Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Whitlam Speeches”

Twentieth Anniversary: Maintain Your Rage And Enthusiasm

November 11, 1995

On the 20th anniversary of the Dismissal, Whitlam spoke at a commemorative dinner at the now Old Parliament House in Canberra.

The speech deals with many of the constitutional and political issues raised by the Dismissal, including the role played by the High Court Chief Justice Sir Garfield Barwick.

“Maintain your rage and your enthusiasm through the campaign for the election now to be held and until polling day.”

Ladies and gentlemen,

I refer emphatically to the next Federal election.

The ultimate answer to those who sought to deny the legitimacy of a Labor Government, not just in November 1975, but from the beginning, after December 1972, will be a Labor victory in 1996.

In quoting myself from my impromptu remarks out there on the steps, I want to be understood in a thoroughly contemporary sense.

Continue readingTwentieth Anniversary: Maintain Your Rage And Enthusiasm

Whitlam: The Coup Twenty Years After

November 8, 1995

This is the text of Gough Whitlam’s Address to the National Press Club on the 20th anniversary of The Dismissal.

Mr President, Citizens

It’s always a great pleasure for me to return to the National Press Club, not only because of our long association but because of its importance as a forum. In my time, the party leaders wound up their campaigns here. Now, Labor Prime Ministers use the lunch to launch policies and Liberal leaders to launch themselves.

There must have been a certain inevitability in my being invited back around the time of the 20th anniversary of 11 November 1975. Media interest has been intense and I have had to limit my acceptance of requests for interviews and articles. One of the reasons, frankly, is that I am not preoccupied with the Dismissal. My chief interest in the events of October/November 1975, dramatic as they were, now lies in their relevance to the development of Australia as a Republic. That makes it doubly important that the Australian public should have an accurate understanding of those events and the motives of those who took part in them.

Continue readingWhitlam: The Coup Twenty Years After

Australia Needs A New Flag

November 11, 1994

This is an extract from Gough Whitlam’s speech at the ALP Annual Dinner in Melbourne.

On the question of national identity, I come to an even more emotive topic, the Flag. Australians need a flag which is recognisable in all other countries and is acceptable to everyone in this country. When the Flags Act was passed in 1953 the only members of the UN and the Commonwealth which included the Union Jack in their flags were the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. At that time the Union Jack was also included in the flags of six UN trust territories, including New Guinea. None of them included it in the national flags which they adopted on independence.

Today the only members of the UN which include the Union Jack in their flags are the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji and the only members of the Commonwealth which do so are the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Tuvalu. Canada is the oldest member of the Commonwealth and South Africa has been readmitted to it. The flag of neither country now includes the Union Jack.

Continue readingAustralia Needs A New Flag

Centenary Of Arbor Day

July 30, 1990

This is the text of Gough Whitlam’s speech at Toongabbie Public School on the Centenary of Arbor Day.

The first Toongabbie School was opened in April 1888, the second, in brick, in August 1890.

The first Arbor Day in New South Wales was held in 1890 at this school.

In 1891 the Education Department proclaimed 21 August as the official Arbor Day for all schools

I was surprised and pleased to be asked to the centenary celebration.

From 1955 to 1969 I represented the Toongabbie district in the House of Representatives.

As the school was a polling booth I visited it on seven polling days in my 14 years as candidate and member.

Continue readingCentenary Of Arbor Day

Future Directions For Reform In Australia

November 15, 1985

This is the text of Gough Whitlam’s John Curtin Memorial Lecture on the 10th anniversary of Whitlam’s dismissal.

It was delivered at the University of Western Australia, in Perth.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR REFORM IN AUSTRALIA

Achieving Government through the House of Representatives Majority

Gough WhitlamThis is the fourth time I have delivered, a Curtin Memorial Lecture and the third time at this University.

Here, in February 1961 I spoke on “Socialism Within the Constitution”; in July 1972, also here, I spoke on “Urbanised Australia”; and in October 1975, at the Australian National University, I spoke at the height of the great crisis which culminated in my Government’s dismissal on 11 November. My topic then was “Government of the people, for the people, by the people’s house”. Now in this, my fourth Curtin Memorial Lecture, delivered in the year which marks the 100th anniversary of John Curtin’s birth, I speak on future directions for reform in Australia.

Continue readingFuture Directions For Reform In Australia

Whitlam Addresses The National Press Club On The Dismissal’s 10th Anniversary

November 11, 1985

Gough Whitlam addressed the National Press Club on November 11, 1985, ten years to the day since he was dismissed from office by Sir John Kerr.

WhitlamThe occasion also coincided with the launch of Whitlam’s new book, The Whitlam Government 1972-1975.

Whitlam had returned to Australia, on leave from his position in Paris as Australian Ambassador to UNESCO, the post to which he had been appointed by the Hawke government in 1983.

In his speech, Whitlam canvassed a wide range of issues, including the constitutional crisis of 1975. He damned Kerr for hid handling of what Whitlam said was a “political crisis” that was likely to resolve itself within days, if not hours.

The video of this National Press Club appearance is notable for its portrayal of Whitlam ten years after his government ended and seven years after he left parliament.

Continue readingWhitlam Addresses The National Press Club On The Dismissal’s 10th Anniversary

Whitlam And McClelland Speak At NSW Labor Lawyers Dinner

July 4, 1980

Gough Whitlam and former Senator Jim McClelland both addressed the NSW Labor Lawyers at a dinner in Sydney on July 4, 1980.

Following the 1974 federal election, McClelland was Whitlam’s Minister for Manufacturing Industry and then Minister for Labour and Immigration. First elected to the Senate in 1970, McClelland had retired on July 21, 1978, just ten days before Whitlam also resigned.

McClelland was appointed by the NSW Wran Labor government as the first Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court. He would go on to head the 1984 Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests. He died in 1999 at the age of 83.

Continue readingWhitlam And McClelland Speak At NSW Labor Lawyers Dinner

Whitlam’s T.J. Ryan Memorial Lecture: “Reform During Recession – The Way Ahead”

April 28, 1978

On April 28, 1978, four months after giving up the ALP leadership and three months before resigning from the Parliament, Whitlam delivered the Inaugural T.J. Ryan Memorial Lecture at the University of Queensland.

BookletThe lecture was hosted by the University’s ALP Club. They published the speech in booklet form, a PDF copy of which can be downloaded below.

Whitlam was introduced by Dr. Denis Murphy, an academic at the University of Queensland. Murphy was a Labor historian and biographer. In 1975, he published a biography of T.J. Ryan. Elected as the member for Stafford in the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1983, Murphy died of cancer in 1984, at age 47. He died without ever making a parliamentary speech.

Thomas Joseph Ryan’s life had also been cut short, at the age of 45, in 1921. Elected as the Labor member for Barcoo in the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1909, he became leader of the ALP in 1912 and Premier of Queensland in 1915. He was re-elected in 1918 and entered the Commonwealth Parliament in 1919 as the member for West Sydney, following an unprecedented resolution of a Special Federal Conference of the party requesting him to nominate.

Continue readingWhitlam’s T.J. Ryan Memorial Lecture: “Reform During Recession – The Way Ahead”