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This website is in imminent danger of being shut down. It has been online since 1995, but the personal circumstances of the owner, Malcolm Farnsworth, are such that economies have to be made. Server costs and suchlike have become prohibitive. At the urging of people online, I have agreed to see if Patreon provides a solution. More information is available at the Patreon website. If you are able to contribute even $1.00/month to keep the site running, please click the Patreon button below.
Noel Pearson has tonight delivered a stunning Whitlam Oration, honouring “the old man” who led the reforming government of 1972-75.
Pearson called not just for Indigenous recognition in the Australian Constitution but elimination of the race power in Section 25 and the insertion of a provision outlawing racial discrimination. [Read more…]
Gough Whitlam has voted in the ALP’s rank-and-file leadership ballot.
The ABC’s Melissa Clarke has published on Twitter a picture of Whitlam’s voter declaration.
The ballot to elect the ALP’s next federal leader closes tomorrow. It pits the former Deputy Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, against the Minister for Workplace Relations and Education, Bill Shorten.
The ALP Caucus voted this afternoon. The Caucus result will be weighted at 50%, as will the rank-and-file ballot.
The result will be announced on Sunday.
Whitlam is 97. He was Prime Minister between 1972 and 1975.
I can’t resist it. Whenever I hear someone say “woof woof”, I always think of a famous exchange between Gough Whitlam and Billy Snedden in 1975.
Today’s email from Crikey alerted me to this tweet from Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Saturday:
At least Gillard was only expressing her delight at the 9-point victory by the Western Bulldogs over Port Adelaide.
In the House of Representatives on February 19, 1975, however, the same words were uttered by the Liberal Opposition Leader, Billy Snedden. They came during a discussion of one of the most contentious constitutional issues of the Whitlam years. Snedden was ridiculed by Whitlam and the incident contributed to Liberal unease over Snedden’s leadership. He was replaced by Malcolm Fraser a couple of weeks later. [Read more…]
The ABC has screened the first of a two-part documentary on Gough Whitlam, The Power and the Passion.
The Power and the Passion – A Personal View
by Malcolm Farnsworth
It’s flawed. The incorrect details and dates irritate. The interviews are marred by minor-celebrity bilge. The re-enactments are execrable. It’s hagiography, not documentary.
But last night’s first episode of The Power and the Passion is not that bad. Unreconstructed Whitlamites can rest easy. I lapped it up.
One line stands out: Whitlam had to beat his own side before he could win.
Party structures had to change. Individuals had to be surpassed and sidelined. New policies had to be born. The electorate had to be carried along. There was an inescapable logic to Whitlam’s famous sequence: the party, the program, the people.
For me, the program was a reminder of the inversion that’s taken place forty years since It’s Time. For people like me, the ALP has reverted to its pre-Whitlam shape.
It’s an ugly look the ALP has in 2013. It’s anachronistic and electorally poisonous. In New South Wales, it doesn’t even look like a party anymore, just a criminal enterprise. Nationally, it’s a party controlled by narrow cliques at odds with the electorate. [Read more…]
An updated version of the data on this page was published in 2016.
“The ALP is heading for its biggest defeat ever under Gillard,” I was told recently.
The confident assertion promptly fell to pieces when I asked for a definition of “biggest defeat ever”. A garbled account of seats, votes and swings followed. Such are casual political conversations. Few people know the figures.
But the question is a good one. How do you measure the extent of an election defeat? If the Gillard government is annihilated this year, what measures of comparison should we use?
Here’s a table showing ALP statistics for three different measures: the proportion of seats won in the House of Representatives, the two-party-preferred vote, and the primary vote. The ALP’s winning election years are shaded yellow.
The table includes every election since Federation, except for the first three: 1901, 1903 and 1906. These have been excluded since they took place before the formation of the two-party system as we know it. Since 1910, elections have been fought between the ALP and the non-Labor parties under a variety of names.
The ALP has won 14 of the 40 elections held since 1910. I have categorised the 26 elections it has lost into four groups:
| A.L.P. Performance In Federal Elections | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Election | Leader | Election Won or Lost | Seats Won In House of Representatives | Two-Party-Preferred Vote % | Primary Vote % |
|
1910
|
Fisher
|
WIN
|
42 / 75 = 56.00%
|
–
|
49.97
|
|
1913
|
Fisher
|
LOSS
|
37 /75 = 49.33%
|
–
|
48.47
|
|
1914
|
Fisher
|
WIN
|
42 / 75 = 56.00%
|
–
|
50.89
|
|
1917
|
Tudor
|
LOSS
|
22/ 75 = 29.33%
|
–
|
43.94
|
|
1919
|
Tudor
|
LOSS
|
26 / 75 = 34.66%
|
–
|
42.49
|
|
1922
|
Charlton
|
LOSS
|
29 / 45 = 38.66%
|
–
|
42.30
|
|
1925
|
Charlton
|
LOSS
|
23 / 75 = 30.66%
|
–
|
45.04
|
|
1928
|
Scullin
|
LOSS
|
31 / 75 = 41.33%
|
–
|
44.64
|
|
1929
|
Scullin
|
WIN
|
46 / 75 = 61.33%
|
–
|
48.84
|
|
1931
|
Scullin
|
LOSS
|
14+4=18 / 75 = 24.00%
|
–
|
27.10+10.57 = 37.67
|
|
1934
|
Scullin
|
LOSS
|
18+9 = 27 / 74 = 36.48%
|
–
|
26.81+14.37 = 41.18
|
|
1937
|
Curtin
|
LOSS
|
29 / 74 = 39.19%
|
40.40
|
43.17
|
|
1940
|
Curtin
|
LOSS
|
32+4=36 / 74 = 48.64%
|
50.30
|
40.16+5.23 = 45.39
|
|
1943
|
Curtin
|
WIN
|
49 / 74 = 66.21%
|
58.20
|
49.94
|
|
1946
|
Chifley
|
WIN
|
43 / 74 = 58.10%
|
54.10
|
49.71
|
|
1949
|
Chifley
|
LOSS
|
47 / 121 = 38.84%
|
49.00
|
45.98
|
|
1951
|
Chifley
|
LOSS
|
52 / 121 = 42.97%
|
49.30
|
47.63
|
|
1954
|
Evatt
|
LOSS
|
57 / 121 = 47.10%
|
50.70
|
50.03
|
|
1955
|
Evatt
|
LOSS
|
47 / 122 = 38.52%
|
45.80
|
44.63
|
|
1958
|
Evatt
|
LOSS
|
45 / 122 = 36.88%
|
45.90
|
42.81
|
|
1961
|
Calwell
|
LOSS
|
60 / 122 = 49.18%
|
50.50
|
47.90
|
|
1963
|
Calwell
|
LOSS
|
50 / 122 = 40.98%
|
47.40
|
45.47
|
|
1966
|
Calwell
|
LOSS
|
41 / 124 = 33.06%
|
43.10
|
39.98
|
|
1969
|
Whitlam
|
LOSS
|
59 / 125 = 47.20%
|
50.20
|
46.95
|
|
1972
|
Whitlam
|
WIN
|
67 / 125 = 53.6%
|
52.70
|
49.59
|
|
1974
|
Whitlam
|
WIN
|
66 / 127 = 51.96%
|
51.70
|
49.30
|
|
1975
|
Whitlam
|
LOSS
|
36 / 127 = 28.34%
|
44.30
|
42.84
|
|
1977
|
Whitlam
|
LOSS
|
38 / 124 = 30.64%
|
45.40
|
39.65
|
|
1980
|
Hayden
|
LOSS
|
51 / 125 = 40.80%
|
49.60
|
45.15
|
|
1983
|
Hawke
|
WIN
|
75 / 125 = 60.00%
|
53.23
|
49.48
|
|
1984
|
Hawke
|
WIN
|
82 / 148 = 55.40%
|
51.77
|
47.55
|
|
1987
|
Hawke
|
WIN
|
86 / 148 = 58.10%
|
50.83
|
45.76
|
|
1990
|
Hawke
|
WIN
|
78 / 148 = 52.70%
|
49.90
|
39.44
|
|
1993
|
Keating
|
WIN
|
80 / 147 = 54.42%
|
51.44
|
44.92
|
|
1996
|
Keating
|
LOSS
|
49 / 148 = 33.10%
|
46.37
|
38.75
|
|
1998
|
Beazley
|
LOSS
|
67 / 148 = 45.27%
|
50.98
|
40.10
|
|
2001
|
Beazley
|
LOSS
|
65 / 150 = 43.33%
|
49.05
|
37.84
|
|
2004
|
Latham
|
LOSS
|
60 / 150 = 40.00%
|
47.26
|
37.63
|
|
2007
|
Rudd
|
WIN
|
83 / 150 = 55.33%
|
52.70
|
43.48
|
|
2010
|
Gillard
|
WIN
|
72 / 150 = 48.00%
|
50.12
|
37.99
|
By any measure, the ALP’s most successful election was John Curtin’s victory in 1943. Curtin won 66.21% of seats in the House. James Scullin won 61.33% in 1929 and Bob Hawke won 60% in 1983.
Curtin’s victory is also the only election in which the ALP polled in excess of 55% of the national two-party-preferred vote. [Note: Early figures for the two-party vote are not shown either because there are no precise figures available or because the election took place before preferential voting was introduced in 1918. Up until 1955, two-party figures contain a small element of estimation because some seats returned a member unopposed.] [Read more…]
The first week of December is a big week for political anniversaries.
Today, for example, is the anniversary of the swearing-in of the Rudd Labor government in 2007. Channel 10 News reported it this way:
Looking back at Rudd: [Read more…]
Troy Bramston discusses ten great speeches from Australian Labor history.
Bramston is the author of a new book, The True Believers: Great Labor Speeches That Shaped History, published by The Federation Press.
The video appears on The Australian’s website today.
Senator John Faulkner has delivered a speech tonight in honour of the 40th anniversary of Gough Whitlam’s 1972 ‘It’s Time’ policy speech.
Faulkner, the ALP’s unofficial historian and Whitlam confidante, spoke at Bowman Hall, Blacktown, site of the famous campaign launch that propelled Whitlam to the prime ministership.
Faulkner paid tribute to the power of political speeches: “We may be cynical about politics and politicians, we may be sceptical of the motives of those men and women who aspire to represent and to lead us – whether in Parliament, in community organisations and campaigns, or in social movements – but it is still their words which have the potential to express our aspirations, our beliefs, and our deepest sense of collective self.” [Read more…]
Kevin Rudd has launched volume two of Jenny Hocking’s biography of Gough Whitlam.
The second volume, titled “Gough Whitlam: His Time” covers Whitlam’s period in government and includes important new revelations about The Dismissal. Rudd’s speech was titled “Labor Politics, Conservative Politics and Australia’s future”.
The launch was held at the Museum of Sydney.
Text of Kevin Rudd’s speech at the launch of Jenny Hocking’s second volume biography of Gough Whitlam.
Labor Politics, Conservative Politics and Australia’s Future
It is nearly four years since I launched Volume I of this important biography of E.G. Whitlam.
I am honoured to have been asked by the author, Jenny Hocking, to today launch Volume II.
Much has changed in Australian politics since then.
Just as many things have not.
The essential narrative of Australian politics has remained much the same for more than a century: Labor in government the party of progressive economic, social and environmental reform, and of Australia’s place in the region and the world. [Read more…]
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser has delivered the 2012 Whitlam Oration to the Whitlam Institute in Sydney.
Nearly thirty-seven years after the Fraser-led coalition parties blocked the Budget and Sir John Kerr dismissed the Whitlam government, Fraser remarked that in the 1970s “few people would have believed that Malcolm Fraser would be delivering a Gough Whitlam oration”. [Read more…]