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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Gough Whitlam, R.I.P.
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Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927
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Posted
Came here to start this but you were quick off the mark.
"It's time," to use the phrase which saw him elected to government, so many years ago. He changed the face of politics down here. I remember his first act was almost immediate after his victory. He brought the Aussie forces home from Vietnam.
[ 21. October 2014, 00:30: Message edited by: Lothlorien ]
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Banner Lady
Ship's Ensign
# 10505
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Posted
How will they ever get that ego into a coffin?
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Women in the church are not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed.
Posts: 7080 | From: Canberra Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
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Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927
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Posted
The Herald has an article of some of his memorable quotes.
Whitlam formally handed the Gurindji people at Wattie Creek in the Northern Territory title deeds to part of their traditional lands, symbolically pouring red dust into the hands of an elder with the words "Vincent Lingiari, I solemnly hand to you these deeds as proof, in Australian law, that these lands belong to the Gurindji people and I put into your hands this piece of the earth itself as a sign that we restore them to you and your children forever". Lingiari replied "we are all mates now".
Some are stately, others humorous, some acerbic and some is very quick repartee.
Link to SMH
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Buy a bale. Help our Aussie rural communities and farmers. Another great cause needing support The High Country Patrol.
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
That was beautiful, BL ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Thanks for this, Zap. Malcolm Fraser, who Whitlam himself referred to as "Kerr's cur" after the unelected GG saw fit to dismiss the leader of the elected government, became more friendly with him later in life. He commented that GW's only flaw may have been trying to do too much too quickly, but this was perhaps not surprising given Labor's long sojourn in the political wilderness. Whitlam did more of lasting significance in his brief term than Menzies did in his whole long and largely pointless time in power (and indeed the same could have been said of Chifley before him). Universal healthcare, a phenomenon which still eludes the United States, is one of his government's gifts to us.
RIP
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Barnabas Aus
Shipmate
# 15869
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Posted
Emotional responses at a major local government conference where a condolence motion has been unanimously supported recognising EGW's major contribution to the sector. The 1972 was the catalyst for my continuing political activism.
Posts: 375 | From: Hunter Valley NSW | Registered: Sep 2010
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
A great man. He could have been a great PM, but was pushed into catching up after the snoozing years of Menzies and then the utter incompetence of MacMahon. He was also hounded far too hard by vested interests on his own side, wanting their particular barrows pushed to the forefront and then complaining that it was now 2 weeks after the election and X had not been done.
There were other sides to Gough. Some of them are listed in Mungo MacCallum's book How to become a Megalomaniac. My favourite sees the Whitlams on tour in a Central American country, being shown where the pre-Spanish rules conducted their ritual sacrifices. He asked and was assured that the victims were all pure virgins. He turned to our Ambassador and said: You'd think the girls would have learned quickly and make themselves ineligible.
Not in the book, but definitely true was his comment at a funeral - from memory Fred Daly and definitely at CCSL; I wish I could believe, but I can't. Very moving. Was he later able to I wonder?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
My favourite sees the Whitlams on tour in a Central American country,
I wonder if they played their cover of Tangled up in Blue. I bet they played this one.
A great band - Tim Freedman was a fan of the great PM.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
I'm afraid that I didn't know that he was still alive. Clearly a great man, whatever his flaws.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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DangerousDeacon
Shipmate
# 10582
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Posted
Gough was one of the great social reformers: Medibank and free university education rank as two of Australia's greatest reforms. And a wicked sense of humour, of course! Truly a great man.
Sometimes the myth is greater than the man - he did NOT bring the troops home from Vietnam. That was done by Billy McMahon. By the time Gough was elected there were only thirty soldiers left in Vietnam, due to come home in March 1973 - Gough brought them back in January.
But leaving aside the mythmaking, still head and shoulders above his peers. He had his flaws - perhaps the hardest thing to forgive is the abandonment of the East Timorese in October 1974. But overall, I think history will be generous to him.
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'All the same, it may be that I am wrong; what I take for gold and diamonds may be only a little copper and glass.'
Posts: 506 | From: Top End | Registered: Oct 2005
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Vulpior
Foxier than Thou
# 12744
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Posted
His era was well before my time in Australia, but the image of him at Wattie Creek is iconic. It's tempting to drop over to Reconciliation Place when I fly back into Canberra. In Adelaide today, and pleased to be in a place where I could see the flags flying at half mast.
My favourite Twitter comment was:
I assume Bill Shorten spent a morning looking up Gough Whitlam on Wiki and just saying "wow" over and over again.
[ 21. October 2014, 07:12: Message edited by: Vulpior ]
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I've started blogging. I don't promise you'll find anything to interest you at uncleconrad
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
I'm afraid that I didn't know that he was still alive. Clearly a great man, whatever his flaws.
I barely knew either Gough or Margaret, but do know their son Tony moderately well. I somehow got an invitation to Margaret's service and was moved by the way Gough was just sitting there, seeming so terribly alone after such a long marriage.
Now's not the time to discuss his flaws, unless of course you're a shock-jock - even then Alan Jones's comments were on the moderate side.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
As a long-time Socialist, I remember hearing of his victory (was it really over 40 years ago?) and being cheered. We, in Canada, were appalled by the actions of Kerr, since we had fought a similar battle 50 years before.
May he rest in peace.
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Even more so than I was before
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Tukai
Shipmate
# 12960
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Posted
Like Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Whitlam was a colossus who bestrode the world.
My "indefinite deferment from national service" came through in 1972, while I was overseas doing scientific research. Though my number had come up in the "lottery of death", I was overseas for Whitlam’s entire term of office, but it was his policies that allowed me to return to use the skills and knowledge I had thus gained to the benefit of Australia and our region, rather than wasting them being shot at in Vietnam.
It was great to have a PM who actually pursued an independent international policy , and even better that its focus was to reach out to our neighbours as friends and partners, rather than looking for the next war to gratify the pugilistic ambitions of a political pygmy.
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A government that panders to the worst instincts of its people degrades the whole country for years to come.
Posts: 594 | From: Oz | Registered: Sep 2007
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Tukai
Shipmate
# 12960
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Posted
A comment , allegedly from God, now circulating in the Twittersphere:
"Gough Whitlam is up here and already has presented Me with a number of suggestions for reform."
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A government that panders to the worst instincts of its people degrades the whole country for years to come.
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Clarence
Shipmate
# 9491
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Posted
He got lots of things right and a few things spectacularly wrong, but he had a belief that things could change. The Guardian cartoon got it right: he showed us what was possible First Dog on the Moon
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I scraped my knees while I was praying - Paramore
Posts: 793 | From: Over the rainbow | Registered: May 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Dangerous Deacon wrote:
quote:
He had his flaws - perhaps the hardest thing to forgive is the abandonment of the East Timorese in October 1974.
Question(and sorry if this is more Purgatrial than All Saintsy)...
My understanding is that Whitlam was hostile to independence for East Timor. If that's true, what would have been his reasons? Mostly just a desire to remain on good terms with a huge and influential neighbour?
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Stetson, it's rather more complicated than that. Remember that in 1974 Portugal was a mess. Salazar had died and Caetano could not keep power. There were the African troubles and a very radical group in the army. Much as there were troubles in Africa, there were also problems in East Timor. From memory, there were at least 3 pro-independence movements, 2 of which were very far-left. The Aust military/intelligence/foreign affairs community was concerned that one of these could gain power and that that in turn would create risks very close to us. Whitlam agreed with this analysis - in retrospect, his conclusion was probably correct. He concluded that an Indonesian takeover would eliminate the risks and so did nothing to stop it. What Aust could have done to stop it has never been explained.
In the course of the takeover, some Aust journalists were killed, almost certainly by Indonesian troops. Whitlam and his govt did not press the Indonesians very hard on this. In some circles here, it is an matter of faith that Whitlam pulled the trigger himself - only a bit of an exaggeration on my part of the attitude.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Thanks, Gee D. So, from what you've written, it was basically a matter of keeping Australia secure from an alleged threat on its "borders"(for lack of a better word).
I do find it curious that Whitlam's position put him on the same side of the argument as Henry Kissinger, even though Whitlam was regarded as an oppoenent of Amercian imperialism.
As you may know, among many anti-imperialists, taking their lead from Chomsky, the annexation of East Timor is regarded as one of the worst cases of US-backed aggression in recent memory.
[ 22. October 2014, 21:01: Message edited by: Stetson ]
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
I'm not surprised that Chomsky describes it as that. For a person with all the formal qualifications he has, his range of vocabulary often seems very limited.
I'd make a few points. The two main independence parties in East Timor were communist - the larger was Maoist and the other took a more Moscow-line approach. Their power individually was much greater than that of the moderate group. Even with a bit of warfare between them, it was very likely that one or the other, probably the Maoist, would succeed. So the potential threat was real, not "alleged" to adopt your word. No Australian government would have wanted the threat to come home.
The Indonesian govt was equally concerned. It was apparent to anyone at the time that the Portuguese govt was powerless to intervene, even had it wanted to; its thoughts and energies were directed to the home front and to extricating the forces from Africa. The Indonesian army was in a strong position following its success in October 1965 and was determinedly anti-communist of any variety, but particularly Chinese. It did not need US backing, just tacit approval. So I would disagree with Chomsky's description of the Indonesian takeover as a case of US backed aggression.
Certainly elements of the ALP were strongly anti-US. Equally certainly the majority of the party and of Australians in general, while disapproving of US policies in Vietnam, remembered with gratitude the US actions in 1942, which saved Aust from Japanese invasion. I'd put Whitlam as taking the line that as a friend and minor ally he was entitled to be critical of individual aspects of US policy and action.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
It seems to me that this thread is taking a more purgatorial line than the OP intended and than is usually countenanced here is All Saints.
Please remember that this is a memorial thread in AS - if you wish to discuss Whitlam's legacy legacy then the appropriate thing is to start a thread to that effect in Purgatory.
Thanks.
WW - AS Host.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
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What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Noted.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Continued here.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
Thank you.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
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