Tuesday 10 November 2015

some thoughts on the dismissal

November 11 is a very interesting day in Australia. We have Armistice or Remembrance day.  I prefer Armistice day.

We have Ned Kelly's hanging.

But we also had the dismissal of the the ALP government in 1975.

My memory of the dismissal of Gough Whitlam was studying at home whilst listening to Steve Liebman on 2UE. He was talking to Katherine West when his Canberra correspondent rang in ( he was Kevin someone who was the Canberra correspondent for the Daily Telegraph). He informed the program that Gough had been sacked. Liebman's reaction was "shit"

I remember thinking at the time the Liberals were way too impatient. They merely had to wait for the election for everyone to vote against the present government.  The ALP government had finally gotten some decent ministers. Hayden, McCellend, Wriedt were all quite good minsters and the government was finally looking competent.

The dismissal changed my vote from voting for the liberals to voting for the ALP purely because of their actions of essentially raping the constitution.
There are new books ( by Paul Kelly and Jenny Hocking) on the crisis bolstered by the opening up of papers hitherto unread.
These papers do not help Kerr's Fraser's. Mason's, Barwick's or even Whitlam's reputations at ball.

It will never occur again. Fraser never had the legitimacy to follow through on any policy.

It made the election of the ALP in 1983 that much easier.

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