Biography

Hon E.G. Whitlam, AC QC

Whitlam joined the Australian Labor Party in 1945, unsuccessfully contested the new State seat of Sutherland in 1950 and won the Federal seat of Werriwa at a by-election in November 1952. He was elected Deputy Leader of his party in February 1960. In February 1967 he was elected Leader of his party and initiated the practice of appointing Shadow Ministers. He remained Leader until December 1977, a record term for his party.

On 2 December 1972 Whitlam became the first Labor leader to win House of Representatives elections since September 1946. The party received 49.6% of the votes, more than it has ever received since then. Whitlam and his deputy Lance Barnard formed a two man ministry until the electoral results were completed on 19 December 1972. They abolished conscription, withdrew the remaining Australian troops from Viet Nam, banned sporting teams from South Africa, changed Australia's voting on Southern African questions in the UN, negotiated diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and commissioned inquiries into the needs of State and church schools and into Aboriginal land rights.

Whitlam's government embarked on the extensive program of reform which he had enunciated as Leader of the Opposition. It took over financial responsibility for tertiary education and abolished fees. The Schools Commission was established. Welfare payments were introduced for single-parent families and homeless persons. The death penalty was abolished for Federal crimes. The voting age was reduced to eighteen years.

The administrative vestiges of "White Australia" were expunged. Radio and language programs were introduced for ethnic minorities. Equal opportunities were given to women in Federal Government employment and women were appointed to judicial, administrative and advisory positions. The National Aboriginal Consultative Committee was elected. The five defence departments were amalgamated, and also the two transport departments. The PMG's Department was replaced by Telecom and Australia Post. Grants were made to local government bodies on a regional basis.

Federal legislative and administrative responsibilities were transformed by specifying the purpose of financial grants to the States. From them came the round-Australia highway, community health centres and regionally based hospitals. Adelaide was linked by standard gauge railway to Sydney, Alice Springs and Perth and Brisbane's railway system was extended and electrified. This process was especially remarkable in the programs of the new Department of Urban and Regional Development concerning welfare, transport, growth centres like Albury-Wodonga, urban renewal, flood mitigation, land acquisition, sewerage backlogs and leisure and tourist facilities.

From the outset the government's legislative program met constant resistance in the Senate, where half the membership had been elected in November 1970 and half in November 1967. Whitlam secured a dissolution of both Houses in April 1974 after the Senate twice rejected bills setting up Medibank, ensuring one vote one value in elections for the House of Representatives and introducing senators for the Territories. The Government was re-elected with a majority of votes but not a majority of Senators. The Medibank and electoral bills were then passed at the first and only joint sitting of both Houses of the Parliament.

Whitlam was Foreign Minister till November 1973. Papua New Guinea was at once given self-government and, in September 1975, independence. The South Pacific Forum was promoted, human rights and nuclear disarmament conventions ratified, diplomatic relations established with both halves of Germany, Viet Nam and Korea and tariffs reduced by 25%. France ceased atmospheric nuclear tests in the South Pacific after Australia, New Zealand and Fiji took proceedings in the International Court of Justice. The external affairs power in the Constitution was used to pioneer Federal legislation to protect the environment and national heritage in the States, to outlaw racial discrimination and to assert the Federal Parliament's off-shore jurisdiction. The Queen's title became "Queen of Australia". "Advance Australia Fair" was used as the national anthem. The Order of Australia was inaugurated.

Whitlam retained responsibility for the arts. He laid the foundation stone and introduced the legislation for the Australian National Gallery. The Australia Council was appointed. The Australian Film and Television School and Australian Film Commission were established. FM radio, colour TV and PLR were introduced.

Whitlam laid the foundation stone for the High Court building in Canberra. The legislation for the Law Reform Commission, Trade Practices Commission, Inter State Commission and Family Court of Australia was passed but the Senate rejected the bills abolishing appeals to the Privy Council from State courts and establishing a new Federal Court of Australia. The Senate also rejected the government's industrial and minerals legislation and stalled its legislation on national compensation and rehabilitation and on corporations and the securities industry.

In 1975 the Government successfully repelled five challenges by the non-Labor State Governments in the High Court. The New South Wales and Queensland governments, however, changed the composition of the Senate by making non Labor appointments to fill two Labor vacancies. In October the Senate thrice postponed a vote on the Budget. On 11 November the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, dismissed the Whitlam Government. Whitlam's account of these controversial events is given in The Truth of the Matter (1979, 2nd edition 1983 and 3rd edition 2005) and in Abiding Interests (1997). In 1985, on the tenth anniversary of the coup, he published The Whitlam Government 1972 1975, in which he traced the development as well as the implementation of his policies. In Abiding Interests he covers his activities at home and abroad after Parliament. His next book, My Italian Notebook, was published in February 2002.

Losing the 1975 and 1977 elections, Whitlam resigned from Parliament in July 1978 to pursue an academic career. He became the first National Fellow at the ANU. In 1979 he was a Visiting Professor at Harvard and in 1983 at the University of Adelaide. He was made an honorary D.Litt. by the University of Sydney in 1981, the University of Wollongong in 1989, La Trobe University (Wodonga campus) in 1992, the University of Technology, Sydney in 1995 and the University of Western Sydney in 2002. In 1983 the Hawke Government appointed him Ambassador to UNESCO in Paris, where he resided until the end of 1986. During this time he was active as a member of the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues. He served on the World Heritage Committee from 1983 to 1989 and on the Executive Board of UNESCO from 1985 to 1989.

The High Court dismissed challenges to the external affairs power in 1982 (Koowarta's case) and in 1983 (Tasmanian Dams case). Thereafter Whitlam has campaigned for Australia's complete adherence to ILO conventions and all UN human rights, refugees, environment and heritage conventions and protocols. He particularly valued Nugget Coombs' tribute after he resigned from Parliament. Coombs asked him to launch Kulinma (1978) and wrote in it:

"To Gough Whitlam, whose government was the first and so far the only Commonwealth Government which has listened to Aboriginal Australians."

He is outspoken on the need to have one-vote one-value in all State Houses of Parliament, four-year terms in all Houses of Parliament and, as in the United States of America, simultaneous Federal and State elections.

He was appointed to the Constitutional Commission in 1985, having been a member of Federal Parliament's Joint Committee on Constitutional Review in 1956 to 59 and leader and later deputy leader of the Federal State Constitutional Convention in 1973 to 77. He was appointed chairman of the Australia-China Council for 1986 91 and chairman of the Council of the National Gallery of Australia for 1987 to 90. In 1988 the World Conservation Union (IUCN) made him a Member of Honour. He served on the University of Sydney Senate from 1981 to 1983 and from 1986 to 1989. During 1989 he was patron of the Australian National Council for the Celebration of the Bicentenary of the French Revolution.

In 1993 he became the founder of the Hanoi Architectural Heritage Foundation, a member of the Australian Olympic Committee delegation to Africa, a corresponding member of the Academy of Athens and an honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 1994 he received the Redmond Barry Award from the Australian Library and Information Association. In 1996 he chaired the Advisory Board for the latest (6th) edition of Dick Smith's Australian Encyclopaedia. He has been decorated by the Governments of the United States, the Philippines, Cyprus, Greece (twice), Italy (twice), China and Papua New Guinea and by the Greek Archdiocese of Australia. He and his wife Margaret were awarded the Sir Edward ('Weary') Dunlop Asialink Medal for 2001/2 by the University of Melbourne. He is an honorary Fellow of the Royal Australian Planning Institute. He has been awarded life membership of the NSW (1991) and South Australia (2002) branches of the ALP. He and Margaret were given National Life Membership at the ALP National Conference in April 2007.

Whitlam's father was Commonwealth Crown Solicitor and a member of the United Nations committees which drafted and developed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. His wife Margaret AO (1983), D.Litt (Queensland 1994; UNE 1995), is the daughter of the late Justice Dovey of the NSW Supreme Court. They have three sons and one daughter.