Gough Whitlam: Encyclopedia II - Gough Whitlam - Prime Minister

Gough Whitlam - Prime Minister

Custom dictated that Whitlam should have waited until the process of vote counting was complete, and then called a Caucus meeting to elect his Ministers ready to be sworn in by the Governor-General. Meanwhile, the outgoing Prime Minister would remain in office as a caretaker. (As a matter of longstanding party policy, ALP Ministers are elected by the entire Parliamentary Party—the 'Caucus'—with the Prime Minister only having the power to assign portfolios. Liberal Prime Ministers, in contrast, have traditionally had the power to nominate their own Ministry.)

Unwilling to wait, Whitlam, as soon as the overall result was beyond doubt, had himself and Deputy Leader Lance Barnard sworn in as a two-man government, holding all the portfolios between them (see First Whitlam Ministry). Whitlam later said: "The Caucus I joined in 1952 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."

Although Labor had a comfortable working majority in the House, Whitlam faced a hostile Senate, making it impossible for him to pass legislation without the support of at least one of the other parties—Liberal, Country, or DLP. (Senate elections at that time were not synchronised with House of Representatives elections: at the time Whitlam took office, half the Senate had been elected two years previously, the other half five years earlier.)

After 23 years of continuous conservative rule, the bureaucracy was unhelpful, and the conservative state governments were implacably opposed to reform. Nevertheless, Whitlam embarked on a massive legislative reform program. In the space of a little less than three years, the Whitlam Government:

• established formal diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China;
• took responsibility for tertiary education over from the states and abolished tertiary fees;
• cut tariffs across the board by 25% and abolished the Tariff Board;
• established the Schools Commission to distribute Federal funds to assist non-government schools on a needs basis;
• introduced a supporting benefit for single-parent families;
• abolished the death penalty for Federal crimes;
• reduced the voting age to 18 years;
• abolished the last vestiges of the White Australia Policy;
• introduced language programs for non-English speaking Australians;
• mandated equal opportunities for women in Federal Government employment;
• appointed women to judicial and administrative positions;
• set up the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee;
• amalgamated the five separate defence departments;
• instituted direct federal grants to local governments; and
• established the Order of Australia, Australia's own honours system.

The Senate resolutely opposed six key bills and twice rejected them. These were designed to:

• Institute a universal, free health insurance system to be known as Medibank.
• Provide citizens of the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory with Senate representation for the first time.
• Regulate the size of House of Representatives electorates to ensure one vote one value.
• Institute government overseeing of exploitation of minerals and oil.

The repeated rejection of these bills provided a constitutional trigger for a double dissolution (a simultaneous election for all members in both houses), but Whitlam did not decide to call such an election until May 1974. Instead he expected to hold an election for half the Senate. To improve his chances of winning control of the Senate, Whitlam offered the former DLP Leader, Senator Vince Gair, the post of Ambassador to Ireland, thus creating an extra Senate vacancy in Queensland which Whitlam hoped Labor could win. This manoeuvre backfired, however, when the Queensland Premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, learned of the appointment before it was announced, and had the Governor of Queensland issue the writs for the Queensland Senate election before Gair's resignation from the Senate took effect.

This "Gair affair" so outraged opponents of the Whitlam government that the Opposition Leader Billy Snedden threatened to block supply in the Senate, although he took no actual steps to do so. Whitlam, however, believing Snedden was unpopular with the electorate, immediately went to the Governor-General, Sir Paul Hasluck, and obtained a double dissolution of both Houses for 18 May. Whitlam went to the polls asking for a mandate to "finish the job", and the ALP campaigned on the slogan "Give Gough a Go". At the election the Whitlam government was re-elected, though with a reduced majority. The DLP lost all its seats, but Labor failed to win a majority in the Senate. The balance of power in the Senate was now held by two independent Senators. In the short term, this led to the historic joint sitting of both houses, at which the six bills were passed. In the longer term, it contained the seeds of Whitlam's downfall.

In its second term, the Whitlam Government continued with its legislative reform program, but became embroiled in a series of controversies and scandals, including secret attempts to borrow large amounts of money from Middle Eastern governments, by-passing the Treasury and correct constitutional procedures (the "Loans Affair"). Whitlam was forced to dismiss Treasurer Jim Cairns and another senior minister, Rex Connor, for misleading Parliament.

Emboldened by these scandals, a weak economy, and a massive swing to them in a mid-1975 by-election for the Tasmanian seat of Bass, the Liberal-Country Opposition, led by Malcolm Fraser, argued that the Government's behaviour in breaching constitutional conventions required that it in turn attempt to breach one of the most fundamental, that the Senate would not block Supply (that is, cut off supply of Treasury funds).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Prime Minister", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki