Senate debates

Monday, 27 October 2014

Condolences

Whitlam, the Hon. Edward Gough, AO, QC

1:32 pm

Photo of Anne McEwenAnne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too acknowledge the life and achievements of the Honourable Edward Gough Whitlam AC, QC, the 21st Prime Minister of Australia—a great Australian, a great Labor man and, for me, a Labor icon and an inspirational leader. I offer my sincere condolences to his children and their families and to all his friends and colleagues.

In the days since his passing, many reviews of Gough's life and impacts have dwelt on whether or not he instigated many of the reforms that are associated with his name or whether he detected the mood of a population receptive to change and new ideas and built his famous program around that mood.

I do not think it particularly matters where his inspiration came from. The important thing, for me at least, was that Gough Whitlam was prepared to stand up and put some very big and well-constructed ideas out there. Not only did he have the ideas but also he was able to explain what change he thought was good for Australia. He was extraordinarily brave as well about standing up to the naysayers and pursuing his reform agenda.

While Gough was famous for his witty putdowns, when it came to articulating his big ideas he did not speak down to the Australian public. He did not put us down, because he wanted us to rise up and be a part of the new, modern, progressive Australia. He believed we were all up to it. It is worth recounting, as other speakers have done, how Gough Whitlam described Labor's program during the 1972 election campaign. He said:

Our program has three great aims. They are:

to promote quality

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.

It is important to recount that statement of aims in the context of this condolence motion, for our former Prime Minister, but it is also worth remembering it every other day. These are great aims and should always be at the heart of what we do here in the federal parliament.

I was 18 when Labor, under Gough, was elected in 1972. I could not then vote in federal elections, but Labor soon changed that and 18-year-olds—who could be required to fight in wars for Australia or who could get married—could also vote. The fact that I was now able to vote probably awakened my political consciousness.

In South Australia we were already a bit used to visionary reformers. We had elected the Dunstan government in 1970 and Dunstan's comprehensive and progressive agenda for change, at a state level, was beginning to be rolled out. We were getting familiar with the potential for legislative change to progress the things young women of my age were talking about: feminism, equality, Aboriginal land rights, the legacy of the Vietnam War, racism and multiculturalism.

The far-reaching, progressive changes that Labor under Whitlam pursued resonated with me and many of my friends. Lowering the voting age to 18 was a great start. Finally ending the draft—conscription—and Australia's military engagement in the Vietnam War, while also recognising China and re-establishing an embassy there, made us aware of how we would engage with Asia as a modern, post-colonial nation. The granting of independence to Papua New Guinea also showed that Australia was going down a new path, where our neighbours were entitled to find their own way forward in the world.

Access to higher education without having to rely on parental or scholarship support was another important step on the way to equality for all—although I did not take advantage of this change until the early 1980s, when I first went to university as a mature-age student. It was a change that particularly helped women to benefit from a higher education.

There was a lot of public debate about women and women's rights in the 1970s. We were all reading Doris Lessing and Germaine Greer. I worked in the Commonwealth Public Service at the time, and women who got pregnant then either had to leave their jobs or lose their permanency. Whitlam introduced the first maternity leave scheme for the Commonwealth Public Service. It brought home that women had a long way to go but at least we had a champion on the federal scene. Whitlam's commitment to equal pay through legislative change, and his creation of the new Office for Women's Affairs, to cast a gender eye over government policy, were stand-out achievements.

Gough was not afraid to confront social issues, including the abortion issue, and to support women's right to control their own lives and bodies—including by putting the contraceptive pill on the PBS. The Labor government funded special services for women, including refuges, health centres and crisis centres. Mr Whitlam supported legal aid, which was of great importance to women, who otherwise struggled to get legal representation. It is tragic that these services are still struggling for funding today. The single parent payment and no-fault divorce were part of Whitlam Labor's clear statement that women must no longer be considered second-class citizens, dependent on men for their economic independence.

No comments about the legacy of Whitlam should ignore his work to improve the lot of Indigenous Australians. Who will ever forget that iconic image of Gough, in 1975, pouring dirt into the hand of Vincent Lingiari at Wattie Creek? It was such a potent symbol of giving back what we had stolen from Indigenous Australians—not just their land but their dignity.

There were other things about the Whitlam government that might not have had a legislative legacy but which, for me, defined us as a modern Australia. I remember the huge controversy over the purchase of Blue Poles for $1.3 million in 1973. That decision was an extraordinary statement of a commitment to the arts and to artists, and to the public good that comes from supporting cultural excellence. Every time I am lucky enough to look at that magnificent piece in the National Gallery of Australia I am reminded how clever and bold Gough was, and how he wanted Australia to aspire to be a great country—not just economically, but socially and culturally. And I loved it when the national anthem was changed from God Save the Queen to Advance Australia Fair, and when the British system of honours was replaced by our very own Order of Australia gongs.

While, in the early 1970s, I was interested in politics and thought of myself as a leftie, I was not particularly engaged in politics. But I was outraged and saddened when the Whitlam government was dismissed in 1975. It crystallized for me that there was an us and a them, that there would always be forces who would fight against progressive change, and that the only way to win and keep progressive changes was to fight for them, especially at the ballot box. I did maintain the rage; I still do. But I also noted Whitlam and Fraser standing together for the cause of the Australian republic. Who would have thought that that could ever happen? It was a measure of both those men that they could put aside their enmity in the cause of great reform.

I know the Labor government under Whitlam was not without its flaws and, as was their right, the Australian voting public made their displeasure known at the election in 1975. Despite that, we should never forget the vision of Whitlam and his courage in pursuing that Labor vision. He was a Labor man. Equality and a fair go for all were the planks on which his reforms were built. So it should always be. Thanks, Gough.

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