Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise with affection and sorrow to mourn the passing of Gough Whitlam AC QC. Australia has certainly lost and mourns one of our giants. I will commence by offering my condolences to the Whitlam family and good friends. I want to pass particularly my condolences to Gough's family; his children Tony, Nick, Stephen and Catherine; as well as his grandchildren. I say to them: thank you for sharing you father with the nation and thank you for your sacrifices so that others around you could have a better life because you gifted him to us.

I can only imagine the hole that was left in Gough's world on the passing of his wife and great love Margaret in 2012. Partners and equally each other's enablers for more than 70 years, the two of them cut an amazing and a truly significant figure in Australian political life for decades. Gough was loving, generous, and gregarious. He was an intellectual of the highest order and a gifted public servant. We were so lucky to have him born into this nation and so committed to serving it.

In preparing for the opportunity to make this speech today, one of the great Gough quotes that came up was an assessment of his view of the world. What was so wonderful about Labor was that it contrasted so much with the conservatives. He put on the record this statement with which I definitely agree:

A conservative government survives essentially by dampening expectations and subduing hopes. Conservatism is basically pessimistic, reformism is basically optimistic.

I think those words encapsulate that view of the world—that hopeful optimistic view—that enabled Gough to do so much, that has been so much a feature of the speeches people have made this week. They have described him as a man not just of vision but of optimistic vision—a man who believed things were possible for this great nation and who helped us to change the way we dreamed about what we might become.

Gough is on the record as saying that we have to make choices and that the critical times are when we face a choice between the past and the future, between the habits and fears of the past and the demands and opportunities of the future. He was undoubtedly a man for the future, for the Australian Labor Party's vision. He declared three great aims which remain at the heart of our party to this very day and will be with us into the future. He said:

Our program has three great aims. They are 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.

That is exactly what Gough did.

When Gough came to power in 1972, I was just starting high school. As a young woman in an Irish-Catholic family, with parents who were not highly engaged with the political landscape, I watched at a distance—and I watched from a Bandstand point of view. I want to put on the record how influential Little Pattie was in making me think that Gough was a good guy—because I knew Little Pattie was a good person. I think it was very appropriate, as the Labor Party gathered down at Old Parliament House on Tuesday of last week—that very memorable day—that the image on the screen throughout was the enduring photo of Gough in his 'It's time' T-shirt with Little Pattie right beside him. I know that her commitment to justice for the Australian people and her service to this nation is a testament to the values and beliefs that were expressed in the period of the Whitlam government—and which continue to this day for all those people who care about this country.

I was very privileged last Tuesday to sit in that liminal zone, in that period of time between the passing of a great person and the time we farewell them. I got to sit next to Senator Peris. What a privilege that was: to be sitting over in the other place next to Senator Peris, Australia's first Aboriginal woman senator, as she watched her former history teacher speak about Gough's contribution to the North—and to hear her response. Could I possibly have imagined this day? Maybe, if I had Gough's vision, I could have. But that was a remarkable man with a remarkable vision. I was nearly completely overwhelmed by the experience.

There were many wonderful speeches and comments from those who were there in the chamber that day, but I think Tanya Plibersek, the member for Sydney, marked something powerful with her comment that it was appropriate that Gough was the 21st Prime Minister of this nation. We understand that a 21st marks a coming of age and I think that is what it was for our nation—that the pent-up demand for change, for a new Australia, for a braver Australia, for a more optimistic and fairer Australia, was enabled by the coming of Gough Whitlam to power.

The little that I heard, during the period when Gough was Prime Minister, was about significant change, including change to the language we used about single mothers. We have heard this last week about how significantly welfare changed, how it was turned into an appropriate response to the needs of our fellow citizens rather than remaining the badge of shame that people had experienced it as up until then. In our caucus last week, we acknowledged just some of Gough's achievements. The list is long and has been well expounded by many of my colleagues. It included universal health care, now Medicare, which was critical in providing equity in our health system; free university education, Indigenous land rights; the end of conscription; the abolition of the death penalty; the diplomatic recognition of China; the Racial Discrimination Act; no-fault divorce; legal aid; vital changes to the social security system; and of course reform of the Labor Party. Gough did all of that, exercising power and showing us that a great government can act justly and achieve justice. Despite all those many and varied achievements, when I heard of Gough's passing the image that came to me—an image that endures for so many Australians and an image that has been the subject of much discussion—was the image of the red dirt being poured into the hands of Vincent Lingiari. What a powerful image! What an opportunity he took, as a leader, to right that incredible wrong.

Parliament is always going to be a place to contest ideas. It is reliant on good process and the action of goodwill. Gough's dismissal forever showed us the fragility of this place and of the processes that are embedded in it. But what we saw with Gough was a good man doing good things for the nation. Senator Peris in her speech today indicated how lasting and powerful the actions of one good man—or one good woman—can be. She talked about the Gurindji people's Freedom Day, speaking to the 14-year-olds who were there as she, in her own words, honoured the life of a great man. Senator Peris went on to speak about the relationship between people and land—and certainly that is what Gough helped an entire nation to see.

As a former member for Robertson, I want to record how proud I am to know Barry Cohen, who served with Gough Whitlam, and to acknowledge the many wonderful stories he put on the record about that time in government. This morning we have heard from many members from my side of parliament, from the crossbenchers and, indeed, from those opposite. I was touched by the story from Senator Macdonald, who is not known as a great friend of the Labor Party. He articulated what he saw of Gough Whitlam. It is a great testament that we can have these words on the record. Senator McDonald described him as warm, clever, caring and articulate—a man of compassion, intellect and wit. He told a story about a letter that he sent and a letter that he received in correspondence from the great Gough Whitlam. I want to share with the Senate a piece of correspondence I received this week from two wonderful people who live on the Central Coast, Barbara and Mark d'Arbon, who I had the privilege of teaching with at the University of Newcastle Central Coast campus. They too had an interaction with Gough, having sent a letter. This is Barbara and Mark's record of that—and I wonder how many Australian people have had this experience:

There are only a few times in a life when it is possible to point and say—That was a sudden shift from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Tuesday, May 18th at 5:49 was such a time. The weekend before, we had been in Canberra and, taken by a touristy bout of nostalgia, we decided to visit Old Parliament House.

There are some buildings that seep history, and this is one of them. It is as familiar to our generation as Westfield is to a suburban shopper. In and around this building Australia has been moulded, hammered, sculpted, mythologised, eulogized, insulted and generally beaten about the head and body. And along this particular time-worm of public activity a few figures stride, trailing, as the poet said, clouds of glory. One such is Gough Whitlam.

How interesting that both God and Gough begin with the same capital letter …

It was fascinating to walk through the various Rooms of Significance and to imagine the bloodletting that occurred in them; possible even to conjure faces and voices as we passed through; but it wasn't until we came to the 1975 Room that the full force of the experience hit us. On the 1975 television, a 1975 James Dibble was reporting the Dismissal.

WELL MAY WE SAY 'GOD SAVE THE QUEEN'—BECAUSE NOTHING WILL SAVE THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL.

It came like a tsunami—the feeling of disbelief, shock and—finally—outrage. There it was, the tall, commanding figure towering over a furtive ferret of a man, the servant of a drunkard who was so besotted by the trappings of an outmoded irrelevancy that he saw nothing wrong with putting a steel-capped boot into the very foundations of western liberal democracy … the BASTARD!

Gough, as always, rose to the occasion and, we reckon, continues to do so. For lesser, more mortal men, the hair-tearing, the fist waving, the futile shrieking at unheeding fate. Here was the man for whom we had voted in our very first election and his Dismissal, we realised, still resonates with us.

So, after the experience, on our arrival home, Barbara decided that we should write Gough a letter—recorded below for posterity. After it was posted, we had no special expectation of a response, except to fantasise about an invitation to breakfast chez Whitlam. So, when the telephone rang at 5:49 on Tuesday 18th March, 2004, Barbara answered it with no premonition whatsoever.

"Is that Barbara d'Arbon?"

"Yes."

"It's Gough Whitlam here."

Savour that for a moment.

Barbara let me know who was on the other end of the phone and I picked up the extension. He had already complimented us on the quality of our letter (high praise from the Man of Letters and Words) and proceeded to provide us with an acute reminiscence of the event, including an insightful analysis of Malcolm Fraser's Eventual Change of Heart.

"Go to original sources." He said—(He was telling us?)

And then it was over. He graciously intimated that breakfast chez d'Arbon was, unfortunately, not on the immediate horizon; and rang off. But the memory line will be forever open.

Labor is a richer party for his leadership ; Australia is a richer nation for his vision. Farewell Gough Whitlam—may you rest in peace, wrapped in the affection of a nation.