Rupert Murdoch, began an
aggressive media campaign against Whitlam and Labor. Murdoch had backed Whitlam
in 1972, but when Whitlam failed to do Murdoch’s bidding as Prime Minister, he
turned against him. Every blemish of the labor government, real or imagined,
was written up and treated maliciously by the Murdoch press. Any good that Labor
did was largely ignored. Murdoch, with control of nearly 70% of Australian
media, acted in a similar dishonest and unethical fashion to destabilise the
government of Julia Giilard, another reforming PM, in 2010/2013.
Faced with a hostile Senate blocking Supply, Whitlam visited
the Governor General on November 11th to ask for a half senate
election. This would probably have given him a slight majority in the senate
and so would have avoided any further Liberal/Country Party threats to Supply.
Instead Kerr sacked him and appointed opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser, as a
caretaker Prime Minister on condition that Fraser would pass supply and call an
election. Who says extortion is only practised by fellows like Al Capone?
Many people are critical of Kerr’s unexpected act of
dismissal. At the time, Whitlam had at least two weeks’ supply of money to run
the country, quite a long time in politics. At the same time, the former
Liberal leader, Sir Robert Menzies, was pleading with his party to accept long
established convention and pass Supply. Many Liberal/Country Party members had heeded
Menzies words and were wavering in support of the tactics adopted by Malcolm
Fraser to turf Whitlam out.
It has been said that Whitlam was ambushed by Kerr because
of his strong belief in parliamentary conventions that the Supply Bill would
eventually be passed. In some respects we can all be grateful that Whitlam did
have such strong respect for parliamentary conventions. Upon hearing of her husband’s
dismissal, Margaret Whitlam is said to have complained bitterly that her
husband should have just torn up Kerr’s notice of dismissal and returned to
parliament to get on with the business. If Whitlam had taken such action, then
Kerr would have been forced to call in the army to remove him from the
parliament.
The dismissal aroused tremendous feelings of rage in a large
section of the Canberra community that day. Huge, angry crowd gathered on the
steps of parliament, loudly voicing their outrage at the actions of the
Governor General. The sight of their beloved leader being led away under armed
escort could have quite conceivably resulted in some people taking matters into
their own hands, with tragic and bloody consequences.
Although Whitlam was only Prime Minister for three years, he
carried out a remarkable legislative programme and left a legacy that has
lasted over forty years since his departure. Straight after his election
victory in 1972, and before his new Ministry was sworn in, Whitlam formed a
workable government with his Deputy Leader, Lance Barnard.
Together, this
energetic duo immediately withdrew the troops from Vietnam and abolished
conscription. They issued a series of regulations and decrees that astonished
everybody with their speedy and efficient efforts to get changes made. Bill
Hayden, a very effective Health Minister and Treasurer in the Whitlam
government and later a Labor Party leader, remarked on the occasion of Whitlam’s
death that he had once confided to Hayden about this active and energetic
government duopoly, “It was the best government that I ever led. Although it
probably contained one man too many”, said the great man. Obviously spoken in
jest, but a clear measure of how confident Whitlam was in his ability to lead
and get things done.
Whitlam was a reforming leader who is sometimes criticised
for trying to do too much too soon. But when these critics are asked what he
should have left undone they are hard pressed to give an answer. Whitlam
demonstrated that Leadership is not about knowing what are the right things to
know and to say; it is about whether you have the courage to face the
remorseless criticism and personal discomfort that will come when you actually
say it and do it. Whitlam did it in spades!
It was almost as if he knew the conservative forces ranged
against him would not grant him too much time to, as he said, “He would crash,
or crash through.”
In the end he
crashed. But what a remarkable legacy he left in three exciting years. Here is
a list of some of his achievements, many of which transformed Australian life
forever after.
*Ended conscription and Australian involvement in the
Vietnam War.
*Removed the tax on the birth control pill, making it
readily available to all Australian women.
*First western leader to visit Communist China, for which he
was pilloried mercilessly by his conservative critics and the then Prime
Minister Billy McMahon. These critics soon had egg on their faces as it was
revealed that US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, was also in Beijing
arranging for the upcoming visit of US President Nixon.
*As PM he formally recognised China in 1973.
*Established a National Health Scheme, Medibank, which later
became Medicare.
*Initiated social welfare reforms, including the Supporting
Mother’s benefits.
*Equal pay for women.
*Split the Post Master General’s Department into Telecom and
Australia Post.
*Established the Australian Legal Office.
* Discarded the British Privy Council as the highest Court
of Appeal. Replaced it with The High Court of Australia.
*Set up the Australian Law Reform Commission.
*Set up the Family Court.
*Abolished the death penalty.
*Introduced No Fault divorce.
*Set up the influential Karmel Report into Education.
*Established a Needs Based approach to education.
* By passed the states to pay money directly to local
governments and to individual organisations to fund special programmes.
*First PM to federally fund state schools.
*Established free university education for all. Enrolments
surged. Women were the main beneficiaries.
*Open the Australian economy by slashing tariffs by 25%.
*Established the Trade Practices Act, a forerunner to the
Productivity Commission and the Australian Competition and Consumers
Association.
*Provided funding for sewerage to all Australian capital
cities.
*Reduced the voting age to 18 years.
*Replaced God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair as
the Australian National Anthem.
*Replaced the British Imperial Honours List with the Order
of Australia.
*Abolished the White Australia Policy and all forms of
racial discrimination.
*Established the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.
*Established Commonwealth legislation to grant Land Rights
to aboriginal people.
*Handed Title Deeds to the Gurindji People in 1975. A
touchstone for the Aboriginal Land Rights Movement.
*Established the National Gallery of Australia, The
Australian Council for the Arts, The Australian Heritage Commission.
*Set up multi-cultural radio and FM radio. Issued Community
Radio licences.
*Funded the creation of SBS Radio and TV.
*Opened the Australian Film and TV School and fostered
Australian film and TV productions.
*Oversaw the independence of Papua and New Guinea.
One of Gough Whitlam's greatest legacies is that he reformed the Australian Labor Party and made it electible. Labor had suffered the great DLP split of 1954 and then, led by the 36 Faceless Men, seemed to be quite happy to be forever losing election after election. As Deputy Leader and then Leader he took on the faceless men, returned the party to the elected politicians and produced policies that made the electorate enthusiastic. It was not an easy task. On one occasion he resigned the leadership to make his point. He was re-elected, but only just, defeating Jim Cairns by a handful of votes.
One of Gough Whitlam's greatest legacies is that he reformed the Australian Labor Party and made it electible. Labor had suffered the great DLP split of 1954 and then, led by the 36 Faceless Men, seemed to be quite happy to be forever losing election after election. As Deputy Leader and then Leader he took on the faceless men, returned the party to the elected politicians and produced policies that made the electorate enthusiastic. It was not an easy task. On one occasion he resigned the leadership to make his point. He was re-elected, but only just, defeating Jim Cairns by a handful of votes.
John Kennedy once
said to group of prominent Americans attending a White House dinner that he was
giving in their honour that it was undoubtedly the greatest gathering of
American intelligentsia in the one room in the history of the country, except
for those times when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
Perhaps the same could be aid of Gough Whitlam. He was
erudite, highly intelligent and articulate, a riveting orator with a great
grasp and love of politics, history and the arts. Many critics say his major
weakness was economics. That could be true, but Whitlam was unlucky in that he
gained office as the post war boom, that benefitted Robert Menzies, was coming
to a halt. From 1946 to 1970 each year was a year of greater growth and
prosperity than the previous one. Australia was literally “living off the sheep’s’
back” and money kept flowing into government coffers. By 1972 this growth had slowed
right down. Then came the oil embargo of 1973/4, imposed by the OPEC nations.
This caused worldwide financial problems.
Whitlam had some underperforming ministers. As a Labor Prime
Minister, Whitlam had to accept ministers recommended to him by the cabinet. He
was not served well be his Treasurers coming to grips with the global economic
slowdown. However, after sacking the distracted and incompetent Dr Jim Cairns
in 1975, Whitlam appointed the very capable Bill Hayden as his treasurer. It
was Bill Hayden’s budget which the recalcitrant Liberal/Country Party blocked
in the senate. Many economists believe that Hayden’s budget was a winner that
would have seen the government sailing into more prosperous waters in the
second half of the 1970s.
Whitlam’s wit, and temper were legendary. He once threw a
glass of water over Sir Paul Hasluck as he sat across the table in parliament.
Sir Paul Hasluck, in 1972 was the Governor General who swore in the new Whitlam
government. Hasluck was a formidable intellect in his own right and also a
stickler for parliamentary conventions. It would have been interesting to see
how he would have handled the budget crisis of November, 1975.
Just a few examples of Whitlam’s wit:
When asked by a heckler if he favoured abortion, Gough
replied, “Let me make it quite clear that I do and in your case, Sir, I would
make it retrospective.”
On the Governor General appointing Malcolm Fraser as
Caretaker Prime Minister: “It is the first time the burglar has been
appointed as caretaker.”
Until Gough Whitlam came along most Australian capital
cities were un-sewered and used septic tanks. Before implementing the massive
national sewerage programme Whitlam said: “No other western nation has cities in which
the incidence of urban sanitation is so primitive or so ludicrous as in the
cities of Australia. We are the most effluent nation in what the liberals call
the free world.”
In response to Sir Winston Turnbull, shouting out in
parliament, I am a Country member.”
“I remember,” replied Whitlam instantly, to loud applause from both
sides of the house.
Ah, yes, Gough Whitlam. A man for all seasons, who left an
indelible mark on our country. On the day of his death parliament suspended
business for the day and numerous speakers, from both sides of the house, rose
to give tribute to Gough Whitlam’s great impact on politics and society.
Bill
Shorten, the current leader of the Labor Party, perhaps said it best when he
said, “In Australia’s political history there are two major periods, Before
Gough Whitlam and After Gough Whitlam.”
Gough would have liked that; being a defining presence,
similar to the One who caused historical time to be divided into BC and AD. Once
Malcolm Turnbull was showing Whitlam around his rural property and apologised
because the fog was obscuring the picturesque Hunter Valley. Whitlam replied, ”Don’t
be concerned, I am completely at home. It is just like Olympus.”
In response to being asked how he would eventually meet his
maker, Gough replied, “You can be sure of one thing. I shall treat him as an
equal.”
So forty years on, we can reflect on the fact that, as a
result of the unconventional behaviour of some states in 1975, the parliament
has since passed laws that oblige a state government to observe the convention
of appointing replacement senators of the same political persuasion as those
whose positions have been vacated.
On the other hand, it is sad to reflect that the Governor
General of Australia can still dismiss a democratically elected Prime Minister
who holds a majority in the House of Representatives. And no government has yet
tried to make it unlawful for the Senate to block Supply.
The Labor Party has
said that it will never block Supply, but the opportunistic conservative
parties still reserve the right to bock Supply if the political circumstances
are blowing in their favour. Unless future leaders are prepared to do and say
what is right, then 1975 could happen all over again. And of course, we still do
not know for sure what impact the CIA now has on Australian politics. We do know
that a former CIA agent who was there, has said that in the 1970s the CIA’s
influence in Australian politics was quite palpable.
Vale Gough Whitlam. Whether you were sacked because of the
unprecedented, unconventional actions of an unethical opposition, aided by an
incompetent Governor General, or on the express command of a foreign power, is
now largely immaterial.
You will be sadly missed by the many to whom you gave such
great hope and vision. As Teddy Kennedy said of his murdered brother Robert,
“Some men see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’ You saw things as they might be
and ask, ‘Why not?' "
Vale, Gough Whitlam. Thank you for your great and heroic efforts
on behalf of our young country. You are so sadly missed and so fondly
remembered.
