Gough Whitlam has turned 97 years of age today.
WhitlamDismissal.com
Joan Child, the first female Labor member of the House of Representatives, and the first female Speaker, has died. She was 91.
Child was elected to the Melbourne electorate of Henty, centred around Oakleigh, in 1974. She had unsuccessfully contested the electorate in 1972.
She was defeated at the 1975 election and again in 1977. She returned to the House in 1980, securing re-election to Henty in 1983, 1984 and 1987.
Child became the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives in February 1986. She relinquished the position in August 1989, ahead of her retirement at the 1990 election.
A second extract from Jenny Hocking's about-to-be-released second volume biography of Gough Whitlam has been published today in Fairfax newspapers. The extract deals with Rupert Murdoch's role in the Iraki breakfast affair.
Video of Gough Whitlam commenting on and recommending the second volume of Jenny Hocking's biography of his life.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser has delivered the 2012 Whitlam Oration to the Whitlam Institute in Sydney.
Nearly thirty-seven years after the Fraser-led coalition parties blocked the Budget and Sir John Kerr dismissed the Whitlam government, Fraser remarked that in the 1970s “few people would have believed that Malcolm Fraser would be delivering a Gough Whitlam oration”.
Fraser, 82, spoke mainly about foreign policy and international politics, and issues concerning race, immigration and refugees.
Audio and Video files of parliamentary tributes to Margaret Whitlam on March 19: Gillard, Abbott, Plibersek, Bishop, Rudd, Turnbull, Faulkner, Payne, Brown, Frydenberg and Griggs. Also includes audio of eulogies from Tony Whitlam and Catherine Dovey at the memorial service held on March 23.
ABC and Channel 10 television news report on the death of Margaret Whitlam.
The Queen was told about Gough Whitlam’s dismissal when she woke at 8am on the morning of November 11 in Buckingham Palace.
At this stage it was 7pm in Australia, the Parliament had been dissolved and an election set in train.
The Queen’s assistant private secretary at the time, William Heseltine, heard the news in a telephone call from the Governor-General’s Official Secretary, David Smith, at about 2am London time. This suggests Smith rang the palace almost immediately after Kerr dismissed Whitlam.
Details of these events have been published in an article about now Sir William Heseltine in The West Australian.
Text of article that first appeared in The West Australian.
No wake-up call for Queen over dismissal
by MALCOLM QUEKETT
A former senior member of the Queen’s staff has provided a rare insight into how Buckingham Palace reacted when governor-general Sir John Kerr sacked prime minister Gough Whitlam.
WA-born Sir William Heseltine, who was a member of the Queen’s staff for 27 years, said the Queen had closely followed events during the constitutional crisis of November 1975 but Sir John had not told her of his intentions and had not sought her advice.