Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For many, myself included, Gough Whitlam was not only an inspiration but also the very reason for our enthusiasm for Labor politics. I had the honour of representing the electorate of Werriwa, which was held by Gough Whitlam throughout his political career.

He was a man with a vision, and certainly a vision for Australia's future. He was one not prepared to be constrained by traditional and historical ties but prepared to venture into new frontiers. Being the first Western leader of a major political party to visit China not only was groundbreaking at the time but also paved the way for our current day relationship not only with China but also with countries throughout the Asian region.

Gough became the member for Werriwa in 1952 and, following a redistribution, he and his wife Margaret and their children moved to Albert Street, Cabramatta, in 1955—a fact that is still quoted to me today by many of the more elderly residents at Cabramatta. When he became the member for Werriwa, the boundaries of the electorate map were much different to what they are today. As a matter of fact, his house in Albert Street is just down the road from my electorate office in Fowler. I had the honour of reminding Gough on many occasions that, in representing Werriwa and now Fowler, I have represented both ends of his old electorate.

Apart from meeting him at various party conferences and events, it was not until my by-election in 2005 that I had the opportunity for a more engaged discussion with Gough. Our early discussions around that period were a little frosty, given the fact that I was not the person he was supporting for preselection for his seat of Werriwa. For a while my meetings with Gough generally involved a fair degree of fair and trepidation on my part. In contrast, my wife Bernadette struck up a very close relationship with Margaret right from the start.

Gough was above all a reformer. During his leadership, he was able to reform and modernise the Labor Party. He made the ALP electable. He had the genius of being the first major political figure to comprehend the fundamental changes necessary for the Australian community. He understood that what the country needed was a new political focus on education, culture, social and infrastructure needs, particularly for the residents of the expanding outer suburbs and families of working-class backgrounds. My generation and those that follow are the direct beneficiaries of the Whitlam legacy.

Many people I meet in the various aged-care facilities in my electorate recall their encounters with the Whitlams—whether it was Margaret teaching their kids swimming at the local pool or just having the opportunity to speak to the great man at various local events or branch meetings. Locally, the Whitlams were revered and much loved. Invariably, I am told about Gough's commitment to enhance the basic infrastructure needs of the area. His campaign to establish an integrated sewerage system in Liverpool and Campbelltown in the Fairfield areas is still firmly lodged in the minds of many of the elderly residents of the area. While current generations might well take these developments for granted, if it were not for the tenacity of Gough these developments would have been some time off.

When I did meet with Gough in his office in Sydney it was for me like being in an inquisition. He always asked me about people he knew from the electorate and local branches as well as about developments occurring in the area. He was always interested. He always had his finger on the pulse. He did not regard Werriwa as something in his distant past. This is something I learnt to appreciate about Gough. He was not just the political giant of the Labor movement, which many have already spoken about in this place, but also someone who deeply cared about ordinary people.

I remember one round of discussions I had with Gough in his Sydney office. Somehow we got to talking about his time in the RAAF. He had been in 13 Squadron and flew as a navigator on a Ventura bomber. It was not only his clear recollections of events of this period that was so impressive; what took me by surprise was his unwavering loyalty to his flight crew. He stayed in contact with all the members of the flight crew after they dispersed from the air force. As a mark of the man's compassion, following the death of his pilot he remained in contact with his widow. While it is right that we remember Gough as a great of the Labor movement, it is his attention to people and their own particular circumstances that, for me and for many in my electorate, makes him truly great.

I offer my sympathies to his family. Edward Gough Whitlam, rest in peace.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my solemn duty to pass on the respects of the people of the Riverina on the death of the Hon. Edward Gough Whitlam AC QC and also to have a few reminisces of Mr Whitlam's time in Wagga Wagga and to pass on a few of the remarks of those who knew him and those who revered him.

In passing on some of the reminisces of Mr Whitlam, I bring to the House a bound edition of the Daily Advertiserthe Wagga Wagga newspaper. I know you are not allowed to use props, but I am sure it is okay on this occasion. So I will show my ALP friends across the other side, the front page of the edition which is headlined, 'Wagga's big welcome to Whitlam—five-hour visit'. The story reads:

The Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam, and his wife Margaret were Wagga's guests yesterday and for five solid hours wherever they went crowds applauded and whenever they turned welcome hands were extended. More than 480 people—many of them young children—crammed into the Wagga Civic Theatre to extend a Wagga welcome to the man who holds Australia's top political office.

Mr Whitlam visited Wagga to open the Schnelle Harmon grandstand on Eric Weissel Oval—

unfortunately now disused—

and the half-million dollar extensions to the Wagga Leagues Club. Three hundred sporting, civic and service leaders from Wagga and district attended the opening of the grandstand yesterday afternoon. Inside the Leagues Club later in the evening Mr Whitlam and his wife met more than 150 Labor Party supporters in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

And I am sure the local Labor branch would love to get 150 local supporters at a function these days!

A spokesman for Mr Whitlam said, 'The Prime Minister did not know what to expect coming to a current Liberal stronghold.'

And I am happy to report that I am hopeful that it is now a strong Nationals stronghold.

But he was greeted with a right royal reception. Children, nuns, students, politicians, housewives and hundreds of working men thronged around Mr and Mrs Whitlam for their entire Wagga visit, which was Mr Whitlam's third to the city but first as Prime Minister.'

I can report that it was the first prime ministerial visit that Wagga Wagga had received since Robert Menzies came to town on Friday, 17 November 1961. So it had been quite awhile.

During his welcome to the Prime Minister, Alderman Gissing spoke of the tremendous number of playing fields provided for the community of Wagga and the role of the council and the local leagues club in maintaining these. Mr Whitlam understood the need for the Commonwealth to fund local government directly. He understood regionalism. I have to say that; I have to put that on the record. Mr Whitlam said he was flattered by the welcome he received from the people of Wagga. And you will love this quote, members opposite, and you can just imagine Gough—I will channel Gough here, 'And I was thrilled to see all the decorations as I drove along Wagga's main street,' he quipped, 'but I was later told that they were for Christmas, not me.' You can just see him saying it—those great quotes. He was quite the comedian, but very witty, as we all know.

I would also like to place on the Hansard some of the tributes that he has received from no less than the former Leader of the Nationals and Deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer, who said in The Daily Advertiser:

Unbelievably, Gough Whitlam as prime minister and ex-prime minister could recite correctly every (train) station from Junee to Narrandera in correct order, and he often did this when we were in conversation. Gough told me he used the wheat silos of the Riverina to assist his RAAF navigation training in World War II.

My final session with him was on the Ghan to Darwin in 2004 and, once again, he recalled in correct order, Marrar, Coolamon, Ganmain, Matong, Grong Grong and so forth.

That is amazing! That is just remarkable recall. The article continues:

Mr Fischer said he did not agree with much of Mr Whitlam's politics, but he respected his deep knowledge of the Riverina and also of military history, including the life and work of Sir John Monash—

who, of course, Tim Fischer is so deeply fond of.

I would also like to quote some of the Labor members of the Riverina, one of whom is my great mate Peter Knox. Peter never agrees with anything I say and nothing I ever do, but he is a great Labor member. I tell you what, if ever the Labor Party wanted to acknowledge somebody with life membership or something in the party, then Peter Knox is that person. He said, 'Gough with the was the reason I joined the Labor Party in 1972.' Mr Knox said he met Mr Whitlam on several occasions and was in awe of him. When he heard the news he said that it was a very big shock—even at his age. And it was a very big shock; the fact that Mr Whitlam passed away on 21 October 2014 at the grand old age of 98. I think he was one of those ageless figures who we all thought would just live on forever. None of us really expected him to go.

When Gough Whitlam visited Wagga Wagga on 15 January 1974, former Wagga Wagga deputy mayor, Mary Kidson, recalls being struck by a very tall and articulate man who made a captivating speech. He was one of those people who could really command an audience. I never met him, but certainly from seeing documentaries on television and reading a lot about him, he was one of those people who had presence. Mary Kidson told how fond she was of him and certainly of her great memories of him.

John Sullivan, who was the Country Party member for Riverina from 1974 to 1977 and who, even though he is an octogenarian, is still contributing greatly to public life as a councillor for Narrandera Shire Council recalled that he was in parliament at the time when Mr Whitlam was. He said:

We've lost one of the great characters of the Australian parliament and a prime minister that will be remembered for a long, long time.

We had a great rapport and I thought very highly of him.

I think that probably stretches across the bounds of parliament, the fact of that great respect that people had. We heard it last week in the condolence motion by the Prime Minister and others on this side for Mr Whitlam. Mr Sullivan continues:

I didn't appreciate some of his actions as leader of the Labor Party but as a man, he was very good.

There are others: Glenn Elliott-Rudder, who I bumped into at the shopping centre yesterday, described Mr Whitlam as a man of vision with a positive outlook. Indeed, he certainly was. Dan Hayes, the young president of Country Labor's Wagga Wagga branch said that the death of Mr Whitlam marked a sad day for the party. It was a sad day for the ALP, but it was also a day when we could celebrate the life of Mr Whitlam and, certainly, the great difference and transformation that he made to this nation.

I do praise Mr Whitlam for many of the things that he did, not least of which of course was also the acknowledgement that Catholic schools require funding from the Commonwealth. And I believe that he also understood regionalism—understood the great belief in decentralisation. If more members of parliament understood the great need for decentralisation the regional areas would be far stronger than they are now.

He also understood the need to have a trade relationship with China. We heard last week how he forged the way for that great relationship to occur. Australia's current ties with China have their origin in his efforts at what would have been a very difficult time. These moves laid the foundation for Australian business to establish a presence. One of the businesses that is really enjoying those links now is a company called Bee Dee Bags, which is based in Wagga Wagga. It is one of the fastest growing regional companies doing that sort of thing in Australia. 'China is going to be the economic powerhouse of the world in the future,' Bee Dee Bags founder Bruce Dicker said, and he acknowledged the role that Mr Whitlam played in that.

There are a lot of people in the Riverina—in fact, I would say most people in the Riverina—who mourn Mr Whitlam's passing, as do I. I really feel the need to pass on the condolences of all people in the Riverina for his loss and to pay respects to the surviving members of his family. May he rest in peace. Thank you for your contribution, Mr Whitlam.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to 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.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to deliver a very, very brief anecdote about my opportunity to meet Gough Whitlam. It begins with the observation that probably the lowest act of any hospital house officer is to switch off your pager—stop taking calls from the hospital—and then switch it on a few hours later and hand it over to your colleague who is taking over and tell you it has been a terribly busy shift and you have been unable to do all the work. I have to confess that the day Mr Whitlam was admitted to my hospital for a very brief stay I did that and spent three hours talking to Mr Whitlam. I am sure that my successor will forgive me on this one occasion for not doing my work during that shift. As I was warned in hushed tones by the ward staff as I went upstairs at St Luke's hospital in Sydney: 'Please go and admit Mr Smith, but by the way it's Mr Whitlam,' I could see administrative staff scurrying up from the ground floor where Margaret was dealing with all the paperwork. Many of them were quite daunted by the prospect of dealing with her.

Obviously, when I went in I was very trepid. I asked if I could have a bit of a chat. Mr Whitlam was very accommodating. I offered him a later time, but he said, 'No, no, let's have a chat now.' That was about 6 pm, and we chatted for about three hours. It was probably the longest admission I have ever done, but it was an absolute privilege to hear a complete history of Australian banking reform going back to the early 20th century. I realised as I walked in the room that he was seated on a hospital bed, looking very fit, and that even seated on the bed he was taller than me. I remember that my first political memory was when I was six years of age being hunched over a short-wave wireless radio on a tiny island off the coast of Papua New Guinea and my ashen faced mother looked up and said to me, 'Darling, Mr McMahon has lost.' That is one of the first political memories I have. Obviously it heralded the Whitlam era, for most of which I was overseas.

I guess, when I walked into that hospital room, I sense he could pick a Tory a mile off, with my haircut, distressed denim and pointy shoes, although today he would have a lot of trouble spotting his Labor colleagues as being Tories, sometimes. Basically, he explained his view of the world. It was impressive for me, being a super specialist trainee focused on one or two textbooks, to see a man who could cast his considerable intellect over a range of topics and talk about them almost indefinitely. That has been described before in this place.

He made an observation about Queensland which I loved, about his relationship with Joh Bjelke-Petersen. He did work in a bipartisan way, even with Joh, to get the South Bank cultural centre and museum off the ground. He remarked ironically then that, really, Joh should have named at least one of those great sandstone buildings on the Brisbane River after him, so there was little hint of political naivete, if not overoptimism.

He talked about a range of topics. He was generous in his discussions of other leaders who have followed him. He spoke at great length about people like Bob Hawke and Paul Keating in particular. I felt a little bit humbled to be listening even to those kinds of observations, which were incredibly frank and blunt. This was the measure of a person who spoke without any fear. He was a person who did that through his career, to the benefit of many. He would walk into a room and everyone would notice him and, I think, also enjoy and cherish every minute they spent with him.

There is an oft used and somewhat tired Shakespearian quote that 'the evil men do live after them and the good is oft interred with their bones', but I think even on this side one would have to confess that the great stuff that Whitlam achieved lives on even now and, in many ways, many of the things that we were most angry about at the time seem to have faded away. If that is a measure of his brief but luminous contribution then he has done a wonderful job as a former Prime Minister and we recognise him.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure and privilege to be able to pay tribute to the life and work of Edward Gough Whitlam and to extend my condolences on behalf of the people of Wills to his surviving family members.

Gough Whitlam was a towering figure in Australian political life. I think he was the greatest man that the Australian Labor Party has ever produced, and I think that he was the most influential Prime Minister during the course of the past 50 years. To listen to the speeches from both sides of the House you get a sense of modern Australian political history being divided into before 1972 and after 1972.

He did this after enlisting in the RAAF during the Second World War, which was of course a very dangerous thing to do. My father's brother, John, after whom I have my middle name, did the same thing but did not return. In 1972 I was a year 12 student and I had a bright orange 'It's time' sticker on my schoolbag. I remember after the election one of my school mates said that he too was delighted that Gough had won the election but believed that Gough would not be able to abolish conscription or take us out of Vietnam any time soon. I was crestfallen by this Realpolitik but delighted when something like 24 hours later Gough's two-man cabinet did precisely that.

His leadership and vision for Australia were the key things that inspired me to join the Australian Labor Party back in 1974. That was against the run of play—because, of course, his government was thrown out in no uncertain manner in 1975. But I believe that his legacy has proved to be so longstanding that he can lay claim to being the most influential Prime Minister and political leader of our generation. It is such a monumental body of work that I cannot do it justice here, but I do want to mention a number of aspects to it.

The first is the introduction of free tertiary education, which made such a difference in the lives of so many young Australians. The more I look at this and the more I think about it the more I think that it was a mistake for us to move away from that. The second is Medibank, which of course was the predecessor of Medicare, which gave Australia quite possibly the world's finest health system in which everybody, rich and poor alike, has guaranteed access to high-quality healthcare. The third is environment protection. Gough took Australia into the realm of national environment protection, moving to protect the Great Barrier Reef from oil drilling; introducing the World Heritage Convention to Australia and ratifying that; ratifying the Ramsar convention; and legislating for the National Parks and Wildlife Act. Another is the area of Indigenous affairs, with the passing of legislation to ban discrimination against Aboriginal people and establishing land rights and native title and returning land in the Northern Territory to the Gurindji people.

People will always draw on the aspects of someone's legacy that are consistent with their own views—and I am no different in that. I want to draw attention to the fact that, in 1974, he wrote that population growth was first amongst those issues which was leading to traditional forms of democratic government being under challenge. In July 1974 he said: 'I do not envisage any dramatic increase in our present population and, indeed, I would not wish to see one.'

No doubt he made mistakes, but the fact is that anyone who is Prime Minister makes thousands of decisions, and it is not possible to make thousands of decisions without doing that. You have to see his political circumstances against the background of coming to office after 23 years in opposition, bumping up against very entrenched forms of opposition in the public service and, indeed, right throughout Australian political life. You also have to have regard to his coming into office during that period of the OPEC oil shock in 1974 which generated unemployment and inflation throughout the Western world. Indeed, very few leaders who were unlucky enough to be in power at that time survived for very long after. He had titanic struggles with Malcolm Fraser. I can remember United States political commentators and analysts at the time remarking on the abilities of Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser and lamenting the fact they did not seem to have people of comparable political stature or calibre in their own country.

The best thing we can do to honour Gough's work and legacy is to do everything that we can to protect it, whether it is access to tertiary education, access to health care, environment protection affairs or the rights of Aboriginal people. But more than all those things, we should seek to honour the idea of politics as an honourable profession. Gough Whitlam would never have dreamt of a political career as a stepping stone to a cushy corporate job, post-politics. The idea of taking on a job as a corporate lobbyist or company director would have been anathema to him. What he did was go into public life because he believed in the capacity of individuals and of governments to make a difference—to improve people's lives and leave an Australia which was improved for the better. It is often said that everything we achieve, we achieve by standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. This was never more true than of Edward Gough Whitlam.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to associate myself with the comments of those who have spoken on the condolence motion to honour Edward Gough Whitlam ACQC, who was Australia's 21st prime minister. I offer my condolences to Gough and Margaret's children, Nicholas, Tony, Stephen and Catherine. Having lost my own father, I am acutely aware of the gap the loss of a parent means.

In death we celebrate the qualities of an individual. We acknowledge the achievements they made and the strides they undertook in order to reform and reflect a contemporary Australia.

In Aboriginal affairs there are three men who stand out significantly as being major reformers in Aboriginal affairs and the way in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people receive services and programs to enhance their quality of life. There was the Hon. Fred Chaney and the Hon. Ian Viner; but Gough, particularly, was held in hero status by many Indigenous Australians.

The Whitlam government Indigenous affairs policy area was the most transformational change; it changed the way in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were engaged in issues affecting their lives.

Let me cite a couple of quotes. These quotes are not untypical of those I have heard over the last week:

Mr Whitlam was a great friend of Aboriginal people and the land councils in the Northern Territory.

That was Samuel Bush-Blanasi, Northern Land Council chairman. Maurie Ryan, grandson of Vincent Lingiari, said:

He is part of our folklore, he will be remembered for hundreds of years.

Galarrwuy Yunupingu said:

In his time as Prime Minister Mr Whitlam was a great friend to Indigenous Australians. He always acted in a direct and determined way to resolve issues.

Many others have made similar comments across the nation.

From the perspective of the Aboriginal community, the Whitlam government established a policy of self-determination whereby the Commonwealth supported decision-making by Indigenous communities themselves. They relinquished the paternalistic control that previous governments had wielded over the lives of Indigenous people. Indigenous Australians welcomed the Whitlam government's empowerment of Indigenous people and the opportunity to make input into policy-making, and the abolition of discriminatory practices that limited their freedoms and opportunities. It was interesting when Gough Whitlam, in his 1972 election campaign speech, made it very clear that one of his focus areas would be to remedy the context and situation in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people found themselves. He gave an undertaking that he would reform many of the practices and also put into place a way of doing things for Australian governments that would be very different to that of the past.

The establishment of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs meant that for the first time there was a concerted focus by government on the range of issues that impacted on the lives of Indigenous Australians. The Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health was established as a small unit within the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and later on was transferred to Health, where it has become a significant structure that supports Aboriginal community controlled health services, state and Territory governments and Aboriginal communities in the work that is being undertaken to provide quality health care and services that will close the gap in life.

The establishment of Absec and Abstudy ensured that many young Aboriginal people across this nation could access secondary education to the end of year 12. Abstudy provided a pathway into tertiary studies that saw many graduate from university with degrees who would, in the future, hold leadership places. I think of Lowitja O'Donoghue, Charlie Perkins and many others who, through the university pathway, became great leaders who shaped the thinking of many governments. The other element that was important in the Whitlam era, and which is often cited in many of the interactions I have with Aboriginal people and organisations, was that it was the government that established the national Aboriginal council. The council is not just one individual advising government, but a number of people. Guidance to the government was sourced not from one or two, but from many. The practice in our society, in our Australian community, is to seek the views of so many in shaping policy and direction. That has always been a strength Aboriginal people saw in the Whitlam era. That is why there is often that association—that Aboriginal people tend to vote for Labor—because they saw it as a period in which they became a significant part of the agenda. They became a significant part of shaping their destiny and their future in concert with governments and government agencies. That tradition has been carried on and we now see a diversification of the political structures in Aboriginal society, which is in a sense a normalisation that you would expect when there is a bipartisan approach to the way we now deal with those areas where there are still gaps.

The thing that stuck most in my mind was in 1975 when Gough Whitlam returned land to the Gurindji people, which had been denied them in the 1971 Gove land rights decision. His famous hand gesture of pouring sand into Lingiari's hand was intended to symbolically reverse a similar act in 1834 when John Batman received sand poured into his hand by an Aboriginal elder when they struck their treaty in Melbourne, which was later seen to be not of consequence.

During the Whitlam era, Aboriginal affairs saw some significant changes in Aboriginal people's psyche; we engaged and walked with all Australians as equals. If I look back, from where we are now, to the period of the seventies, I can see that the relationships—the partnering and the friendships, the work that is being done, the economic enhancement that has occurred, the educational opportunities—have been significantly enriched. When you plant a small seed—and it grows into something big for others to follow and to implement—change becomes much more significant.

Our current Prime Minister and the previous Prime Ministers' commitment to constitutional recognition is a process emanating out of the period of the Whitlam government in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities found themselves to be an integral part of the society in which they lived. I recall all of this because I was part of the leadership fights. We had to fight for reform. We had to fight for the changes that were needed.

We also had to fight for an equal place at the table where our views could be accepted. I remember sitting at a table and asking a question about Aboriginal health. There were doctors on both sides. The answer given was not given to me. The doctor who gave the answer looked directly at his medical counterpart on our side of the table, four people away from me, and gave him the answer. So when he finished I said to him: 'Can I ask you the question again.' And he looked at me and said, 'I have given the answer.' I said, 'No, you did not give me the answer. You gave the answer to my colleague.' I think we have moved on from that time. Now, when you ask a question, the answer is given directly to you. Communities are finding that is much more the case now than it ever was. The paternalistic approaches that prevailed in our history changed when Gough Whitlam implemented Aboriginal affairs programs.

On behalf of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, I would like to acknowledge the contribution that Gough Whitlam made—the work that he did to transform the future, the work that led to many of the changes that we now take for granted. As I said, if I look back over the last 40 years at the changes and the differences that are felt and experienced in many Aboriginal communities—although they are still problematic in some areas—where we are now is far superior to where we were in 1972.

So I salute Gough Whitlam and I certainly salute all of those who were part of his journey and the contribution he made to the history of this nation. Thank you.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an honour to be speaking in this condolence motion for Gough Whitlam. In doing so, I extend my sympathies to Gough and Margaret Whitlam's children and their extended family. There is obviously an enormous sadness that comes with death, but Gough Whitlam's life is a life to be celebrated. It was a huge and a long one.

On 22 July in 1967 the Corio by-election occurred in Geelong. Gough Whitlam had been the leader of the opposition for less than six months. The Labor candidate in that by-election was Gordon Scholes, a man who was 36 at the time, a train driver and the president of Geelong Trades Hall. The long-time Liberal member for Corio, Hubert Opperman, the very famous Australian cyclist—who was the Minister for Immigration in the Menzies and Holt governments—had retired to become the High Commissioner to Malta, and that triggered this by-election. It was the first federal election that Gough faced as the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the Labor Party.

Gough came down to Geelong 10 days before the by-election and spent the full 10 days in Geelong with his whole office and campaign team, marking out the kind of electioneer which he would be regarded in the future as having been. Incidentally, I was born nine days prior to that event, which means that Gough arrived in Geelong before me. So, when I came to Geelong, I found Gough enthroned in my home town. The reason for Gough's effort in relation to this by-election was that Labor had suffered an enormous defeat in the 1966 election; this was the first test for Gough as the Leader of the Opposition. So it mattered.

What emanated from that effort was an 11 per cent swing to Labor. Gough was embraced by the people of Geelong, as was Gordon Scholes. Corio came back to Labor hands for the first time in a number of decades, and it can be argued that this was the first electoral step that Gough took towards that day in December 1972—when it was, indeed, time.

Gough retained an abiding affection for Geelong—as he did for Gordon Scholes, who played his own role in Gough's story, as a predecessor of yours, Madam Speaker, on the 11th of November 1975. In a glittering career, one of Gough's greatest achievements was that he became, as Prime Minister, the No. 1 ticket holder of the Geelong Football Club. He returned to Geelong on numerous occasions after that first by-election—indeed, part of the story I am recounting I heard from the great man himself when he was in Geelong in 1997 addressing the Geelong West Football Club on the 30th anniversary of the Corio by-election.

If Gough embodied anything, it was modernity. He inherited a party that had split a dozen years before he became the leader. Indeed, he witnessed that split. He rebuild the party after the split and dragged to Labor into the second half of the 20th century, making us a modern party that was competitive and able to win an election. But that was reflected in the way in which he also was the emblem of modernity for Australia itself. The country he inherited at the end of 23 years of one-party rule was perhaps a country that was going through the stalest part of its democracy. Indeed, there cannot have been a less active and more stale period in this place than in the term of office from 1969 to 1972, when there was no legislative program. In fact, the speech that was made by the then Governor-General outlining the government's program after the 1969 election lasted precisely for one minute and a quarter—by today's standards that speech, outlining that term in government, was a shortened 90-second statement!

That was the country that Gough inherited. But with that, he embodied a whole range of new initiatives: in relation to opening up our higher education system to a whole range of people who had never had that opportunity before; making sure that women's place within our society, our community and our economy was where it should be; seeking to recognise China and to have a more modern outlook in our relationship with Asia; and repairing, as we have just heard from the member for Hasluck—or beginning the process of repairing—the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. I could go on, and each of these achievements have been spoken of at length by those in this debate, as is right and proper.

But there is one aspect which I do want to focus on in relation to that legacy, and that is in respect of Gough's view of regional Australia. We have heard a number of speeches about Gough being of Western Sydney and understanding the basic importance of infrastructure in our suburbs and in regional Australia. It is often perhaps most embodied by the step that Gough took in establishing the Albury-Wodonga Corporation, but in Geelong Gough was utterly pivotal in ensuring that the next university in the state of Victoria would be based in Geelong, which is what ultimately occurred with the establishment of Deakin University. But for Gough, Deakin would not have been in Geelong.

Gough saw that regional cities should be places where there are universities, where there are public services and where there are regional economies in their own right, such that Australia grows beyond simply being a series of city states. This was a grand vision, which is absolutely embraced by regional Australia today.

So, for Gough, Geelong was the embodiment of the kind of Australia that he wanted to see. And as Geelong goes through difficult times today, Gough's vision remains for us a beacon of hope about the kind of prosperous future we can achieve.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I do thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning on the passing of the honourable Gough Whitlam AC, QC, the 21st Prime Minister of this great country.

As the elected member for Braddon I represent everyone in this place. It is my job to give everybody a voice so, notwithstanding that my electorate were very divided politically during the historical constitutional events of 1975, it is more than appropriate for me to pay tribute to Gough Whitlam's passionate public service.

On behalf of the Braddon electorate I do convey our condolences to the family of Mr Whitlam. While many in this place and in the community have spoken great things about the man, his passing will nonetheless be a time of great sadness for his family, who have lost not just their father but their mother in very recent years.

When Mr Whitlam passed away last week, this parliament and the media were flooded with stories of Gough's wit, his wisdom and humour. It seemed that everyone had a personal story of Gough and they seemingly cherished the opportunity to tell it.

I, like many in parliament, was young—not as young as the member who spoke before me!—I was 15 and in my last year of high school, when the events that Gough is perhaps most famous for transpired—obviously, that was on Remembrance Day 1975. But I do remember a towering giant of a man: a statesman; and man who appeared to me to have presence, great wit, great intelligence and, despite any political differences that I may have grown to have, a man who one could not do anything but admire.

I did come to admire this man—not necessarily for his politics or for his time in office, but for the way he handled his dismissal and as the years rolled on. I have heard many people talk of Gough's upbringing, of his entry into politics, of his conviction and his government's success—or otherwise. There is much to be said about a person's convictions and their willingness to come to this place and to act on those convictions in a meaningful and tangible way. But, of course—for all of us—strength of conviction and an array of new ideas alone is not enough to govern a nation. And this, no doubt, is where political historians will do battle for many years to come.

Some in this place have spoken much about the Australia he inherited. But much could be spoken about the Australia he left. But that is not for today. Rather, I will confine my brief comments now to my observations of Gough and Margaret Whitlam in the years following his dismissal.

Too often history is littered with fallen political leaders beset with hatred, bitterness and malice. This was not so, however, with either Gough or Margaret Whitlam. I do not doubt for a moment that in the days and weeks and years that followed the dismissal, leading eventually to his resignation from the parliament in 1978, that Gough and Margaret felt a sense of deep hurt and disappointment in what had happened, and I am sure that forgiveness did not quite stretch far enough to reach the Governor-General of the day. However, it seemed to me that Gough did not allow these events to dampen his convictions or to cease in his contribution to Australian society. This attitude, it seems to me, was a testament to the strength of his character and allowed the legend of Gough to flourish, along with his sense of humour, his wit and his wisdom, as I said earlier. For me, though, his legacy in many areas of public policy will be debated for decades—and that is okay; that is politics.

But I do believe there is one characteristic of Mr Whitlam's life about which there appears to be agreement across the political divide, and that is his loyalty. What tremendous loyalty this man showed, over 70 years, to the love of his life. What tremendous loyalty this man showed to his children and those close to him. What loyalty this man showed to his mates in the 13 Squadron of the RAAF. But what stood out for me, as a member of parliament in both the Tasmanian parliament and, more recently, here, is that Gough Whitlam remained loyal to the political party that enabled him to become their leader and ultimately their Prime Minister. Through thick and thin, he was loyal to 'the one that brought him'. He stuck around as Leader of the Opposition after the massive and, in my view, justifiable rejection of his government by the Australian people. Following yet another defeat, he chose to move on from the rancour of this place, but he always found it in him to stand by future Labor leaders and prime ministers. I am sure there were many times when he would have privately cursed as he watched Labor prime ministers to come, like Hawke and Keating, in some way deconstruct his legacy. He could have chosen the path of bitterness, irrelevance and obscurity, but he did not. Gough Whitlam was a loyal Labor man dedicated to the cause of the party and always willing to stand up and be counted for his party when it counted. Ironically, this stands in stark contrast to the man who took the Prime Ministership from him on that eventful day in November 1975.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

GK Chesterton once said:

Tradition means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.

Progressives are at our best when our reforms draw out the golden threads of history. The notion that society is a contract between the past, the present and unborn generations is as powerful a guide for progressives as it is for those on the other side of politics.

No-one better understood the value of tradition than Gough Whitlam. When Prime Minister McMahon set the date for the 1972 election as 2 December, Whitlam noted that it was the anniversary of the 1805 Battle of Austerlitz, when Napoleon defeated the Russian and Austrian armies. It was, he said, 'a date on which a crushing defeat was administered to a coalition—another ramshackle, reactionary coalition.'

Gough knew his history. Visiting Australia in 1974, Gore Vidal was struck to meet a Prime Minister who took issue with the historical accuracy of Vidal's novel about the Roman Emperor Julian. 'It was,' Vidal later noted, 'an unusual experiment for Australia to choose as its Prime Minister its most intelligent man.' As Julia Gillard noted in her 2011 Whitlam oration, Whitlam, like his near namesake Whitman, could well have said, 'I am large, I contain multitudes.'

Gough Whitlam sought to change Australia but to do so from the standpoint of a deep understanding of the past. As he put it:

Rather than discard our authentic traditions, we want to restore and invigorate them. … Rather than overturn the true values of Australian society, we want to resurrect and foster those values.

Whitlam saw Australia not as a fearful fortress but as a proud nation with much to offer the world. He secured independence for Papua New Guinea and he cut Australian tariffs by 25 per cent—the beginning of the end for the old McEwenist policy of 'protection all round'. John Button said that Gough would often remark, 'When I opened China to the world.'

Gough Whitlam was no pacifist. The day after Pearl Harbor, he signed up for the Air Force, and he flew hundreds of reconnaissance, escort and bombing missions. But he knew the limits of our military action, and one of his first acts as Prime Minister was to withdraw our remaining troops from Vietnam, a conflict he described as 'disastrous and deluded'. Whitlam was proud of his nation, but he embodied the distinction that George Orwell drew between nationalism and patriotism. You can love your country, Orwell averred, without needing to claim it as better than all the others.

There was a central value that drove the Whitlam government. It was egalitarianism. Speaking in Ballarat in 1973, Whitlam said:

Egalitarianism—by whatever name we call it—is at the heart of the Australian tradition.

Whitlam agreed with Doc Evatt's view that 'Australian democracy was born at Eureka' and noted the 'auspicious coincidence' that the Whitlam government was elected the day before the 118th anniversary of Eureka. He put egalitarianism into action through universal health care, the Schools Commission, the World Heritage conventions, the Trade Practices Act, the Racial Discrimination Act, the land rights deal that led Vincent Lingiari to say, 'We're all mates now,' and sewering Western Sydney, which he said made us the world's 'most "effluent" nation'. He abolished imperial honours, and, as the Deputy Prime Minister noted last week, no-one would today imagine reintroducing knights and dames!

Paul Keating called the Whitlam government 'the resparking of Australian social experimentation', which was snuffed out prematurely with Gallipoli and Flanders. Whitlam's term in government was too short. If he had won in 1969—if Don's Party had had a happy ending—then Whitlam would have had three easy years to implement his social agenda. But his government had to face a major global crisis. It seems to happen to Labor governments. James Scullin was sworn in two days before the stock market crash. John Curtin was elected two months before Pearl Harbor. Kevin Rudd was elected a year before the global financial crisis. Gough Whitlam faced the oil shocks and the challenge of stagflation. Any analysis of that government's economic record must take the world economy into account. In Manning Clark's words, Whitlam was an 'enlarger', not a 'straitener'. Keating called him Fabius Maximus, Hawke called him Prima Donna Assoluta, and, yes, he is the only former Prime Minister with a prominent rock band named after him.

But he was always looking to do more. The to-do list he left us includes a republic, a human rights bill, fixed four-year terms and more work on the reconciliation journey.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 10 o'clock, the honourable member is interrupted. In accordance with the resolution agreed earlier, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.