I was always a bit of a fan of politics and history in the UK, we learned at school how great the crusades were and a bit about Oliver Cromwell. Australia never really came up apart from that Cook bloke inventing the place, so the closest I got to Australian politics prior to my migration was when some git called Paul Keating patted our Queen on the arse.
I had lost a nemesis in John Major and the British Conservative Party when I moved from London to Sydney in 1995, and being full of hate like most lefties, needed a new foe to fill the emptiness. First things first, brush up a bit on the lay of the land. An old potted history of Australian politics was growing dust on Ms Flute’s bookshelf so I gave it a scan. Barton, Deakin, some arsehole called Bruce who nearly turned Australia into a 2 dollar shop. The usual stuff of a Westminster system. The lethargy and longevity of Menzies, and the collapse of the tories through Holt, Gorton, Manfred MacMahon (doo wah diddy) gave way suddenly to the blazing light of Whitlam.
Suddenly it was out of Vietnam, free education, free healthcare. Then the book got a bit fuzzy and non commital, mentioning loans and ministerial sackings. Then WHAMMO! The Whitlam Dismissal! What the f? It seemed to be the stuff of fiction. We had some crappy governments during hard times in the UK but blimey, this was like the Queen sacking Ted Heath. The Lords ruling the Commons? Bullshit to that. This was big news to me. What kind of tin pot country had I walked into where a leader of the opposition can provoke a pisshead of state into sacking the government? Where’s the gun shop, I need some supplies.
And then after that, people actually voted Fraser back in? Madness.
For the next few days it must have seemed that I was out in the bush for two decades. People ran for miles, knowing the first thing I would say was, “Did you hear Whitlam got sacked?”.
I chatted to my in-laws about it and the wounds were still there, Fraser was a bastard, at least he cried when Hawkie beat him etc etc. Anyone I talked to who was around during the mid-seventies had an opinion on it. But more surprising was that people I talked to born around that time had little knowledge of the whole affair. It was as if it had been erased from the curriculum out of embarassment or revisionism, or maybe I was hanging with the wrong crowd. One of the most significant political events of the twentieth century completely buried. Only the older generation looking at the lawns over Parliament house could see a patch of greener grass and the odd maggot where the carcass lay.
Then, not one year after me calling Australia home, in its infinite wisdom the Australian public voted the dirty bastards back in. The party that pledged to raise parliamentary standards, just twenty years after ripping up all procedure and conventions. How can people be surprised that they are doing it again?
V good Mr Flute. Of course, not quite as good as the live version that I heard one afternoon at the Nippon club - somewhere near the end of the second par, I imagined poker machines.
I reckon we’ve gone past the pokies with ratty’s regime and we’re waiting for the 2:30pm doggies from Dapto. Does the Nippon have a TAB?
Indeed Flute… I was teaching Politics 1 in the UK in 1994/5, and my students (a mix of Anglo Poms, Afro-Carribean Poms, and Nigerians) were - with the exception of the Nigerians - gobsmacked to hear of the Whitlam dismissal. They literally couldnt believe it was possible. “But that would like the Queen sacking John Major, right?”
“F’n unbelievable, Sir”
” hey, language - who are you calling Sir?”.
The Nigerians, however, took it onboard with a shrug.
New world governance as usual, they figured.
Did you hear Fraser on the radio defending himself saying that he was adhering to the old convention of a government having to pass its budget through parliament? Still clinging to the notion of legitimate action.
It could be worse Flutey - you could be still in the Old Dart. With Blair and whoever the Tory leader is these days (it hardly matters, amusingly) squeezing the country back into Thatcher’s clothes between them.
Fraser’s said some intelligent things since leaving office, but he has never had a foot to stand on when it comes to the dismissal. His rationale for what his party did was founded much less on a specific constitutional interpretation than a conscious-free desire to get the conservatives back in power.
Well now that the bell is tolling for Blair they might get a proper Labour government.
Guy - It is the people who vote Governments into power. If Cough’s dissmissal was wrong, don’t you think the people would have voted Cough back in?
Not necessarily Razor. While the old saying goes that the voting public always make the correct decision, they don’t always make the best decision.
The GG dismissing Whitlam a month before the election also didn’t help his chances of getting re-elected. A 1977 election might have turned out completely differently.