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
Our federal caucus is in a precarious position,
Well may we say 'God save the Queen', because nothing will save the Governor-General'.
The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race.
If I begin my book with a review of the coup, it is only to show that my abiding interests for Australia did not end with it. They shall end only with a long and fortunate life.
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.
I have more influence now than when I had the power.
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.
Dying will happen sometime. As you know, I plan for the ages, not just for this life.
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.
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.