The Dismissal 40 years on: Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and the age of right wing political entitlement

Lest we forget what ‘entitlement’ really means with regard to the Right in Australia.

Here’s Gough Whitlam’s famous words on the steps of Parliament House 40 years ago — after the scheming and illegal actions of his opponents manipulated parliament and the electorate to get the Libs back in the ruling position again, as if 23 years in a row of LNP rule wasn’t enough.

This happened two days before I was to sit my HSC Social Studies (ie Politics) exam.

I remember a frantic phone call from my teacher telling us to just carry on and refer to ‘the former Whitlam government’ and ‘the Caretaker Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser’ as if really that was all that had happened – just a simple change.

My education at Croydon High (for fifth and sixth form, after 4 years at a Tech school) was pretty basic, and even though I knew this was an outrage, I don’t think I really understood then how significant it was. Or maybe I was just in that HSC exams bubble… and surrounded by Liberal voters. I don’t remember having any discussions about it.

I guess there was no-one around me to discuss it with.

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What the newspapers on November 11th 1995 should have looked like:

Thank you to Daryl Dellora from FilmArtMedia for creating this gem. (By the way, Daryl’s film, Mr Neal is Entitled to Be an Agitator, about Lionel Murphy – a key member of the Whitlam government – is also well worth checking out.)

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Jenny Hocking, Professor of Politics at Monash University and Gough Whitlam’s biographer,  has a new book just out called The Dismissal Dossier: Everything you were never meant to know about November 1975 –

• Here’s a terrific interview with her on ABC TV about who knew what and when they knew it, a story that continues to unfold as new archival material becomes available. 

For those in Sydney, Jenny Hocking will be  in conversation with John Faulkner – Thursday 19 November 6pm for 6.30pm,  Gleebooks. Bookings via gleebooks.com.au or 02 9660 2333.

Thank you Gough, Lionel and so many others in that amazing ALP government that changed so many things that needed changing in such a short space of time (including, of course, making it possible for me to go to Uni and meet interesting people who I could discuss these things with – forever grateful).

And thank you to writers like Jenny Hocking and filmmakers like Daryl Dellora for educating us about our political legacy and history, and thus helping us to imagine and create a better future.