The Gough Whitlam moments that changed your life

Gough Whitlam presided over some of the most visionary and controversial moments in the history of our nation.

Here are the ten defining moments of his political career that changed our lives.

"It's Time" election campaign

Whitlam's famous "It's Time" 1972 election campaign combined detailed policies on just about everything with California-style hoopla, saying that the election was "a choice between past and future."

Swept into office

The December 2 election produced only a modest nine seat majority, but it was enough to bring Labor back to power after 23 years.

With doubtful seats delaying the caucus meeting necessary to elect a ministry, Whitlam couldn’t wait and established his duumvirate - a 13-day government consisting of himself and Barnard.

Whitlam was sworn in on December 5.

Australian troops withdrawn from Vietnam

Whitlam withdrew the last handful of Australian troops from Vietnam in 1972, which consolidated moves that had already been started by his coalition counterparts.

He had been a strong opponent of the conflict, having spoken at Vietnam peace rallies since the mid-1960s.

Whitlam also ended military conscription in Australia, where men had previously been chosen by ballot.

In his 1972 policy speech, he said: “It is intolerable that a free nation at peace and under no threat should cull by lottery the best of its youth to provide defence on the cheap.”

The Department of Aboriginal Affairs established

Aboriginal affairs was given new emphasis, even if the money was not always well spent, after Whitlam established the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in 1972.

He backed aboriginal land rights by saying: “We will legislate to give aborigines land rights; not just because their case is beyond argument, but because all of us as Australians are diminished while the aborigines are denied their rightful place in this nation.”

Voting age reduced to 18

Also in 1972, Whitlam was behind the move to lower the legal voting age from 21 to 18, having drawn attention to the fact that conscripted men were not of voting age.

Blue Poles controversy

In a controversial 1973 move, Whitlam’s government made the controversial acquisition of Blue Poles by American artist Jackson Pollock for a cool $1.3 million, then the highest price to have ever been paid for a modern American artwork.

Medicare established

Medibank, the precursor to Medicare, was set up despite a hostile Senate and savage opposition from doctors in 1973, promising free health care to every Australian.

The previous year in his campaign policy speech Whitlam said: “We will establish a universal health insurance system — not just because the Liberal system is grossly inadequate and inefficient, but because we reject a system by which the more one earns the less one pays”.

University fees abolished

Despite lacking control of the Senate, Whitlam’s government abolished fees for tertiary education in 1974.

The move, as Whitlam described, was to allow students from more disadvantaged backgrounds to receive equality in education.

Constitutional crisis

Whitlam made his famous “Kerr’s cur” and “maintain your rage“ speech on the steps of Parliament House. But in the following election, he was slaughtered.

In the furious arguments over the crisis, Whitlam was probably right on most points.

It was a political crisis, until Kerr made it a constitutional one; and a contest Whitlam probably would have won before the money ran out in mid-December, as there’s now ample evidence that some Liberal senators had deep misgivings about Fraser’s tactics.

The Dismissal

On November 11, 1975, Governor-General Sir John Kerr resolved a stalemate caused by the Senate’s refusal to pass the budget by dismissing the Whitlam government and appointing Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser caretaker prime minister.

This was highly divisive, not least because Kerr, a Whitlam appointee, had disregarded the PM’s advice not to seek advice from the High Court and had given him no inkling that he might be dismissed. On the other hand, Whitlam misread and mismanaged Kerr, treating him as a cypher.