Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great privilege to be able to speak in this debate and to honour a person who I believe was one of the greatest Prime Ministers Australia has had, if not the greatest. Gough Whitlam was a truly great Australian—a leader, a man of vision and ideas, and an inspiration to generations of Australian. It has been said by many who have paid tribute to Gough that there was Australia before Whitlam and Australia after Whitlam. He transformed the face of Australia. He made it a better place. He made Australians proud to be Australian. He took Australia into the 20th century. Prior to that we were languishing in a bygone age.

In my first speech I said:

Good government is inclusive. It is about developing a sense of community so that every person in that community is able to benefit from the resources, wealth and services of the country. The Whitlam government sought to do this. It was a government that had vision—the vision to share the wealth of the country with all Australians, to create a just society where everyone in the community had an equal opportunity to succeed.

And equal opportunity was something that did not exist before the Whitlam government.

One of its greatest reforms was the change to tertiary education, a change that made university education accessible and affordable for everyone, not just a few privileged Australians. When I left school I chose not to go to university. At that time I had a scholarship to go to teachers college, but at that particular time in Australia you could go to university only if you had very wealthy parents or if you actually managed to gain a scholarship. I chose not to go and not to become a teacher at that time. Instead, I worked. When I went to work I did not receive the same wage as a male from the same year I was in at school who had the same job and worked in the same workplace, simply because women at that time did not receive equal pay. Gough Whitlam changed that. He made it possible for somebody like me to go to university at a later time. He created an opportunity that enabled me to study and enabled me to get a very good job, and from that very good job become a representative of the people in this parliament.

He also changed the situation so that when my daughter started work she received equal pay with the males who were in her class at school. Gough created that equal opportunity in education and in the workplace. It was a change that created opportunity for many Australians, myself included.

It was the drive and passion of Gough Whitlam that made the Whitlam government the great reforming government it was. The first time I cast a vote, I voted for the Whitlam government. I remember the elation when Gough Whitlam led Labor to victory, in 1972, and I remember my absolute despair when Kerr sacked Gough, in 1975. It was that one act that motivated me to join the Labor Party. I was committed to the belief that my vote counted and that when I voted for a government it was my vote, the vote of all Australians, that determined who was the government of the country, not a Governor-General. It drove me to be politically active, as did his vision, his charisma and his absolute commitment to making Australia a different country, a place that we could all be proud of.

I owe so much to Gough Whitlam, as do so many people in Australia. I have been contacted by many of my constituents, wishing to express their sadness and their appreciation for what Gough Whitlam did for Australia. There are very few people whom we could say have transformed a nation, and that is exactly what Gough did. He transformed the nation and created opportunities for all Australians. He was committed to fairness, equity and social justice. I thank him, the people of Shortland thank him, and I know the people of Australia thank him for his contribution to our nation.

See this speech in context