Gough Whitlam appeared in the National Tally Room on election night to concede defeat and resign the ALP leadership.
The voice of Kerry O’Brien, Whitlam’s press secretary, can be heard as Whitlam arrives to address the media.
Posts tagged as “Fred Daly”
The debacle over the Gair Affair and the Coalition’s threat to block Supply led Gough Whitlam to call a double dissolution election for May 18, 1974.
The double dissolution superceded the half-Senate election that was due by June 30.
After a week of turmoil and speculation over the fate of the government’s Supply bills, Whitlam rose in the House of Representatives just before 8.30pm on April 10 to announce that the Governor-General, Sir Paul Hasluck, had agreed to a double dissolution. This is Hansard’s record of the announcement:
The first legislative act of the Whitlam government was a bill to lower the voting age from 21 to 18. The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1973 was introduced by the Minister for Services and Property, Fred Daly, in the House of Representatives, around 3.00pm, on February 28, 1973.