Academic literature on the topic 'Gough Whitlam'

A generation of scholars has depicted the premiership of Labor Party leader Gough Whitlam as a watershed in Australian foreign policy. According to the prevailing consensus, Whitlam carved out a more independent and progressive role in international affairs without significantly endangering relations with Western-aligned states in East and Southeast Asia or with Australia's traditionally closest allies, the United States and the United Kingdom. This article takes issue with these views and offers a more skeptical assessment of Whitlam's diplomacy and questions his handling of Australia's alliance with the United States. In doing so, it shows that Whitlam, in his eagerness to embrace détente, reject containment, and project an image of an allegedly more progressive and independent Australia, in fact exacerbated tensions with Richard Nixon's Republican administration and caused disquiet among Southeast Asian countries that were aligned with or at least friendly toward the West.

This article draws on previously classified Australian and British archival material to reevaluate Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's foreign policy. The article focuses on the Whitlam government's decision in 1973 to withdraw Australian forces from Malaysia and Singapore—a decision that constitutes a neglected but defining episode in the evolution of Australian postwar diplomacy. An analysis of this decision reveals the limits of Whitlam's attempt to redefine the conduct of Australian foreign policy from 1972 to 1975, a policy he saw as too heavily influenced by the Cold War. Focusing on Whitlam's approach to the Five Power Defence Arrangement, this article contends that far from being an adroit and skillful architect of Australian engagement with Asia, Whitlam irritated Australia's regional allies and complicated Australia's relations with its immediate neighbors. Australia's subsequent adjustment to its neighborhood was not the success story implied in the general histories of Australian diplomacy. Whitlam's policy toward Southeast Asia, far from being a “watershed” in foreign relations, as often assumed, left Australia increasingly isolated from its region and more reliant on its chief Cold War ally, the United States.

The article examines one of the most important aspects of Gough Whitlam Labor government activities in 1972–1975 – its social policy. Its main directions and the reasons for the short-lived rule of the ALP in the early 1970s are analyzed.

This paper considers 1970s television character Norman Gunston's coverage of the dismissal of Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam on 11 November 1975. The paper explores the power of television comedy to intervene in the construction of a political event and transform it into a joke. Specifically, the paper describes how Gunston's comic practice of carnival mobilises resistance to the usual view of the Whitlam dismissal. The paper also considers television's capacity to transform a political episode into a television event resonating with the technology's cultural force. In particular, the paper considers Deleuze's (1995a). proposition of the connection between television and cultural operations of control. Exploring Deleuze's suggestion, the paper proposes that the Gunston–Whitlam television event demonstrates television's potential to produce a mode of resistance to control — a point about which Deleuze is not particularly optimistic (1995a: 76; 1995b: 175). With this critical perspective on Gunston's intrusion into an Australian political crisis, the paper provides an explanation of the way television comedy can transform and shape our understanding of such an event.

For over two decades the issue of East Timor's right to self-determination has been a ‘prickly’ issue in Australian foreign policy. The invasion by Indonesian forces in 1975 was expected, as Australian policy-makers had been well informed of the events leading up to the punitive action being taken. Indeed, prior discussions involving the future of the territory were held between the Australian Prime Minister and the Indonesian President in 1974. In response to the events unfolding in the territory the Australian Labor Government at the time was presented with two policy options for dealing with the issue. The Department of Defence recommended the recognition of an independent East Timor; whereas the Department of Foreign Affairs proposed that Australia disengage itself as far as possible from the issue. The decision had ramifications for future policy considerations especially with changes in government. With the Department of Foreign Affairs option being the prevailing policy what were the essential ingredients that give explanation for the government's choice? It is important to note the existence of the continuity and cyclical nature of attitudes by Labor governments toward Indonesia before and after the invasion. To do so requires an analysis of the influence ‘Doc’ Evatt had in shaping any possible Labor tradition in foreign policy articulation. The support given by Evatt for the decolonisation of the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) gave rise to the development of a special relationship-so defined. Evidence of the effect Evatt had on future Labor governments may be found in the opinions of Gough Whitlam. In 1975 when he was Prime Minister, Whitlam felt the East Timor issue was merely the finalisation of Indonesia's decolonisation honouring Evatt's long held anti-colonialist tradition existing in the Australian Labor Party. The early predisposition toward Indonesia's cohesiveness surfaced again in the Hawke and Keating Labor governments of later years. It did not vary a great deal with changes in government The on-going commitment to preserving and strengthening the bilateral relationship meant Indonesia's territorial integrity became the focus of the Australian political elites’ regional foreign policy determinations. The actions taken by policy-makers served to promote the desire for a stable region ahead of independence claims of the East Timorese. From a realist perspective, the security dilemma for Australian policy-makers was how to best promote regional order and stability in the South East Asian region. The desire for regional cohesiveness and stability continues to drive Australian political elites to promote policies that gives a priority to the territorial integrity of regional states. Indonesia, in spite of its diversity, was only ever thought of as a cohesive unitary state and changes to its construct have rarely been countenanced. Australia's political elite justifications for this stance vacillate between strategic and economic considerations, ideological (anti-colonialism) to one of being a pragmatic response to international politics. The political elite argues the projection of power into the region is in Australia’s national interest. The policies from one government to the next necessarily see the national interest as being an apparent fixed feature of foreign policy. The persistent fear of invasion from the north traditionally motivated Australia's political elite to adopt a strategic realist policy that sought to ‘shore up’ the stability, strength and unity of Indonesia. The national interest was deemed to be at risk if support for East Timorese independence was given. The national interest though can involve more than just the security issue, and the political elite when dealing with East Timor assumed that they were acting in the common good. Questions that need to be addressed include determining what is the national interest in this context? What is the effect of a government invoking the national interest in debates over issues in foreign policy? And, who should participate in the debate? In an effort to answer these questions an analysis of how the ex-foreign affairs mandarin Richard Woolcott defines the national interest becomes crucial. Clearly, conflict in East Timor did have implications for the national interest. The invasion of East Timor by Indonesia had the potential to damage the relationship, but equally communist successes in 1975 in Indo-China raised Australia's regional security concerns. During the Cold War, the linking of communism to nationalism was driving the decision-making processes of the Australian policy-makers striving to come to grips with the strategic realities of a changing region. Because of this, did the constraints of world politics dominated by Cold War realities combined with domestic political disruption have anything to do with Australia's response? Certainly, Australia itself was experiencing a constitutional crisis in late 1975. The Senate had blocked supply and the Labor Government did not have the funds to govern. The Governor-General by dismissing the Labor Government finally resolved the impasse. What were the reactions of the two men charged with the responsibility of forming the caretaker government toward Indonesia's military action? And, could the crisis have prevented the Australian government from making a different response to the invasion? Importantly, and in terms of economic security, did the knowledge of oil and gas deposits thought to exist in the Timor Sea influence Australia's foreign policy? The search for oil and gas requires a stable political environment in which to operate. Therefore for exploration to continue in the Timor Sea Australia must have had a preferred political option and thoughts of with whom they preferred to negotiate. What was the extent of each government's cooperation and intervention in the oil and gas industry and could any involvement have influenced the Australian political elites’ attitude toward the prospect of an independent East Timor? Australia's subsequent de jure recognition that East Timor was part of Indonesia paved the way for the Timor Gap (Zone of Cooperation) Treaty signing in 1989. The signing underpinned Australia's acceptance of Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor. The outcome of the analysis of the issues that shaped Australia's foreign policy toward East Timor showed that the political elite became locked into an integration model, which was defended by successive governments. Moreover, they formed an almost reflexive defence of Indonesia both at the domestic and international level.

This thesis examines the idea that Australian federal political leaders are becoming more powerful. This idea, often referred to as presidentialization, generates heated debates in academic circles. Using one of the more systematic frameworks, namely the Poguntke and Webb (2005) model, and combining a behavioural component, this thesis seeks to explore whether Australian federal politics has become presidentialized. Poguntke and Webb viewed presidentialization as consisting of three separate but inter-related faces. These were: the executive face, the party face and the electoral face. This thesis undertakes this task by examining four leadership periods from the Australian Labor Party (ALP). This includes: The Chifley leadership period (1945-51), the Whitlam leadership period (1967-1977), the Hawke Leadership period (1983-91) and the Kevin Rudd leadership period (2006-2010). In the Chifley leadership period it is argued that very little evidence of the presidentialization phenomenon as described by Poguntke and Webb (2005) is identifiable. This finding adds to their hypothesis that many of the causal factors that contributed to presidentialization did not emerge until after 1960. This section of the thesis also highlights how different Australian society and the ALP were during this period than to the later periods examined in this thesis. The second period, the Whitlam leadership period, is vastly different. Clear increases in the capacity of leaders to exert power began to emerge. Hugely important structural changes to the ALP occur during this period which fundamentally alters intra-party power. Some evidence of leaders being able to exert greater power within the executive of government can also be identified during this period. The elections that Whitlam contested display a mixed level of personalisation.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith Business School
Griffith Business School
Full Text

This thesis examines the separate legal reasons provided by both the then Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, and the then Chief Justice of the High Court, Sir Garfield Barwick, in justification of Kerr’s decision on 11 November 1975 to withdraw Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s commission, in order to establish that the Governor-General did not possess the legal power to act in this way. It will establish that the Constitution drafted by the Founders at the 1897 Constitutional Convention implicitly contains a principle that requires a construing court to exercise a methodology of construction that reveals the meaning originally intended by the Founders as consented to by the people of the several colonies. The thesis examines the establishment and the deliberations of the delegates to the Convention that resulted in the draft Bill of the Commonwealth Constitution in order to establish the two elements of the political scheme that the Founders intended the Constitution to sustain: the federal distribution of powers similar to that of the US Constitution and responsible government. It argues that all these matters, considered in the context of the process of its ratification by the people of the colonies and the constitutional requirements for any changes, are evidence of a political imperative in the Constitution that its construction should seek the meaning originally intended by the Founders, being the one consented to by the people of the colonies in 1899. The thesis will examine the arguments advanced by Isaac Isaacs during the Constitutional Convention in opposition to the federal scheme required by the colonial statutes establishing the Convention for the draft Constitution. It will show that Isaacs wanted the Convention to approve a unitary political scheme for the Constitution, which was rejected by the delegates. An examination of the decisions of the early court will demonstrate that it adopted a construction methodology consistent with the original intention of the Founders to explicate the details of federal doctrines derived from the federal scheme of the US Constitution, the immunity of instrumentalities and the reserve powers of the states. This thesis will show that when he was appointed to the High Court, Isaac Isaacs implicitly rejected the methodology of original intent and the federal scheme of the early court and adopted a literalist methodology derived from legal positivist1 decisions of the Privy Council that, following the English jurist A.V. Dicey, distinguished between the legal text and the political scheme. It will examine the argument for the legal positivist methodology of construction and its common manifestation as literalism to determine its efficacy for constitutional interpretation and will examine Isaacs’ literalist construction of the Constitution in the majority judgment of the court in Amalgamated Society of Engineers v Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd2 to show that it permitted him to reinterpret the text in isolation from the Constitution’s political scheme and therewith to abolish the federal scheme and impose his unitary scheme, enlarging the powers of the Commonwealth and abridging the powers of the states. Isaacs’ unitary Constitution reflected the proposal for which he had argued at the Convention. By examining selected High Court judgments of Sir Owen Dixon and Sir Garfield Barwick during their respective tenures on the High Court, the thesis will show that the legal positivist method of construction employed by Isaacs, which manifested as a literal interpretation of the text in isolation from the political scheme, was maintained by the High Court as the preeminent method of construction following the Engineers’ case. Barwick’s express endorsement of Isaacs’ judgment in the Engineers’ case indicated his adoption of that literalist methodology. When it examines the arguments advanced by Kerr and Barwick in defence of Kerr’s actions in November 1975, the thesis will show that each man construed the relevant provisions of the Constitution literally, and thus altered the practice of responsible government as understood and intended by the Founders to comply with their literal interpretation. Kerr and Barwick both introduced an implied term previously unremarked and absent from the Convention debates into the Constitution in order to infer a condition precedent to the actions of the Governor- General. The thesis will show that each posited a differently characterised discretionary, personal power in the Governor-General, which was explicitly rejected by the Founders. Their theoretical explanations of the Governor-General’s reserve powers will be shown to be inconsistent with the relevant terms of the Constitution.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith Law School
Arts, Education and Law
Full Text

The word 'marijuana' was introduced to Australia by the US Bureau of Narcotics via the Diggers newspaper, Smith's Weekly, in 1938. Marijuana was said to be 'a new drug that maddens victims' and it was sensationally described as an 'evil sex drug'. The resulting tabloid furore saw the plant cannabis sativa banned in Australia, even though cannabis had been a well-known and widely used drug in Australia for many decades. In 1964, a massive infestation of wild cannabis was found growing along a stretch of the Hunter River between Singleton and Maitland in New South Wales. The explosion in Australian marijuana use began there. It was fuelled after 1967 by US soldiers on rest and recreation leave from Vietnam. It was the Baby-Boomer young who were turning on. Pot smoking was overwhelmingly associated with the generation born in the decade after the Second World War. As the conflict over the Vietnam War raged in Australia, it provoked intense generational conflict between the Baby-Boomers and older generations. Just as in the US, pot was adopted by Australian Baby-Boomers as their symbol; and, as in the US, the attack on pot users served as code for an attack on the young, the Left, and the alternative. In 1976, the 'War on Drugs' began in earnest in Australia with paramilitary attacks on the hippie colonies at Cedar Bay in Queensland and Tuntable Falls in New South Wales. It was a time of increasing US style prohibition characterised by 'tough-on-drugs' right-wing rhetoric, police crackdowns, numerous murders, and a marijuana drought followed quickly by a heroin plague; in short by a massive worsening of 'the drug problem'. During this decade, organised crime moved into the pot scene and the price of pot skyrocketed, reaching $450 an ounce in 1988. Thanks to the Americanisation of drugs policy, the black market made 'a killing'. In Marijuana Australiana I argue that the 'War on Drugs' developed -- not for health reasons -- but for reasons of social control; as a domestic counter-revolution against the Whitlamite, Baby-Boomer generation by older Nixonite Drug War warriors like Queensland Premier, Bjelke-Petersen. It was a misuse of drugs policy which greatly worsened drug problems, bringing with it American-style organised crime. As the subtitle suggests, Marijuana Australiana relies significantly on 'alternative' sources, and I trawl the waters of popular culture, looking for songs, posters, comics and underground magazines to produce an 'underground' history of cannabis in Australia. This 'pop' approach is balanced with a hard-edged, quantitative analysis of the size of the marijuana market, the movement of price, and the seizure figures in the section called 'History By Numbers'. As Alfred McCoy notes, we need to understand drugs as commodities. It is only through a detailed understanding of the drug trade that the deeper secrets of this underground world can be revealed. In this section, I present an economic history of the cannabis market and formulate three laws of the market.

The word 'marijuana' was introduced to Australia by the US Bureau of Narcotics via the Diggers newspaper, Smith's Weekly, in 1938. Marijuana was said to be 'a new drug that maddens victims' and it was sensationally described as an 'evil sex drug'. The resulting tabloid furore saw the plant cannabis sativa banned in Australia, even though cannabis had been a well-known and widely used drug in Australia for many decades. In 1964, a massive infestation of wild cannabis was found growing along a stretch of the Hunter River between Singleton and Maitland in New South Wales. The explosion in Australian marijuana use began there. It was fuelled after 1967 by US soldiers on rest and recreation leave from Vietnam. It was the Baby-Boomer young who were turning on. Pot smoking was overwhelmingly associated with the generation born in the decade after the Second World War. As the conflict over the Vietnam War raged in Australia, it provoked intense generational conflict between the Baby-Boomers and older generations. Just as in the US, pot was adopted by Australian Baby-Boomers as their symbol; and, as in the US, the attack on pot users served as code for an attack on the young, the Left, and the alternative. In 1976, the 'War on Drugs' began in earnest in Australia with paramilitary attacks on the hippie colonies at Cedar Bay in Queensland and Tuntable Falls in New South Wales. It was a time of increasing US style prohibition characterised by 'tough-on-drugs' right-wing rhetoric, police crackdowns, numerous murders, and a marijuana drought followed quickly by a heroin plague; in short by a massive worsening of 'the drug problem'. During this decade, organised crime moved into the pot scene and the price of pot skyrocketed, reaching $450 an ounce in 1988. Thanks to the Americanisation of drugs policy, the black market made 'a killing'. In Marijuana Australiana I argue that the 'War on Drugs' developed -- not for health reasons -- but for reasons of social control; as a domestic counter-revolution against the Whitlamite, Baby-Boomer generation by older Nixonite Drug War warriors like Queensland Premier, Bjelke-Petersen. It was a misuse of drugs policy which greatly worsened drug problems, bringing with it American-style organised crime. As the subtitle suggests, Marijuana Australiana relies significantly on 'alternative' sources, and I trawl the waters of popular culture, looking for songs, posters, comics and underground magazines to produce an 'underground' history of cannabis in Australia. This 'pop' approach is balanced with a hard-edged, quantitative analysis of the size of the marijuana market, the movement of price, and the seizure figures in the section called 'History By Numbers'. As Alfred McCoy notes, we need to understand drugs as commodities. It is only through a detailed understanding of the drug trade that the deeper secrets of this underground world can be revealed. In this section, I present an economic history of the cannabis market and formulate three laws of the market.