Those of us brought up in Queensland owe a lot to Wayne Goss. I first met him when he was instrumental in setting up the Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) in Brisbane in 1974. He was the articled clerk. Roisin Hirschfeld was a young social worker at the ALS. They later married and their two children went on to become Rhodes scholars. With Mark Plunkett, I used go in one day a week to the ALS as a volunteer law student. Matt Foley was there in the wings too. (Plunkett went on to sue Joh Bjelke Petersen for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice when the police commissioner was precluded from investigating assaults on student demonstrators. Foley became Attorney General in the Goss government.)

Wayne was a no nonsense fellow with a real commitment to justice for Aboriginal Australians during the difficult Bjelke-Petersen days in Queensland. He had a quirkish and devilish sense of humour. He put himself on the line, committed to legal representation for indigent Aborigines, appearing constantly in the courts, day in and day out. He would always come back to the office with a smile and a joke about the latest put down he suffered at the hands of the unforgiving magistrate not much given to pleas invoking past dispossession. He was irrepressible. He delighted in the quirks of human nature, especially from the bench, and later in the parliamentary chamber. He knew there had to be a better way.

In 1989, seeing off Joh Bjelke-Petersen who had been rolled by his own, he beat the National Party at the polls and was elected premier.  In his first term, he decided to do something about Aboriginal land rights in the most difficult state of the federation. He did this when there was no political or legal imperative to do so. He acted because he believed it was right. He believed in Aboriginal self-determination within the life of the polity. He retained the services of two young Aborigines to advise him – Noel Pearson and Marcia Langton. His chief bureaucratic adviser was Kevin Rudd.

As ever, he proceeded cautiously attempting to balance all interests.  He announced his “modest, blanched and responsible” land-rights package telling the Queensland public: “We rejected out of hand the Northern Territory approach as being too radical both in the way it affects the community generally and the specific impact on agriculture and mining.”

Despite his best efforts, things turned sour and Aborigines knocked down the gates of Parliament House. He was understandably very hurt, but philosophical about the course of post-colonial relations. Wayne was unerring in his commitment to do what he could to alleviate the unjust plight of the first Australians.  He was no starry eyed romantic.  He never lost his sense of humour, or his unwavering commitment to justice for the first Australians.

Three years ago, Wayne and I appeared together on the negative side of one of those “Intelligence Squared” debates.  By this time Wayne had gone under the knife repeatedly, taking on the brain tumour that finally took him.  He was as quirky and good humoured as ever.  The topic was: “If we populate, we perish”.  The chief protagonist for the “yes” case was Dick Smith who turned up with lots of free copies of his book Population Crisis which he distributed to the audience.  Wayne responded:

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, because you are a sophisticated audience, our team has decided that we will not be offering bribes in the form of free books nor will we be trying to scare the pants off you with predictions of the end of the planet.  We believe that the policy debate should be lifted to a higher level.  What I think I need to do is to reframe the issue: if Australia does not increase its population, you know what will happen? We’ll get older; we’ll get less productive; we’ll lose our spark.  You know what happens after you age and get greyer and greyer and greyer? You perish.  Think about it.’ 

His last words in that debate were, “Friends, Australia has a great opportunity. Let’s seize it.”  He did and so should we.  I was honoured to know him. He was a very honourable man.  May he rest in peace.

 

As a journalist-bureaucrat 42 years ago, for me nothing illustrated more the bewildering speed of Gough Whitlam’s rollercoaster reforms than the removal of the last vestiges of the White Australia policy.

I was publications editor for the Australian Information Service in Canberra, then Australia’s apolitical, overseas information agency. Part of my job was to produce the Australia Handbook which, with a print run of multiple thousands, was sent to our high commissions and embassies around the world for distribution.

It was traditionally a dull, military-style manual, printed in black and white, updated each year by government departments and sought to give a comprehensive, factual account of Australia from its beginnings to its current economic, social and cultural achievements.

Fresh from Fleet Street, I introduced full-colour, including a wraparound cover showing the yet-to- be opened Sydney Opera House, and revamped the layout and text.  Inevitably, there were delays, but with the election of the Whitlam government in December 1972, we were confident, with the book complete in those early weeks of 1973, there would be mostly minor changes for that year’s edition.

But extensive changes were ordered. The revision was a nightmare; the book was on film and the amendments had to be laboriously stripped in.

Poring over the revised text, I worried especially about the section on immigration which noted that following the 1966 policy review, it had been possible for non-Europeans ”to be considered for entry as migrants: Applications are considered individually on their merits, and approval is subject to their capacity to integrate…

“Most approved applicants have been people eligible to practise in the professions in Australia. The application and approval rates have been increasing gradually though the numbers remain relatively limited. Non-Europeans are admitted as visitors, for business or as tourists…”

Then – startlingly – Australia’s objective to maintaining a “homogeneous” society. I knew enough from Whitlam’s pronouncements that the White Australia policy was on the way out and took the text to a senior journalist colleague in the Immigration Department.

The next few minutes, as he phoned a superior, were straight out of Yes, Minister, my colleague echoing, “Leave it in…take it out… leave it in…take it…” We took it out.

We didn’t catch up in that edition with significant steps which, as the Immigration Department now notes in a fact sheet, the Whitlam government was to take later in 1973: legislating that all migrants of whatever origin be eligible for citizenship after three years’ permanent residence; issuing policy instructions to overseas posts to totally disregard race as a factor in the selection of migrants; and ratifying all international agreements relating to immigration and race.

We did manage to squeeze in the announcement that from the 1974 academic year fees would be abolished at universities, college of advanced education and technical colleges, and that the government planned to discuss with the states assuming full responsibility for financing tertiary education.

Medicare, still some time off, didn’t make the book, but we told how patients could insure themselves for hospital treatment through voluntary membership of non-profit health insurance organisations, contributions ranging from 70c to $1.90 a week for families.

We reported the maximum weekly rate for unemployment benefits was $17 “with lesser rates for unmarried younger people,” but noted it was proposed to increase the rate for a married couple to $37.50 and single people to $21.50.

We highlighted the mineral boom, pointing out the resources accounted for about a quarter of all our exports with manufacturing growing “spectacularly”, contributing  more than a quarter of GDP (that’s now halved). And we said the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme, begun in 1949, was nearing completion.

On the Arts, we quoted Prime Minister Whitlam that a new Australia Council for the Arts would be created with seven boards, ranging from Theatre to Aboriginal Arts. We pictured Professor A.D. Hope as one of the nation’s distinguished poets and told how movies like Wake in Fright were creating interest overseas.

On international affairs, we complemented Australia’s increasing focus on participation in regional associations and relations with Asian and Pacific nations with a full-page picture of Indonesia’s President Sukarno. On Defence, we said Australia’s strike aircraft included Canberra bombers and Mirage fighters. Among sporting stars, we named Olympic gold medallist Shane Gould and tennis champions Evonne Goolagong and Margaret Court.

The book had prolific statistics; among them, Australia’s population was estimated at 13 million, Aborigines at 140,000 and expected to double by the end of the 20^th century.

John Coleman is a freelance journalist and travel writer.

 

 

It is difficult to make this speech – so much to say about this great man and his times.

I observed him from a number of angles:

• Working with Tom Uren and Gough Whitlam on urban policy proposals before the elections.
• Assisting my friends Peter Wilenski and James Spigelman in their work on the administrative orders for the new government.
• As Uren’s principal advisor for the first year I attended that amazing two man Cabinet meeting when we made the first great installment on changing Australia.
• During the first year of the government I was closely involved in a number of critical issues.
• Finally I worked as the PM’s principal private secretary in the five months before the coup.

And coup it was, make no mistake about that.

A coup which was successful because of one of the PM’s most enduring qualities – an assumption that people would behave properly and constitutionally.  During the crisis, which was totally engineered by typical dishonourable acts and subterfuges by the Right, the PM’s central focus was to preserve Australian (and British) parliamentary tradition, namely that governments are made in the People’s house.  This belief mirrored his commitment to ‘one vote one value’.

He assumed, wrongly, that his determined opponents, and especially the Governor General, would be similarly motivated. A person with a more cynical view of people may have been less trusting.  But then that person wouldn’t have been Gough Whitlam.

His approach to policy reflected this.

Gough Whitlam believed that governments can do good things for people. This was a view shared by others in the days which were before the Right launched its propaganda war to convince everyone that governments were the problem rather than the solution.

Gough Whitlam’s approach to policy also reflected the realist tradition of Sydney University:  a thing is a fact only if it exists; any number particulars do not prove a general proposition.

He therefore was a shining example of The Enlightenment.

As such, he had difficulty in accepting those who would not face the facts – those whose views were driven by love of the past, superstitious dogma or cyclical political advantage.

This, and his prodigious capacity for work and his legendary (and, for staffers, disquieting) memory for detail, drove The Program.  During the long years of Opposition he worked on it: rational, transforming, exciting.

Assuming others would share his analysis, The Program was to be implemented. Unfortunately the quantity and quantity of his front bench too often meant some were not up to the tasks he set.  The Program was too rational for some, too rushed for others, not sufficiently flexible to respond to changing economic settings.

But enough was achieved to make a real and beneficial difference to many lives.  Nobody else in Australia’s short history can claim to doing so much good.  For that we can be grateful for Gough Whitlam’s long and productive life.

 

John Mant is currently a Councillor on the City of Sydney Council.

The Honourable (Edward) Gough Whitlam, AC QC

State Memorial Service

The Honourable Antony Whitlam QC

Sydney Town Hall

5 November 2014

 

Auntie Millie Ingram gave a moving Welcome to Country. I also wish to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation on whose land this notable building stands. I pay respect to Gadigal elders – past and present – and to so many other indigenous Australians we are honoured to have join with us today, including members of Vincent Lingiari’s family.

This is a celebration of the life of Edward Gough Whitlam. I shall try to remember that.

Gough himself, when speaking on occasions like this, had a tendency to become so enthusiastic in his advocacy of projects associated with the departed person that the subject of the proceedings rated only a cursory mention.

I am Gough’s eldest child. The only advantage primogeniture appears to have given me upon my father’s death, is this speaking slot.

Gough, of course, would have loved to speak today, but the rules of the game necessarily disqualify him. That is just as well because I gather the Town Hall is booked tomorrow!

There can be no complaint about Gough’s family cycle. True, his dear wife of nearly 70 years, our mother Margaret, predeceased him. But they both far exceeded all actuarial estimates for their generation.

Gough’s only sister, Freda, survives him and we are delighted that she is here today.

All Gough’s children are here today. There are four of us – and that is now the final count. I say this because, not so long ago, when Gough was growing older and more frail and, as Catherine says, more lovable, a visitor to his office politely asked how many children he had. Gough looked up and answered: “Four” and then with a cheeky smile and eyes glinting he added: “…….. so far”. Gough was also a much loved patriarch for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Today’s speeches remind us of Gough’s purpose in life. They were delivered with power and beauty that leave us all in awe.

Cate is a woman of courage and conviction who refuses to be boxed in by her talent in theatre and in cinema. Noel is an iconoclast of great forensic skill, with a poet’s gift for language that he employs tirelessly in the interests of all Australians. Coming from a younger generation, their assessments of Gough’s impact are especially satisfying. Cate and Noel have added great lustre to this occasion.

Graham and John are, of course, of the Labor Party. Graham was Gough’s collaborator from the time he became Leader. John was Gough’s closest friend and confidant in the last years of his life. They are both family, and they know how grateful we are to them for what they have had to say.

Gough’s time in government was the pinnacle of his career. It is a particular pleasure, therefore, that Doug McClelland, Les Johnson, Kep Enderby and of course, Paul Keating, are here with us today. Unfortunately Bill Hayden and Tom Uren are unwell and cannot attend. Bill’s moving tribute to Gough is etched in our hearts and minds.

For Gough, public service remained the most noble pursuit and there was no more important or honourable occupation than being a member of parliament. All his life he placed his faith in parliamentary government, responsible government and the two-party system.

To the end of his days Gough was conscious that he owed everything that he had been able to achieve in government to the selfless efforts of members of the Australian Labor Party and to the confidence placed in him by so many of them.

The media coverage of Gough’s death has been generous, and we have been greatly touched by the affection and respect from the public.

There has, of course, been an information overload about the details of Gough’s life. However, I will flesh out two subjects.

First, the matter of religion. Gough’s irreverent wit should not be misconstrued. It is true that Gough himself was not a religious person. However he grew up in a strongly religious household. His mother came from a prominent Baptist family in Melbourne. In Canberra Gough’s parents and his sister became Presbyterians. At the Canberra Grammar School, Gough repositioned himself as an Anglican. He married our mother Margaret in the Church of England, and he was astute to have each of us baptised and confirmed.

Gough’s sister, Freda, was moderator of the Uniting Church in this state.

Gough’s love of history informed a broad knowledge of religion. As children we were aware of this early. To keep us occupied on long car trips there were no video games or sing-alongs. Rather we were bombarded with the most exquisite detail of the doctrine and liturgy in different rites of the Christian Church. Gough did not claim to be a scholar, but he did have a lifelong fascination with religion.

Gough employed religious imagery in his speech. Many of his attempts at self-parody about matters divine have been recalled with evident amusement during the past fortnight.  As I have said, Gough himself was not a religious person, but by his background and disposition he did not scoff at people who were religious and he was genuinely respectful of their beliefs and moral values. They included many of his closest friends.

In every way, Gough was ever keen to inculcate in his children the virtues of religious tolerance. Plain courtesy and consideration for others was a big part of that. And of course, this was more than just religious tolerance. It was a quality that informed so much of what he aspired to do for our society as a whole.

Now a little more biography and geography.

In 1947 our family (comprising Gough, Margaret, me and Nick) moved to Cronulla. When Gough entered parliament in 1952, his seat of Werriwa included the whole of the Sutherland Shire and extended all the way down to Helensburgh and right across to Liverpool. My favourite boyhood memory of election campaigning with my father is of him trawling for votes, armed with a loud speaker, not being driven along streets in a flat-bed truck or a van, but motoring along the Woronora River in a “tinny”.

In 1955 there was a redistribution, and the Shire and points south were cut out of Werriwa. The new seat extended along an axis north from Liverpool to the western edge of Parramatta at Wentworthville. So at the end of the school year in 1957 the family (now increased with the addition of Stephen and Catherine) moved to a new house at Cabramatta. That is where Gough and Margaret lived until he became Prime Minister. He never had a flat in town. During the whole of that time (for the last 13 years of which Gough was successively Deputy Leader and Leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party, with functions to attend all over the metropolis), if he was in Sydney, Gough slept at home in Cabramatta.

Against that background, you can imagine my surprise, in the wash-up of Gough’s death, to read one of the more antic commentators thrillingly expose “the myth that Whitlam was a western suburbs kid made good”. I had never heard of such a myth. Has anyone? I did know that he had lived most of his adult life far from the centre of town in two houses built on unsewered blocks of land.

I did know that for 20 years he had been an energetic local member in western Sydney where he had witnessed the problems of its rapid development, and where, with his vast knowledge of European culture, and the history of the Mediterranean people, he accorded unfeigned respect and dignity to all the area’s many immigrants.

After parliament Gough remained vigorously engaged in our national public debate on many issues. Constitutional reform and equality of electoral enrolment spring to mind, but it is difficult to think of a significant topic on which he did not feel obliged to express a view.

It was a brilliant decision of Bob Hawke’s government to send him to UNESCO. It got him out of the way and it allowed Gough to employ his great talents in the interests of world heritage and culture.

Many talented and dedicated men and women have served on Gough’s personal staff. Until he became Deputy Leader in 1960 there was only his electorate secretary, the late Norma Thompson, whom we always knew as Miss Thompson. She operated from a corner in his office in the old Federal Members Rooms in the Commonwealth Bank’s “money box” building in Martin Place.

Of the others engaged over the last half century, it would be invidious to single anybody out. They all endured his occasional changes in temperament, but at the same time they will all know how much he valued the contribution of each of them. It is truly gratifying that so many of them have taken the trouble to join us here today.

Stamina is an essential ingredient in the make-up of any successful politician. Gough was lucky enough to have it in spades for most of his life.

For the past few years, Gough has lived in an aged care facility at Lulworth where he was wonderfully looked after by everyone.

Until the last couple of months Gough continued to go into his office four times a week. There were also increasingly frequent attendances upon all kinds of health professionals. Again I will not single anybody out. They know how grateful we are to each of them for their skill and care.

The grace and serenity with which Gough accepted the decline in his health were quite striking. My brothers and I owe a particular debt to our sister, Catherine.

The man whose appearance always brightened up his demeanour and to whom all his children are forever indebted for his devotion and love, is his driver, Michael Vlassopoulos.

This is a State Memorial Service. Prime Minister, we are most grateful to you for authorising this occasion.

We are also conscious of the great honour done us by the presence of HE the Governor-General, HE Lady Cosgrove and so many other distinguished persons and representatives of foreign governments who have gathered with Gough’s family, friends and supporters here today.

It is a particular pleasure to welcome so many from Papua New Guinea, including Prime Minister O’Neill and Gough’s old friend, Grand Chief Michael Somare.

At the start of today the genius of William Barton reminded us that we are here in Australia, a land where the indigenous peoples have lived for thousands of years. The road to reconciliation and recognition started with the Whitlam government, but it should be remembered that its land rights proposals were in substance implemented by Malcolm Fraser’s government.

The attendance of representatives from the Gurindji people is a truly humbling testament to Gough’s legacy.

Events at Wave Hill are the subject of the moving song written and performed today by Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody. This song was written in the early 1990s around the time of Paul Keating’s great Redfern speech. Soon after, a brilliant young aboriginal lawyer called Noel Pearson came to public attention in the wake of the Native Title cases. The road ahead may be tortuous and difficult for all Australians but we need not be divided on partisan lines.

The artistry of the orchestra and choirs today has been sublime and utterly spellbinding. Gough’s idiosyncratic predilections in the music for this occasion have been brilliantly vindicated.

The next piece, Jerusalem, was the recessional hymn at Margaret’s memorial service. William Blake was, just like Gough, a radical. An Oxford theology professor has written that the words of this poem “stress the importance of people taking responsibility for change and building a better society”.

In that spirit, it is a fitting piece to end the celebration of Gough’s life, and the symmetry provides a neat memory for us.

Thank you all for coming.

The Honourable (Edward) Gough Whitlam, AC QC

State Memorial Service

Noel Pearson

Sydney Town Hall

5 November 2014

 

Paul Keating said the reward for public life is public progress.

For one born estranged from the nation’s citizenship, into a humble family of a marginal people striving in the teeth of poverty and discrimination, today it is assuredly no longer the case.

Rather, my signal honour today on behalf of more people than I could ever know, is to express our immense gratitude for the public service of this old man.

I once took him on a tour to my village and we spoke about the history of the mission and my youth under the Government of his nemesis, Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

My home was an Aboriginal reserve under a succession of Queensland laws commencing in 1897.

These laws were notoriously discriminatory and the bureaucratic apparatus controlling the reserves maintained vigil over the smallest details concerning its charges.

Superintendents held vast powers and a cold and capricious beauracracy presided over this system for too long in the 20^th century.

In June 1975, the Whitlam Government enacted the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Queensland Discrimatory Laws Act.

The law put to purpose the power conferred upon the Commonwealth Parliament by the 1967 referendum, finally outlawing the discrimination my father and his father lived under since my grandfather was removed to the mission as a boy and to which I was subject the first 10 years of my life.

Powers regulating residency on reserves without a permit, the power of reserve managers to enter private premises without the consent of the householder, legal representation and appeal from court decisions, the power of reserve managers to arbitrarily direct people to work, and the terms and conditions of employment, were now required to treat Aboriginal Queenslanders on the same footing as other Australians.

We were at last free from those discriminations that humiliated and degraded our people.

The companion to this enactment, which would form the architecture of indigenous human rights akin to the Civil Rights Act 1965 in the United States, was the Racial Discrimination Act.

It was in Queensland under Bjelke-Petersen that its importance became clear.

In 1976 a Wik man from Aurukun on the western Cape York Peninsula, John Koowarta, sought to purchase the Archer Bend pastoral lease from its white owner.

The Queensland Government refused the sale. The High Court’s decision in Koowarta versus Bjelke-Petersen upheld the Racial Discrimination Act as a valid exercise of the external affairs powers of the Commonwealth.

However, in an act of spite, the Queensland Government converted the lease into the Acher Bend National Park.

Old man Koowarta died a broken man, the winner of a landmark High Court precedent but the victim of an appalling discrimination.

The Racial Discrimination Act was again crucial in 1982 when a group of Murray Islanders led by Eddie Mabo claimed title under the common law to their traditional homelands in the Torres Strait.

In 1985 Bjelke-Petersen sought to kill the Murray Islanders’ case by enacting a retrospective extinguishment of any such title.

There was no political or media uproar against Bjelke-Petersen’s law. There was no public condemnation of the state’s manuover. There was no redress anywhere in the democratic forums or procedures of the state or the nation.

If there were no Racial Discrimination Act that would have been the end of it. Land rights would have been dead, there would never have been a Mabo case in 1992, there would have been no Native Title Act under Prime Minister Keating in 1993.

Without this old man the land and human rights of our people would never have seen the light of day.

There would never have been Mabo and its importance to the history of Australia would have been lost without the Whitlam program.

Only those who have known discrimination truly know its evil.

Only those who have never experienced prejudice can discount the importance of the Racial Discrimination Act.

This old man was one of those rare people who never suffered discrimination but understood the importance of protection from its malice.

On this day we will recall the repossession of the Gurindji of Wave Hill, when the Prime Minister said, “Vincent Lingiari, I solemnly hand to you these deeds as proof in Australian law that these lands belong to the Gurindji people and I put into your hands this piece of earth itself as a sign that we restore them to you and your children forever.”

It was this old man’s initiative with the Woodward Royal Commission that led to Prime Minister Fraser’s enactment of the Aboriginal Land Rights Northern Territory Act, legislation that would see more than half of the territory restored to its traditional owners.

Of course recalling the Whitlam Government’s legacy has been, for the past four decades since the dismissal, a fraught and partisan business.

Assessments of those three highly charged years and their aftermath divide between the nostalgia and fierce pride of the faithful, and the equally vociferous opinion that the Whitlam years represented the nadir of national government in Australia. Let me venture a perspective.

The Whitlam government is the textbook case of reform trumping management.

In less than three years an astonishing reform agenda leapt off the policy platform and into legislation and the machinery and programs of government.

The country would change forever. The modern cosmopolitan Australia finally emerged like a technicolour butterfly from its long dormant chrysalis.

And 38 years later we are like John Cleese, Eric Idle and Michael Palin’s Jewish insurgents ranting against the despotic rule of Rome, defiantly demanding “and what did the Romans ever do for us anyway?”

Apart from Medibank and the Trade Practices Act, cutting tariff protections and no-fault divorce in the Family Law Act, the Australia Council, the Federal Court, the Order of Australia, federal legal aid, the Racial Discrimination Act, needs-based schools funding, the recognition of China, the abolition of conscription, the law reform commission, student financial assistance, the Heritage Commission, non-discriminatory immigration rules, community health clinics, Aboriginal land rights, paid maternity leave for public servants, lowering the minimum voting age to 18 years and fair electoral boundaries and Senate representation for the territories.

Apart from all of this, what did this Roman ever do for us?

And the Prime Minister with that classical Roman mien, one who would have been as naturally garbed in a toga as a safari suit, stands imperiously with twinkling eyes and that slight self-mocking smile playing around his mouth, in turn infuriating his enemies and delighting his followers.

There is no need for nostalgia and yearning for what might have been.

The achievements of this old man are present in the institutions we today take for granted and played no small part in the progress of modern Australia.

There is no need to regret three years was too short. Was any more time needed? The breadth and depth of the reforms secured in that short and tumultuous period were unprecedented, and will likely never again be repeated.

The devil-may-care attitude to management as opposed to reform is unlikely to be seen again by governments whose priorities are to retain power rather than reform.

The Whitlam program as laid out in the 1972 election platform consisted three objectives: 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.

This program is as fresh as it was when first conceived. It scarcely could be better articulated today.

Who would not say the vitality of our democracy is a proper mission of government and should not be renewed and invigorated.

Who can say that liberating the talents and uplifting the horizons of Australians is not a worthy charter for national leadership?

It remains to mention the idea of promoting equality. My chances in this nation were a result of the Whitlam program. My grandparents and parents could never have imagined the doors that opened to me which were closed to them.

I share this consciousness with millions of my fellow Australians whose experiences speak in some way or another to the great power of distributed opportunity.

I don’t know why someone with this old man’s upper middle class background could carry such a burning conviction that the barriers of class and race of the Australia of his upbringing and maturation should be torn down and replaced with the unapologetic principle of equality.

I can scarcely point to any white Australian political leader of his vintage and of generations following of whom it could be said without a shadow of doubt, he harboured not a bone of racial, ethnic or gender prejudice in his body.

This was more than urbane liberalism disguising human equivocation and private failings; it was a modernity that was so before its time as to be utterly anachronistic.

For people like me who had no chance if left to the means of our families we could not be more indebted to this old man’s foresight and moral vision for universal opportunity.

Only those born bereft truly know the power of opportunity. Only those accustomed to its consolations can deprecate a public life dedicated to its furtherance and renewal. This old man never wanted opportunity himself but he possessed the keenest conviction in its importance.

For it behoves the good society through its government to ensure everyone has chance and opportunity.

This is where the policy convictions of Prime Minister Whitlam were so germane to the uplift of many millions of Australians.

We salute this old man for his great love and dedication to his country and to the Australian people.

When he breathed he truly was Australia’s greatest white elder and friend without peer of the original Australians.

Noel Pearson is an Aboriginal Australian lawyer, land rights activist and founder of the Cape York Institute. This is the full text of the speech he gave at Gough Whitlam’s memorial

 

The Honourable (Edward) Gough Whitlam, AC QC

The Honourable (Edward) Gough Whitlam, AC QC

State Memorial Service

Graham Freudenberg AM

Sydney Town Hall

5 November 2014

 

This is the greatest privilege of my very privileged life.  And I thank the Whitlam Family for it.

Gough Whitlam sets Time itself at defiance.  Can it really be 45 years ago, he stood right here to open his epic campaign in 1969? Is it really 42 years since it was time at Blacktown in 1972 – making anew and forever his own, John Curtin’s clarion call to the men and women of Australia?

We had developed a little ritual between us.  Before a speech he would touch me on the shoulder for luck.  He didn’t forget even amid the tumult of Blacktown. “It’s been a long road comrade, but I think we are there”.  He knew how much the words and the touch would mean to me at such a moment.  You would go to the barricades for such a man.

The Whitlam touch is on us all.  He touches us in our day to day lives, in the way we think about Australia, in the way we see the world. He touches still the millions who share his vision for a more equal Australia, a more independent, inclusive, generous and tolerant Australia.  And a nation confident of its future in our region and the world.

And in that world context – you will forgive an old man’s pride, but the last time he performed that little gesture was in 2001, as we entered the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the scene of his triumph thirty years before, over fear of China.

But his great stage was the House of Representatives – stage, pulpit, arena.  For a decade, he won memorable victories in the House of Representatives.  In 1975, he fought his mightiest flight, in defence of the House of Representatives, and suffered his worst defeat, on the verge of victory.

First and last, Gough Whitlam was the Member for Werriwa.  More than a place in outer Western Sydney. To him, modern Australia in the making – with all its growing inequalities in “schools, hospitals, cities” – his shorthand for all the social conditions for decent Australian living, including, dare I mention, sewerage in the suburbs.

He saw that only the nation’s Parliament and the nation’s government could bring quality and equality to areas of Australian life, where Canberra had never before dared or cared.

From Werriwa too, came his magnificent obsession with electoral equality, one vote, one value.  He believed with a passion, that this our nation of immigrants must crash through the barriers of intolerance and prejudice about birth or background, race or religion.  This was a new voice, new themes, a new agenda for Australia.

The Whitlam agenda remains part of the Australian agenda. “Contemporary relevance, comrade” – that was his watchword. And if ever he soared too high – or too long – there was always the other member for Werriwa, Margaret, to bring him back to earth.  And Mick Young.

“The fun is where I am, Mungo”.  The irrepressible Mungo McCallum had asked him if he missed the fun of Canberra when Bob Hawke sent him to liven up Paris.

Gough was very serious about making us laugh.  Not least at himself, and his ego.  There was a lot of laughter in the Whitlam years.  Some tears too.  But always, energy, urgency, enthusiasm, for the high and noble calling of political service.  Drive and purpose for his Party and his country.

He believed profoundly in the Australian Labor Party as the mainstay of Australian democracy and equality. And always, there was the sense of living Australian history.  And making it.  In his rich and mellow autumn, he worried occasionally lest he be like King Charles, remembered mainly for losing his head.

Your tributes, your presence here today, attest his true place in the hearts of his fellow Australians.

Paul Keating is right: “There was an Australia before Whitlam, and there was a different Australia after Whitlam”.  He was the bridge. Within the wonderful continuity of our national life, our long parliamentary democracy underpinned by strong political parties, Gough Whitlam built a bridge.

As he put it in 1972: “Between the habits and fears of the past and the hopes and demands of the future”.  Optimism, enthusiasm, confidence – against fear, prejudice, conformity.  That is his enduring message to the men and women of Australia.  Never more than now.

In a celebratory Mass for Gough Whitlam, Fr Ed Campion recalled the brief inscription to Machiavelli in the Franciscan Church of Santa Croce in Florence. ‘Tanto nomini nullum par elogium, 1527’.

Look around and we see monuments to Gough Whitlam everywhere – Medicare, needs-based education funding, recognition of China, no-fault divorce, university education, land rights, an end to White Australia, and …….A eulogy may be superfluous

This article was first published by The Drum.

Gough Whitlam’s sheer presence, drive and ambitions disguised some deep flaws. But his vision and achievements stand in stark contrast to the politics we often have seen since, writes Mike Steketee.

“It’s time”. It seemed like a modest slogan for a momentous event – after 23 years, a new government led by a towering figure promising sweeping change.

But it was perfectly pitched for maximum impact. Not all Australians were swept up in the political euphoria but all but the most died-in-the-wool conservatives could see that after 23 years, with the party of Menzies now under the leadership of the comical Billy McMahon, the Liberals had reached their fag end.

In his first election as leader in 1969, Gough Whitlam secured a 7 per cent swing and gained 18 seats to reduce the Gorton government’s majority to seven. To some extent, it was a predictable correction following the landslide Coalition win in 1966 but its size – the largest swing since 1943 – spoke to another factor: for the first time for many years, Labor under Whitlam looked like an alternative government.

In Canberra, there was a feeling of irresistible momentum, with Labor sweeping all before it at the next election.

At least that is how it felt as a 20-year-old reporter arriving in the national capital in 1969. Canberra then was a mecca for journalists. Working cheek by jowl with politicians in the confined quarters of the old Parliament House, there was a sense of being part of great national events.

In part it was the Whitlam style – what his speechwriter and first biographer, Graham Freudenberg, called “a certain grandeur”. His intellect dazzled, his wit sizzled.

“Who’s this – Aristophanes?” he said as I walked into the opposition leader’s office and encountered him talking to his staff. Without the benefit of an education in the classics, I had to take the first opportunity to repair to the parliamentary library to discover that Whitlam was referring to an ancient Greek playwright. About all we had in common was a beard.

The mood of the time could not be more different from the all-pervading cynicism surrounding politics today. There was a rare idealism: Australians dared to dream that a government could build a better, bigger nation than the outpost of the Empire that we sometimes still had trouble putting behind us.

Whitlam elevated politics to a higher plane, convinced of what could be achieved through an expansive role for government and a more confident and independent foreign policy. As he put it in his policy speech for the 1972 election, ever since his entry to parliament in 1952:

I have never wavered from my fundamental belief that until the national government became involved in great matters like schools and cities, this nation would never fulfil its real capabilities.

Allied to this was a faith in his own powers of persuasion. He believed that patient, detailed explanation in countless public forums could convince the public, as he had first convinced his own party, of the merits of a national health insurance scheme that left no one facing crippling debts because of a medical condition; of a system of school funding based on student needs; of broadening access to university education by removing fees; of the national government funding basic services such as sewerage neglected by the states.

If he received the nation’s trust, he would return the favour by keeping his promises – a novel idea in today’s politics. There was a warning sign in the 1972 election result – a swing of only 2.6 per cent, delivering a modest majority of nine seats. There was less a wholehearted embrace of the Whitlam revolution than a wary endorsement of the need for change.

But this was overlooked in the euphoria of victory. The Program, as Whitlam called his policies (or less formally, the New Testament), was holy writ, especially now that he had received a mandate from the people to implement it. He would forge ahead, crashing through the political barriers and trusting his reforms would bring their own reward.

In the modern context, when politicians barely dare move a sinew without reference to the opinion polls, it was a refreshing approach. But it also was the start of Whitlam’s undoing. To the extent that he thought of it at all, economic policy was a given. The assumption was that continued economic growth would bring with it the increase in revenue that would finance this expanded role of the government.

As he said in his policy speech for the 1972 election: “Within Australia today we do not have to plan to ration scarcity but to plan the distribution of abundance, not to restrict shares but to secure a fairer share for all.” After 23 years out of office and with Whitlam’s determination to carry out his mandate, he and his ministers were not to be diverted from their grand plans.

It was not Whitlam’s fault that Middle East oil producing nations decided in 1973 to use their stranglehold over supplies to extract greater returns, resulting in a quadrupling of oil prices and the new economic phenomenon of stagflation – recession combined with high inflation. But he was responsible for Australia’s ambivalent and inadequate response, which fluctuated from pulling in the reins to the government spending its way out of recession.

Sounder economic policies, even at the cost of breaking or delaying promises, may have provided a stronger defence against opponents. Members of the Liberal and Country Party opposition, together with a conservative business establishment, simply did not accept the legitimacy of a Labor government. To them it was an aberration, to be rectified at the earliest opportunity.

It is often forgotten that the Coalition parties not once but twice tried to bring the government down by blocking the budget in the Senate. The first time was in 1974, after less than 18 months in office, when Whitlam responded to the opposition threat by calling an election, which he won but with a majority reduced from nine to five. It was another warning sign.

The following year, with the government in a much weaker electoral position, Whitlam defied Malcolm Fraser’s attempt to force an election, triggering the nation’s greatest political crisis. The fact that Labor held a majority in the parliamentary chamber that determines who forms a government was not enough to confer it legitimacy in the eyes of the opposition, even for the remaining year or so that it would have continued until its almost inevitable defeat.

While it is now generally accepted that Governor-General John Kerr had the constitutional right to dismiss Whitlam, the enduring criticism is that he deliberately deceived Whitlam about his intentions, giving the prime minister no opportunity to react to warnings.

Whitlam’s sheer presence, his drive and his ambitions for the nation disguised some deep flaws. But his vision and the achievements that flowed from them stands in stark contrast to the myopic, reactive politics, we often have seen since.

Mike Steketee is a freelance journalist. He was formerly a columnist and national affairs editor for The Australian. 

Gough Whitlam’s death has prompted a quite remarkable bipartisan response in the parliament. And rightly so, for he was a great parliamentarian for over 26 years along with 70 years of public life. His forum was the parliament rather than the street or the protest march.

He had great respect for the parliament and that is why the subversion of the parliament in November 1975, when he had a clear majority in the House of Representatives, hurt him so deeply. But his bitterness was reserved for one person.

Listening to the parliament and reading the other media comments I was again impressed by the diversity and the range of changes which he introduced and how institutions and people were changed by the Whitlam years. The comments were more a celebration of his achievements and his vision than a eulogy. He enlarged and expanded Australia in a way that we had not seen before and have not seen since.

Tony Abbott described him as a ‘giant of our time’. Bill Shorten said that ‘the ALP has lost a giant’. Julia Gillard referred to his ‘highest political courage’. The Governor General called him ‘a towering leader’. Malcolm Fraser called him ‘a great Australian … a formidable opponent’. John Faulkner spoke to the Labor Caucus of ‘Gough Whitlam as a towering figure in our party and in our lives as long as I can remember’.

Gough Whitlam’s remarkable three years in government didn’t come out of thin air. He spent twenty hard years in opposition thinking, planning and working for what he could do in government. It was a rigorous and tough apprenticeship.

 

Political and personal courage

In my blog yesterday I spoke of Gough Whitlam’s courage, energy and determination to keep going despite the enormous obstacles, particularly from the machine men in the ALP who were more interested in retaining power in the party machine than winning elections and helping those in need. Looking back, I pay tribute to his determination to stay the course when he had so many factional and selfish people around him. Sometimes he could have expressed his contempt for them more diplomatically, but they really were ‘f…wits’ as he often called them.  And there are still some remaining.

One phrase I remember above all others about the problems in the ALP was that ‘the ALP is not a national party. It is a federation of six state parties.’ Progress has been made but the journey he commenced over 40 years ago in party reform towards a national party is still not completed.

Mick Young

Gough Whitlam and Mick Young were unlikely political soul mates but they needed each other. Mick Young was the ex-shearer who knew better than others what it was like to wash your hands in solvol. He was grounded amongst working people, knew the trade union movement well and was active in ALP branches. His feet were very much on the ground. He didn’t have great office systems, but his people and political skills were in his head. Gough said that Mick Young was ‘One of the greatest things that happened to the Labor Party when he became Federal Secretary and National Campaign Manager for the 1972 elections’.  Mick Young had commented that in the past in its campaigning, the ALP had more slogans than candidates! He knew of the dysfunction between the party organisation and the parliamentary leader. But he knew that even ‘It’s Time’ and market research would not prevail without the policy and the vision that Gough Whitlam supplied.

‘Dame’ Margaret and Family

Through good times and bad times, ‘Dame’ Margaret and Gough were together. They had their differences as all strong-minded people would. But their love was deep and abiding. For months after Margaret’s death, Gough would invariably commence our conversation ‘Wasn’t that a great send-off for Margaret?’ Her death was a great blow to Gough.

He remained close to and very protective of his sister Freda who after retirement as Principal of Presbyterian Ladies College became Moderator General of the Uniting Church of Australia. I recall that at Gough’s 80^th birthday, Freda said that when Gough left home in Canberra to go to Sydney University ‘the light went out of the house’.

Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser

Gough often said that he and Malcolm Fraser had not had a disagreement for thirty years. It was largely true. Malcolm delivered the Whitlam Oration in 2012 in Parramatta. He commenced the oration ‘Men and Women of Australia’. Gough and Malcolm expressed common views about the importance of an independent Australia within the US alliance. They campaigned together for a Republic, against media monopoly and in favour of land rights for indigenous people.

I remember Gough saying to me in later years that Malcolm was a ferocious political opponent ‘but he never deceived me’. A few months ago Malcolm called on Gough at his Sydney office. He presented Gough with a copy of his latest book ‘Dangerous Allies’. He inscribed in the book ‘Dear Gough, with great respect and great affection, Malcolm’.

Visits in later days and the bearer of the flame

Quite separately and for several years, John Faulkner, Daryl Mellam and I visited Gough in his  office in William Street Sydney. Going to the office three days a week was a very helpful break from Lulworth. His staff, driver Michael, Aaron and Penny were great supporters and in the end, carers. Daryl Mellam invariably brought cupcakes that his sister had made with green and gold icing. I usually brought chocolate mousse although Cathy Whitlam said it wasn’t good for him and she had to wash the chocolate out of his shirt.

I know that Gough particularly valued the regular calls by John Faulkner. Gough had a great affection and regard for John, whom he regarded as the bearer of the Labor flame. John usually obliged by bringing a few bottles of passiona which were very much to Gough’s abstemious taste.

A secular treasure

Excuse me for mentioning it, but when the Japanese emperor awarded me the ‘Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure’, Gough congratulated me but said ‘Comrade, you must understand that I am a secular treasure’.

He meticulously planned Margaret’s funeral and his own. Having been a navigator in Ventura aircraft during the Pacific War, he asked Angus Houston, the then Defence Chief, whether a Ventura could be found to scatter his ashes over Sydney Harbour. Unfortunately, Venturas were no longer flying.

Gough was determinedly secular; even though he proudly and often recalled that he had topped the examination in religious studies at High School but could not be awarded the prize because he was not a believer. He often described himself as a ‘fellow traveller’ in matters of religion. He was taken by Winston Churchill’s description of himself as ‘not a pillar of the church, but a flying buttress’.

By introducing needs based funding for schools he did more to help the education of Catholic kids than priests or bishops ever did.

He enquired frequently about my joining the Catholic Church. He was always interested and never hostile. He often said that ‘the Catholic Church is the big league”. He spoke to me a lot about matters of faith.

He didn’t mind being confused with Saint Paul. At Fred Daly’s Requiem Mass he read the letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. The letter is one of the most moving and challenging in any language. It is quite beautiful. ’For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity’. After the service a good supporter of Fred Daly ,who probably knew more about the Labor Party than the scriptures came up to Graham Freudenberg, Gough’s speech writer and said, ‘Mr Freudenberg, that was a great speech you wrote for Mr Whitlam’

At Nugget Coomb’s funeral at Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, Gough said of Nugget ‘all Australians can say in the words of Paul’s letter to Timothy “Well done thou good and faithful servant”’.

It can also be said of Gough Whitlam.

May he rest in peace..