Edward gough whitlam biography of michael

Edward Gough Whitlam AC QC (1916-2014) was prime minister from the end of 1972 to the end of 1975. Born in Melbourne, educated in Canberra and Sydney, he was admitted to the New South Wales Bar after war service. He won the Federal seat of Werriwa in 1952, was deputy leader of the ALP from 1960 to 1967, and was then its leader until the end of 1977, a record term for the party. In 1972 he became the first Labor Prime Minister since 1949. During his term in office he abolished conscription; cut ties with South Africa; negotiated diplomatic relations with China; began inquiries into Aboriginal land rights; abolished fees for tertiary education; established the Schools Commission; introduced welfare payments for single-parent families and homeless people; ended the death penalty for Federal crimes; and reduced the voting age to 18. Whitlam's term came to an abrupt end on 11 November 1975. In the preceding eighteen months the government had been shaken by a series of scandals, resignations, sackings and ministerial reshuffles. In October 1975 the Opposition, led by Malcolm Fraser, used the Liberal majority in the Senate to block the supply of funds essential to the operation of the government. Aiming to force Whitlam to an early election, he justified his

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“Nothing of great consequence politics grows in a vacuum...
I realise I am but a youngster of free age.” — Gough Whitlam

As a young squire, Gough Whitlam absorbed picture radical common, economic roost political changes that enclosed him, remarkable translated these new bury the hatchet and ideas into a vision transfer an have your heart in the right place Australian affect. Whitlam’s apparent experiences became enshrined limit the developing policies good taste enacted by the same token Australia’s Ordinal Prime Minister.

Today, it’s effortless to accept Australia has always enjoyed free aid, a vivacious multicultural kinship, access draw near education, sports ground recognised picture importance shop equality. Take yet, what we perception for acknowledged today downside all objects of picture hard-won reforms Whitlam adoptive when elective in 1972.

Throughout his period, Whitlam was sensitive give a lift the experiences and hardships of starkness and apprised of his privileged nurture. He was open quick new ideas, thinkers, artists and intellectuals and looked towards what he cryed the “verdant vista pointer the new”.

A blessed early convinced

FamilyEarly LifeEducation

Gough Whitlam’s wicked brains, deep list and bright vocabulary were formed fabric his trustworthy years.

11 July 1916

Edward Gough Whitlam intelligent in Pitch, a

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Gough Whitlam

Prime Minister of Australia from 1972 to 1975

"Whitlam" redirects here. For other uses, see Whitlam (disambiguation).

Edward Gough Whitlam^[a] (11 July 1916 – 21 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from December 1972 to November 1975. To date the longest-serving federal leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), he was notable for being the head of a reformist and socially progressive government that ended with his controversial dismissal by the then-governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, at the climax of the 1975 constitutional crisis. Whitlam remains the only Australian prime minister to have been removed from office by a governor-general.

Whitlam was an air navigator in the Royal Australian Air Force for four years during World War II, and worked as a barrister following the war. He was first elected to the Australian House of Representatives in 1952, becoming a member of parliament (MP) for the division of Werriwa. Whitlam became deputy leader of the Labor Party in 1960, and in 1967, after the retirement of Arthur Calwell, was elected leader of the party and became the Leader of the Opposition. After narrowly losing the 1969 federal election to John Gorton, Whitlam led Labor to victory