Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to express on behalf of the people of Charlton my sincere condolences regarding the passing of Edward Gough Whitlam AC, QC. Gough was a giant of the Labor Party and the nation as a whole, and we will not see his like again. The contributions to this debate from both Labor and coalition members have been heartfelt and generous. I would like to associate myself with all of them. Instead of trying to encapsulate all of the contributions Gough made to this country, I would like to touch on two of them that impacted on my family deeply: firstly, his reforms to welfare and, secondly, his democratisation of the Australian Labor Party.

Gough and ministers like Bill Hayden removed the stigma associated with welfare. My mother was a single mothers campaigner in the late 1960s. When she had my older brother, she was pilloried by the Catholic Church. This inspired her to seek justice for single mothers. It was only when Labor won in 1972 and implemented the single mothers benefit that that justice began to be achieved. I can barely imagine how hard it was for single mothers in the late 1960s and 1970s, stigmatised by the more conservative elements of society, often dependent upon the charity and support of family and friends. Then came along a reformist, progressive government that said: 'We understand your challenges. We will help surmount the obstacles placed before lone parents—lone parents who are often in this situation through no fault of their own.' This changed lives. This improved lives. This improved society, and my family was a direct beneficiary of this.

Party reform was also one of Gough's earliest triumphs and one of his most difficult achievements. Gough understood that the party must be reformed if we were to present a viable alternative. He attacked the culture of defeat that had led to Labor's repeated failure to win power. He took on entrenched interests and had the courage to take on hostile conferences. Gough appeared before the 1967 Victorian state conference and stared down some of the toughest and most formidable political activists. He stated:

We construct a philosophy of failure, which finds in defeat a form of justification and a proof of the purity of our principles. Certainly the impotent are pure.

… This Party was not conceived in failure, brought forth by failure or consecrated to failure … let us have none of this nonsense that defeat is in some way more moral than victory …

He then went on to say:

… I did not seek and do not want the leadership of Australia's largest pressure group. I propose to follow the traditions of those of our leaders who have seen the role of our Party as striving to achieve, and achieving the national government of Australia …

I highlight this because this is Labor's core philosophy. We fail our supporters, we fail the millions of low-income and middle-income Australians if we do not seek to achieve power. Only in government can we implement the reforms necessary to improve the lives of all Australians.

You do not establish Medicare and accessible higher education, end conscription, reform welfare and establish the Racial Discrimination Act from opposition. This is a lesson that is relevant today as we see various minor political parties attempt to appropriate Gough's legacy, in direct contradiction to his life. One of Gough's central fights was to reject their myopic commitment to purity at the cost of effectiveness. To repeat it: only the impotent are pure.

The party reforms Gough won were centralised on democratising the various state branches of the party. It is forgotten that Gough drove intervention in not just Victoria but New South Wales as well, where an independent inquiry had found stacking, bias, rorted preselections and widespread abuse of rules by the ruling head office faction. This drove the adoption of proportional representation. Without proportional representation we would not have seen generations of political titans make a contribution to this parliament. Without Gough and the intervention we would not have Senators Bruce Childs and John Faulkner or the current Member for Grayndler.

Interestingly, in the context of current debates around party reform, I should note that Gough was on the record as calling for national conference delegates to be selected by branch members at the Federal Electorate Council level and by the membership of affiliated trade unions, not state conferences—a worthy and important reform. I spend considerable time on this because without reforming the party we could not have the platform to take to the people nor could the people have confidence in our ability to govern.

In my remaining time I would like to correct the record as to the economic performance of the Whitlam government. While I do not deny that mistakes were made, I remind people that this period was dominated by the oil shocks, which presented a massive challenge to governments around the world, and not many performed well. I will also remind people that in three years of government, the Whitlam government recorded budget surpluses of 0.7 per cent of GDP, then 1.9 per cent and then 0.3 per cent of GDP, in 1974-75. In fact the 1973-74 surplus is the fourth highest on record.

In conclusion, not many people in this place can say they have fundamentally changed Australia for the better. But without doubt Gough can. He will live long in our memory for this and the various causes he strove for. My condolences and the condolences of the people of Charlton go to the Whitlam family and their friends.

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