Gough Whitlam: The Vista of the New, by Troy Bramston

 One of Australia’s most iconic prime ministers is given the thorough biographical treatment.

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Gough Whitlam was beyond dispute one of Australia’s most significant political figures. He single handedly wrested the Australian Labor Party away from its traditional working class roots and old school socialist ideology, dragging it kicking and screaming into the modern world. In many ways, pre-Whitlam labor resembled today’s One Nation Party: racist and protectionist. Whitlam consigned those policies to the bin, and introduced a far more progressive platform.

​Labor under Whitlam (1972 - 1975) worked at breakneck speed, a government in a hurry to implement its progressive agenda. Labor ended conscription, withdrew from the Vietnam War, introduced medicare and free university education, recognised China, abolished the death penalty and made laws to advance women's rights. That's a snapshot of the Whitlam Government’s achievements - there were many more. 

Serious problems loomed, however. Firstly, Gough himself. A genius, certainly, but also a trainwreck. Vain and conceited, he was not a good reader of people. Hubris allowed him to sleepwalk into bad decisions. Most notably, he made a poor choice in appointing John Kerr as governor-general. Compounding the problem, he refused to acknowledge Kerr’s own unstable personality. Many around Whitlam were begging him to take heed. It was plain to insiders that Kerr’s vanity and insecurity meant he could possibly fire Whitlam. 

Cue the 1975 Senate crisis. The opposition under Liberal Malcolm Fraser used their majority numbers to block money bills (supply). The rationale seemed fair enough, the methods bloody. Fraser’s opposition had no faith that the Whitlam Government could make responsible economic policy. In fact, Labor operatives were involved in an extraordinarily dodgy scheme to raise money from Iraq to fund some of their programs. Whitlam himself had zero interest in economics and merely assumed a growing economy would pay for everything. When the Senate crisis hit, the Labor leader was fully confident that Kerr wouldn’t blink. But blink he did. The rest is history. 

Troy Bramston has written a detailed biography of Whitlam, based on over a hundred interviews. It is a blow by blow chronicle of Labor’s coming to power after twenty-three years in opposition and the “crash or crash through” government it produced. It’s a mixed legacy. Essential reforms that last until this day, but a shockingly incompetent government that was never popular. 

A fine, carefully balanced biography that shows a fatally flawed yet brilliant man.

Gough Whitlam: The Vista of the New, by Troy Bramston. Published by HarperCollins. $55

JAN26