Whitlam fought his last election campaign as leader of the ALP in 1977.
The federal election was held on December 10. Whitlam and the ALP were defeated by a large margin only slightly less than the landslide defeat of 1975. Whitlam announced his resignation as leader of the ALP on election night.
This is probably the only recording made of Whitlam’s appearance at an ALP election rally at the Moorabbin Town Hall, in the electorate of Hotham, in Melbourne, on November 28, 1977.
Whitlam delivered the ALP policy speech for the 1977 federal election at the Sydney Opera House.
For the first time, Whitlam’s speech was not broadcast in full. The televised address contained contributions from Whitlam’s shadow ministers.
Gough Whitlam’s 1977 election policy speech, delivered at the Sydney Opera House.
A Program for Australia’s Recovery
The task before us is to get Australia back to work, to give our young people, our unemployed, our small business people, our migrants a new hope—hope for decent jobs, hope in their future and the future of their country. The deepening economic crisis, the deliberately created unemployment call for bold, decisive measures. I shall be putting forward proposals to cut through, once and for all, the knot which ties unemployment and inflation.
We reject the defeatism and despair which says to Australia’s young people that their lives must be ruined if inflation is to be beaten.
Our proposals will call for Australia’s resources of co-operation, good faith, maturity and responsibility—co-operation from the States, good faith from business and maturity and foresight on the part of the people of Australia.
The Chinese leader, Mao Tse-Tung, died on September 9, 1976.
A statement by Opposition Leader Gough Whitlam is shown below, as is the Hansard transcript of the House of Representatives condolence debate on September 14, 1976.
Gough Whitlam delivered his policy speech for the 1975 election at Melbourne’s Festival Hall on Monday, November 24.
Men and Women of Australia,
The whole future of Australian democracy is in your hands.
The decision you make on 13 December goes far beyond who shall govern Australia for a few months or a few years. It goes to the heart of how Australia is to be governed into the Twenty-First Century.
Above all, Australia must be re-united – united about our basic faith in the value of Parliamentary democracy; as a means for change, and as a means for good government.
The shame of the past six weeks must be wiped away. In those shameful six weeks, a stacked Senate went on strike against a Budget vital to Australia’s welfare and the nation’s economy. The nation and the nation’s elected government were held to ransom. And by those means, the elected government in full command of the confidence of Parliament was deposed.
Is Australia to continue to be a Parliamentary democracy? Are we to have governments elected by the people, through the People’s House? Are elected governments to govern?
Whitlam was dismissed as Prime Minister at 1pm on November 11. The Parliament was dissolved at around 4.45pm.
After delivering his famous speech on the steps of Parliament House, Whitlam held a press conference.
WHITLAM: Clearly the great issue, almost the sole issue of this campaign will be whether the Government which the people elected with a majority in the House of Representatives will be allowed to govern from now on. The whole of this system is under challenge as we see. Now up till the very last division in the House of Representatives where, we have always believed, governments should be made and unmade. We won that division by a majority of ten votes; sixty-four for us, fifty-four for the others. And during this campaign the overwhelming issue will be, are we to have three year Governments in Australia; is the Party which gets a majority in the House of Representatives to be allowed to govern? That is, it’s the future of Parliamentary democracy as we have known it.
Gough Whitlam responded within hours to Malcolm Fraser’s announcement that the coalition parties would block Supply, describing it as a threat to parliamentary democracy.
Whitlam spoke in an Address to the Nation on ABC television on the evening of October 15, 1975.
He said: “I state again the basic rule of our parliamentary system: Governments are made and unmade in the House of Representatives – in the people’s House. The Senate cannot, does not, and must never determine who the Government shall be.
“That principle has been upheld since federation. It has never been broken or challenged except during this Government’s life. It has been scrupulously observed on at least twenty occasions since federation when the Opposition had the numbers in the Senate to reject Supply.
In 1966, Aboriginal stockmen went on strike at Wave Hill station in the Northern Territory.
Under the leadership of a Gurindji man, Vincent Lingiari, the strikers set up camp at Wattie Creek. Over time, the industrial dispute with the Vestey family turned into a demand for land rights.
Nine years later, in 1975, the Whitlam Government resolved the dispute and title to the land was granted to the Gurindji people.
During the ceremony to grant the land title, Whitlam symbolically poured sand into Lingiari’s hand.
Gough Whitlam recalled the House of Representatives from its winter recess for a one-day sitting to debate the Overseas Loans Affair.
The sitting took place on July 9, 1975, two days before Whitlam’s 59th birthday.
The morning newspapers around the country on July 9 were uniformly bad for the government. In South Australia, the Labor Premier Don Dunstan, facing an election three days later, attacked the Whitlam government. Dunstan suffered a 5.3% two-party swing, lost three seats and survived by forming a minority government.
Amidst this tense atmosphere, the sitting of the House began at 2.30pm and continued until the adjournment at 10.09pm.
Proceedings began with the announcement of the return of the writ for the Bass by-election. Following the ousting of Lance Barnard as Deputy Prime Minister, he was appointed Ambassador to Sweden, Norway and Finland, a by-election was held to replace him in his Tasmanian electorate. A 14.3% swing to the Liberals saw Labor lose the seat with just 39.7% of the two-party-preferred vote. Malcolm Fraser was entitled to believe he could now win a general election.
The sitting then offered condolences for Queensland ALP Senate Bert Milliner, who had died on June 30. Milliner’s death allowed Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen to further alter the balance of power in the Senate by the appointment of a non-Labor replacement, Albert Patrick Field. Earlier in the year, following the appointment of the Attorney-General, Senator Lionel Murphy, to the High Court, the NSW government of Premier Tom Lewis had also refused to appoint a Labor replacement.
Following his trip to Jamaica for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and visits to the United States and Peru, Whitlam delivered a televised report to the nation on May 13, 1975.
The CHOGM meeting was held in Kingston, Jamaica.
Whilst in Washington, Whitlam met with President Gerald Ford, Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller and Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger.
This is Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s Second Reading speech on the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill 1974 (No.2).
Amongst other things, the bill sought to introduce optional preferential voting.
This was the second time the bill was passed in the House of Representatives, following its earlier rejection by the Senate. The bill went on to become one of the constitutional triggers for the 1975 double dissolution election. With the election of the Fraser government, the bill was never enacted.
Hansard transcript of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s speech on the Second Reading of the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill 1974 (No.2).
Mr WHITLAM (Werriwa) (Prime Minister) – This Bill is now being debated in this Parliament for the second time. It was first debated over 4 months ago. The Bill includes many provisions which were proposed by the Minister for the Interior, the Minister in charge of electoral matters in the previous government, in a bill which he introduced in March 1971. The other provisions cover matters which were shown to be urgently in need of correction by the double dissolution election a year ago. When the Bill came into this Parliament for the first time last November it was totally opposed by members of the Opposition in this House and in the Senate. Nevertheless, I want to be fair in these matters. The Opposition moves, however slowly, because now it says that it will accept, by and large, the amendments made by this Bill, which in fact reproduce those in its Bill of March 1971. So we move on to that extent.
