The Whitlam Mob

The Whitlam Mob

Author: Mungo MacCallum

Publisher: Black Inc.

Published: 2014-07-23

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1922231754

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“We were a motley mob, we sans-culottes of Canberra …” In this vastly entertaining book, Mungo MacCallum captures the spirit of a nation-changing time. He portrays the Whitlam government’s key figures – from Gough and Margaret to Lionel Murphy, Bill Hayden and Jim Cairns – as well as “the other mob” in opposition – Billy McMahon, John Gorton, Malcolm Fraser and many more. The Whitlam Mob addresses some crucial questions: What was the night of the long prawns? Who was the playboy of the parliament? And who was “the toe-cutter”? This is Mungo at his best: vivid and barbed, nostalgic but always clear-eyed.


The Whitlam Legacy

The Whitlam Legacy

Author: Troy Bramston

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 9781862879034

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Cover image: Gough Whitlam addresses a crowd outside Parliament House on the day after his government was dismissed, on 12 November 1975. Source: News Limited © Ross Duncan.The election of the Whitlam government in 1972 marked a turning point in 20th century Australia. Shaking off the vestiges of two decades of conservative rule, Gough Whitlam brought new ideas, new policies and new people to the task of governing.Bursting with energy and expectation, the Labor government led a reform revolution in many areas, from education and health to the environment and foreign policy. But alongside the great achievements were great failures and, ultimately, great tragedy when the government was dismissed.For the first time, Gough Whitlam, ministers, advisers, public servants, party and union insiders provide a unique account of this turbulent period in Australian politics. They reveal what worked and what didn't, and shed light on the personalities driving the engines of change.The candid views of insiders are balanced with analysis from journalists and academics. The book also includes new research and previously unpublished photos and archival documents. The Whitlam Legacy provides the definitive account of the government that changed Australia forever."This book really is a great work of scholarship. It is a primer for anyone interested in politics or interested in carving out a career in politics. To get these people to write about the Whitlam government is a real tribute to Troy Bramston. From now on, nobody will be able to write about the Whitlam government without consulting The Whitlam Legacy." Bob CarrThe Whitlam Legacy in the Paper...Kerr's word play masked his reasons behind Whitlam's dismissal Read full article...Parting words for the party Gough loves Read full article...Gough Whitlam duumvirate's whirlwind of change Read full article...Gough changed us and saved ALP Read full article...Labor must heed Whitlam and not waste this chance to reform Read full article...Whitlam's legacy resonates today-Shorten Read full article...Gough Whitlam 'a stroke of luck' for the lucky country Read full article...Abandon doubt Read full article...Gough in stereo Read full article...The Whitlam Legacy Launch on TV...Channel 7 News Watch report...Channel 9 News Watch report...The Whitlam Legacy (Troy Bramston/Contributors) on Radio...Troy Bramston on Radio National with Fran Kelly Listen to full interview...Troy Bramston on Radio National with Fran Kelly Watch interview...Troy Bramston on 2UE with Paul Murray Listen to full interview...Bob Carr on 4BC with Ian Skippen and Donna Lynch Listen to full interview...The Whitlam Legacy Alerts...Abbey's Bookshop: The Whitlam Legacy tops bestseller, Non-Fiction list of the week Click to view... Frank Bongiorno's chapter online, Inside Story: Whitlam, the 1960s and The Program Click to read...


The Truth of the Matter

The Truth of the Matter

Author: Gough Whitlam

Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9780522852127

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On Remembrance Day, 1975, the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, sacked the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. The Dismissal was the culmination of almost three years of political conflict, as Whitlam's reforming Labor government rammed home overdue legislative reforms in the face of implacable, and increasingly bitter, conservative opposition. The focus of the Opposition's scheming was the Senate, where its leaders blocked supply in order to force a political crisis. Whitlam, famous for his 'crash through or crash' style, refused to compromise with his political enemies. After consulting secretly with the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Fraser, and the Chief Justice, Sir Garfield Barwick, Kerr abruptly informed the PM that he had withdrawn his commission. Half an hour later, Kerr swore Fraser in as 'caretaker Prime Minister'. At an election a month later, the conservatives were returned to office. Controversy and recrimination followed. Many Australians, including Whitlam himself, believed he had been the victim of a coup. In 1979, he published his own account of the events of 1975, The Truth of the Matter, an instant best seller. Out of print for many years, it is republished by MUP on the thirtieth anniversary of the Dismissal, with a new introduction by the author and other new reference material. Passionate, pithy, learned, witty, and vigorously combative, The Truth of the Matter tells the extraordinary political story of the only Prime Minister of Australia ever deposed from office.


The Palace Letters

The Palace Letters

Author: Professor Jenny Hocking

Publisher:

Published: 2020-11-03

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9781922310248

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What role did the queen play in the governor-general Sir John Kerr's plans to dismiss prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1975, which unleashed one of the most divisive episodes in Australia's political history? And why weren't we told? Under the cover of being designated as private correspondence, the letters between the queen and the governor-general about the dismissal have been locked away for decades in the National Archives of Australia, and embargoed by the queen potentially forever. This ruse has furthered the fiction that the queen and the Palace had no warning of or role in Kerr's actions. In the face of this, Professor Jenny Hocking embarked on a four-year legal battle to force the Archives to release the letters. In 2015, she mounted a crowd-funded campaign, securing a stellar pro bono team that took her case all the way to the High Court of Australia. Now, drawing on never-before-published material from Kerr's archives and her submissions to the court, Hocking traces the collusion and deception behind the dismissal, and charts the private role of High Court judges, the queen's private secretary, and the leader of the opposition, Malcolm Fraser, in Kerr's actions, and the prior knowledge of the queen and Prince Charles. Hocking also reveals the obstruction, intrigue, and duplicity she faced, raising disturbing questions about the role of the National Archives in preventing access to its own historical material and in enforcing royal secrecy over its documents.


Gough Whitlam: His Time

Gough Whitlam: His Time

Author: Jenny Hocking

Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

Published: 2012-09-01

Total Pages: 568

ISBN-13: 0522862152

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Gough Whitlam, Australia’s twenty-first prime minister, swept to power in December 1972, ending twenty-three years of conservative rule. It was an ascendancy bitterly resented by some, never accepted by others, and ended with dismissal by the Governor-General barely three years later—an outcome that polarised debate and left many believing the full story had not been told.In this much anticipated second volume of her biography of Gough Whitlam, Hocking has used previously unearthed archival material and extensive interviews with Gough Whitlam, his family, colleagues and foes, to bring the key players in these dramatic events to life.Who was ‘the third man’ who counselled the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, in his decision to sack the twice-elected Whitlam government and appoint Malcolm Fraser as prime minister? How much did the Palace know about what was happening? And what drove the Kerr to take the unprecedented action of removing an elected government from office?This definitive biography takes us behind the political intrigue to reveal a devastated Whitlam and his personal struggle in the aftermath of the dismissal, during the unfulfilled years that followed and his eventual political renewal as Australia’s ambassador to UNESCO. And of course, through the highs and the lows of his decades of public life Whitlam depended absolutely on the steadfast support of the love of his life, Margaret. For this is also the story of a remarkable marriage and an enduring partnership.The truth of this tumultuous period in Australia’s history is finally revealed in this engaging narrative—Gough Whitlam: His Time.


Unholy Fury

Unholy Fury

Author: James Curran

Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

Published: 2015-05-01

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 052286175X

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In the early 1970s, two titans of Australian and American politics, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and President Richard Nixon, clashed over the end of the Vietnam war and the shape of a new Asia. A relationship that had endured the heights of the Cold War veered dangerously off course and seemed headed for destruction. Never before—or since—has the alliance sunk to such depths. Drawing on sensational new evidence from once top-secret American and Australian records, this book portrays the bitter clash between these two leaders and their competing visions of the world. As the Nixon White House went increasingly on the defensive in early 1973, reeling from the lethal drip of the Watergate revelations, the first Labor prime minister in twenty-three years looked to redefine ANZUS and Australia's global stance. It was a heady brew, and not one the Americans were used to. The result was a fractured alliance, and an American president enraged, seemingly hell bent on tearing apart the fabric of a treaty that had become the first principle of Australian foreign policy.


Gough and Me

Gough and Me

Author: Christine Sykes

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-05-05

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 192072754X

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When Gough Whitlam moves into her street in Cabramatta in 1957, eight-year-old Christine has little idea how her new neighbour, one of the most visionary and polarising political leaders of Australia, would shape the direction of her life. Born to working-class parents and living in a fibro house built by her truck-driver father, Christine simply dreams that one day she might work as a private secretary like her aunt. But when the reforms Whitlam championed give Christine the chance to go to university, her world expands. She experiences the transformative power of education, struggles to balance motherhood with being the family breadwinner, and faces her own mental health battles. She follows a path forged by Whitlam, from scholarships he fought for, to local community initiatives he generated, and even as far as China, where Whitlam crucially initiated Australia’s relationship when he visited the country in 1973. Written with genuine heart and humour, Gough and Me is a nostalgic and deeply personal memoir of social mobility, cultural diversity, and the unprecedented opportunities that the Whitlam era gave one Australian working-class woman.


The Menzies Era

The Menzies Era

Author: John Howard

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2014-10-01

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 1743097972

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An assessment of Australia's longest-serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, by John Howard, Australia's second-longest serving Prime Minister, this is a significant, unique and fascinating history of the Menzies era - a time that laid the foundations for modern Australia. 'Engaging and revealing ... like a torchlight shone from an unexpected angle' Geoffrey Blainey, Weekend Australian Fresh from the success of his phenomenal bestselling memoir, LAZARUS RISING, which has sold over 100,000 copies, John Howard now turns his attention to one of the most extraordinary periods in Australian history, the Menzies era, canvassing the longest unbroken period of government for one side of politics in Australia's history. The monumental Sir Robert Menzies held power for a total of over 18 years, making him the longest-serving Australian Prime Minister. During his second term as Prime Minister, a term of over sixteen years - by far the longest unbroken tenure in that office - Menzies dominated Australian politics like no one else has ever done before or since, and these years laid the foundations for modern Australia. The Menzies era saw huge economic growth, social change and considerable political turmoil. Covering the impact of the great Labor split of 1955 as well as the recovery of the Labor Party under Whitlam's leadership in the late 1960s and the impact of the Vietnam War on Australian politics, this magisterial book offers a comprehensive assessment of the importance of the Menzies era in Australian life, history and politics. John Howard, only ten when Menzies rose to power, and in young adulthood when the Menzies era came to an end, saw Menzies as an inspiration and a role model. His unique insights and thoughtful analysis into Menzies the man, the politician, and his legacy make this a fascinating, highly significant book. 'This important book' Clive James, Times Literary Supplement


Making Modern Australia

Making Modern Australia

Author: Jenny Hocking

Publisher: Australian History

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781925495188

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'The changes we have made will remain - like all great Labor legislation - permanent landmarks in our history.' Gough Whitlam. The Whitlam government propelled Australia out of the presumptions and certainties of twenty-three years of conservative government and changed it irrevocably. It passed a record number of bills into law and became the most successful reformist government in Australia's history. This book brings to light aspects of Whitlam's ambitious reform agenda that have been neglected for too long. The Australian Assistance Plan generated networks of regional and community cooperation that remain today. Plans for energy infrastructure and self-sufficiency that would ensure the use of the nation's resources for the common good, appear more and more visionary. The ground-breaking Royal Commission into Human Relationships is clearly a forerunner of the current royal commissions into institutionalised child abuse and family violence. New research shows the extent to which this reforming agenda continued the post-war reconstruction plans of Curtin and Chifley. Finally, this book reassesses the place of the Whitlam government, and its dismissal, in history, in light of new material that continues to emerge from the personal papers of Sir John Kerr, and new analyses that challenge previous assessments. Edited by Jenny Hocking, with contributors including Stuart Macintyre, Michelle Arrow, Nicholas Brown, Eric Eklund, Murray Goot, Carol Johnson, David Lee, Lyndon Magarrity, Greg Mellueish, and more.