2014.10.21 The Adventures of Edward Gough Whitlam
Maintain the rage and enthusiasm.
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Word of the week: cobber
RIP Judith Edelman
RIP Suni, 34 years old, one of the last two male Northern White Rhinos on earth
RIP Christophe de Margerie
RIP Edward Gough Whitlam
In the first 15 days (with a Cabinet of two: 13 portfolios held by Whitlam and 14 portfolios held by Barnard):
- withdrew Australian forces from Vietnam
- recognised north Vietnamese government
- recognised China
- abolishing conscription
- released conscientious objectors from jail
- abolished knighthoods (DO YOU HEAR US, TOSSPOT TONY?!?)
- moved towards Aboriginal land rights
- banned racially based sporting teams
- reopening equal pay case and appointed Elizabeth Evatt to pay tribunal
Subsequently:
- established Medibank,
- introduced needs-based school funding,
- extended tertiary education,
- reformed family law (the Family Law Act, no-fault divorce)
- trade practices act
- boosted the arts
- indexed pensions
- moved to equal pay for women
- changed voting age to 18
- promoted one vote-one value
- created Aboriginal land rights
- removed sales/luxury tax on contraceptives
- broke the cultural cringe
- introduced an Australian honours system
- introduced a new national anthem
- made relations with Asia a priority
- ended Australia's involvement with imperialism, later revived in Iraq.
- stopped university fees
- decolonised Papua New Guinea
- transformed indigenous policy
- was a proponent of the return of the Parthenon marbles
- protected great barrier reef
- signed world heritage convention
- created 2JJ
- boosted multiculturalism (thanks Al Grassby)
- purchased Blue Poles
- set up programs to sewer the cities, buy up urban land, and build new housing
DESPITE THAT:
- EAST TIMOR
- July 1973 cutting tariffs and cutting manufacturing base by 10% in one year
- wage-price inflation at home, poor policy decisions, and soaring oil prices and recessions abroad sent Australia into its worst recession for 40 years.
- a lot of disability support pensioners ...
- generally poor economic management
"The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race". - Gough
"Had I come along earlier, you'd be on our side" - Gough Whitlam to Kevin Andrews in 2001
With regard to the protestations of ideological purity by those blocking party reform: "Certainly, the impotent are pure." - Gough
"maintain the rage and enthusiasm" - Gough
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/dateline/story/falcon-lands
Crime and Punishment.
Bananaland
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-18/barbara-mcculkin-cold-case-arrests/5824098
The Feds
Mathias Cormann ... just a plain old dickhead.
World
Ebola
More Australian Jihad ... another dickhead.
RN doco on Saudi Arabia
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/saudi-arabia/5804002
"If there are certain pages of Mr Bertrand Russell's book, Power, which seem rather empty, that is merely to say that we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion, and such truisms as that a machine-gun is still a machine-gun even when a "good" man is squeezing the trigger - and that in effect is what Mr Russell is saying - have turned into heresies which it is actually becoming dangerous to utter." - George Orwell
(und so weiter)
