Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I am grateful for the opportunity to join others in paying respect to the life and work of Gough Whitlam and I thank all those who have shared their reflections and tributes in the course of this condolence motion. There is no escaping the fact that Whitlam is now not just a man and a Prime Minister, but a government, an idea, a symbol, an era and a legacy. That is a lot of freight to carry on the frame of one person—and yet we know that here was a person who could bear it, and we mourn his passing.

Whitlam was a Labor leader for whom no area of beneficial policy was too small or too large—from sewerage to cities; from legal aid to law reform. Others have spoken about the incredible range, speed, and courage of the Whitlam government's policy program, and of course the list of big-picture policies speaks for itself. I want to make the point that while some of Whitlam's reforms were foreshadowed, and while some of Whitlam's reforms may have occurred in any case, this measuring of preparation and possibility, of what had been started and might have been, should fall into their proper small proportion compared to what did occur and what was achieved by Gough Whitlam and his Labor government.

The Whitlam government changes that resonated for me, especially early in my personal and professional life, include the work on Aboriginal land rights and antidiscrimination, the creation of legal aid and the Law Reform Commission, the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18, the delivery of one-vote one-value reforms and the decisive shift towards a confident and distinctive Australian national identity—a place with our own stories on canvas, in print and film and our own national anthem.

As a Labor person growing up in the country, I was keenly aware of how Australia's electoral system at the state and federal level did not provide fair representation. Anyone who believes those discrepancies were minor should consider that in 1968 there were some House of Representative seats with more than 83,000 voters and some with fewer than 47,000. What Whitlam began in the early 1970s at the federal level, I am glad to say Jim McGinty continued in Western Australia some thirty years later.

As someone who trained as a lawyer and worked as the principal solicitor in a regional community legal centre, I know how much better and fairer our system became through the introduction of legal aid and through the work of the Law Reform Commission. And as a person with a deep commitment to the importance of human rights and the international rule of law, I recognise the enormous value of the Whitlam government's signing of more than 130 multilateral human rights and environmental treaties and in passing the Death Penalty Abolition Act, the Racial Discrimination Act and other laws that gave domestic force to Australia's international obligations. I honour Whitlam's attempt to introduce a Human Rights Bill—a reform whose time has well and truly come, yet a reform which remains to be secured.

I also want to say something about how change occurs. Much in the analysis of the Whitlam government and of Whitlam himself in the last week has sought to offer a balance between the momentous achievements, on the one hand, and the disruptions and drama, on the other, as if perhaps a better Prime Minister and a better government would have secured the incredible surge forward of Australia in so many areas more smoothly. This, I am afraid, is at best a lazy dualism and at worst a kind of story-telling designed to frame-out future major reform. Big change by its nature is disruptive and by its nature draws resistance. As Whitlam wrote, 'Mine was a government rich in personal and political drama,' and let us not forget that to a significant degree that drama was supplied by the obstruction and resistance of those who had a preference for the status quo, an attachment to privilege or who simply did not accept the legitimacy of a Labor government.

Through the long telescope of time, people and events become simplified and singular; they seem ordained, legendary, unbelievable. It is in the nature of history that now we see clearly the giant of Whitlam, but less clearly his colleagues and collaborators in government, and that we now mark the long shadows of Whitlam policy achievements, but hesitate, perhaps, to cast forward our own shadows.

For Labor, it seems to me that in remembering the leadership of Gough Whitlam and his cabinet colleagues, we should also remember the Nietzschean tenet that 'one repays a teacher badly if one remains nothing but a pupil'. One of the Whitlam lessons must surely be that each of us, and all of us collectively, have the opportunity to make our own contribution by looking forward, not backward, as we fight on our principles and values for positive change.

Like many Labor people I was privileged to meet Gough and Margaret—of course the telescope has to be wide enough for Margaret too, for she is Whitlam as much as Gough.

I would like to finish by saying that Gough Whitlam was a lovely man—always welcoming and interested, always encouraging and generous and good humoured. It was in the core of his being to give of himself, to impart some of his optimism and energy to those he met, just as he poured his optimism and energy into the course-changing government that he led, a government whose wellspring flows strongly in Australia today.

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