Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam AC QCwas the 21st Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. The Leader of the Labor Party from 1967 to 1977, Whitlam led his party to power for the first time in 23 years at the 1972 election. He won the 1974 election before being controversially dismissed by the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, at the climax of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis. Whitlam remains the only Australian prime minister to have his commission...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth11 July 1916
CountryAustralia
No parliamentarian could tell his electors that he was too ill to be the leader of the party but was well enough to look after their interests in the parliament.
The Caucus I joined in 1953 had as many Boer War veterans as men who had seen active service in World War II, three from each. The Ministry appointed on 5 December 1972 was composed entirely of ex-servicemen: Lance Barnard and me.
Men and women of western Sydney, it's appropriate, you apparently believe, that Australia's oldest surviving Prime Minister should make the concluding remarks in Australia's oldest surviving Government House. I hope the building's foundations are a bit more substantial than mine.
Dying will happen sometime. As you know, I plan for the ages, not just for this life.
An education system where student selection is based on credit capacity and not merit capacity and where graduating students are no longer indebted to the nation, but increasingly indebted to the Australian Taxation Office - that's no way to improve the quality of education.
Our federal caucus is in a precarious position,
I'm the only P.M. of which that can be said - 'His legislation was never declared invalid in the High Court.'
My great objective as a parliamentarian was to dramatise the deficiencies and devise practical government programs to deal with them. It was a cause that went to the heart of our way of life.
Ladies and gentlemen, well may we say 'God Save the Queen', because nothing will save the Governor-General. The proclamation you have just heard was countersigned Malcolm Fraser, who will go down in history as Kerr's cur.
....he reveals that he has been a poor politician, a bad judge and a malevolent individual.
I've never said I'm immortal. I do believe in correct language. I'm eternal; I'm not immortal.
Hostility towards China distorted Australia's international affairs for 20 years until 1972, but reconciliation with China 30 years ago had produced a quarter century of constructive bipartisan relations with our region and the world, unmatched in Australian history.
Poverty is a national waste as well as individual waste. We are all diminished when any of us are denied proper education. The nation is the poorer - a poorer economy, a poorer civilization, because of this human and national waste.
Conscription is an impediment to achieving the forces Australia needs. It is an alibi for failing to give proper conditions to regular soldiers. We will abolish conscription forthwith. By abolishing it, Australia will achieve a better army, a better-paid army - and a better, united society.