Fraser Snatches Liberal Leadership from Snedden

Mar 20, 2023

Five-a-Day

Australia’s 22nd prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, died on this day in 2015. He was 84.

On March 21, 1975, Fraser defeated Bill Snedden to become leader of the Liberal Party and Leader of the Opposition. In 7 months and 21 days he would be prime minister, following the coalition’s blocking of Supply in the Senate, which led to Whitlam’s dismissal by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr.

A motion to spill the Liberal leadership was carried by 36 votes to 28. Fraser then defeated Snedden by 37 votes to 27.

The audio clips on this page are all from March 1975. It’s only the second day I’ve been posting Five-A-Day, but this one contains eight.

Five-a-Day – March 1975

March 21, 1975: ABC radio’s PM program reports on Fraser’s election (12m)

March 21, 1975: Melbourne radio 3AW broadcaster Ormsby Wilkins assesses Fraser’s election (3m)

March 21, 1975: “I generally believe…” – Fraser’s remarks about blocking Supply to the Whitlam government (1m)

March 22, 1975: The Prefect – Whitlam’s response to Fraser’s remarks (1m>

March 22, 1975: Whitlam on the Liberals – extended version of Whitlam’s speech on the Liberals (9m)

March 21, 1975: Malcolm and Tamie Fraser interviewed by Michael Schildberger on Channel 9’s A Current Affair (4m)

March 21, 1975: Defeated leader Bill Snedden interviewed by the Richard Carleton on the ABC’s TDT at Canberra Airport (8m)

March 25, 1975: Fraser on Liberalism and the Whitlam government (2m)

Filed Under: Five-a-Day, Fraser, Whitlam Dismissal Tagged With: , , ,

Mungo MacCallum Not Dead

Sep 08, 2014

Some journalists took to Twitter today to tell us Mungo MacCallum was dead, but he wasn’t and isn’t.

Still, any excuse to remember one of my favourite Mungo pieces. It appeared in Nation Review on December 27, 1974.

It was a month after Malcolm Fraser had failed to dislodge Bill Snedden from the Liberal leadership. It’s easy to see leadership changes as inevitable in retrospect, but foretelling the future is fraught at the best of times. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fraser, Liberal Party, Political History Tagged With: , , ,

40th Anniversary Of The 1974 Joint Sitting Of Parliament

Aug 06, 2014

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Joint Sitting of the House of Representatives and the Senate, held during the term of the Whitlam Labor government.

The Joint Sitting, the first and only ever held, took place over two days, August 6 and 7, 1974.

Gough Whitlam described the sitting as “a last resort to enable the democratic will of the Australian people to prevail over blind obstruction”.

Joint Sitting

The proceedings took place in what is now Old Parliament House. They were chaired by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Jim Cope. The Liberal Opposition Leader (and future Speaker) was Bill Snedden. The Governor-General was the just-appointed Sir John Kerr.

The only member of either house who attended the Joint Sitting and is still serving is Philip Ruddock. Now the member for Berowra, in 1974 he was the 31-year-old Liberal member for Parramatta and still in his first year as a member of the House.

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The Six Bills

Six bills were submitted to the Joint Sitting, all of which had been first passed by the House of Representatives in 1973, following the election of the Whitlam government. [Read more…]

Filed Under: 1974 Federal Election, Audio, Double Dissolutions, Legislation, Whitlam Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Political Quotations – Set 2

Oct 11, 2008
  1. Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers. – Mignon McLaughlin, author.

  2. When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves. – Confucius (551-479 BC).

  3. At the end of a long and probably very boring meal (at a formal dinner), (British Prime Minister) Macmillan turned to Madame de Gaulle and asked politely what she was looking forward to in her retirement. Quick as a flash the elderly lady replied: “A penis.” Macmillan had been trained all his life never to appear shocked, but even he was a bit taken aback. After drawling out a series of polite platitudes, – “Well, I can see your point of view, don’t have much time for that sort of thing nowadays” – it gradually dawned on him to his intense relief that what the old girl had actually said was “happiness.” – Paul Foot, in the essay A New Definition: The Quality of Life, British Medical Journal, VOLUME 321, DECEMBER 2000.

  4. The moral test of a government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life — the children; the twilight of life — the elderly; and the shadows of life — the sick, the needy and the handicapped. – Hubert Humphrey, Vice-President of the United States 1965-69.

  5. When I joined the Labor Party, it contained the cream of the working class. But as I look about me now, all I see are the dregs of the middle class. When will you middle class perverts stop using the Labor Party as a cultural spittoon? – Kim Beazley Snr to an ALP State Conference, circa 1970.

    6. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Political Quotations Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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