Oct 23, 2014
The AMWU’s leadership have joined the voices across the labour movement to honour the life and legacy of the great Gough Whitlam, the dynamic Prime Minister who from 1972 to 1975 led Australia into the modern world.
National President Andrew Dettmer and National Secretary Paul Bastian paid tribute to Mr Whitlam, who died this week.
Mr Bastian:
“There’s sadness with the passing of a Labor icon, whose great reforms are still with us, part of us.
Whitlam brought in so many things that changed Australia forever for the better, how we view ourselves and our place in the world. He had what conservatives have always lacked, a grand vision and a program so Australians all have the opportunity to reach our potential.
His government introduced universal health care, needs-based education to give a fair funding to all schools, higher education for all. Those big ticket items have outlived Whitlam, but they are under attack from conservative forces which opposed them at the time. We must and will defend them.
There’s Aboriginal land rights, no-fault divorce, ending the death penalty. Whitlam acted on equality for women. He pioneered our relationship with China, took us out of the Vietnam War.
He ended military conscription and lowered the voting age to 18 so no one could ever again be sent off to be killed in a war without a say on whether you go there in the first place.
Anyone old enough will always remember the day Australian democracy was shattered, November 11, 1975. I, like tens of thousands around the country, took to the streets. Nearly all of us working on the Sydney waterfront converged on mass at Circular Quay.
The philosopher William James once said: ‘the greatest use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.’ Gough Whitlam - a life well spent.”
Mr Dettmer:
“Gough Whitlam transformed Australia, for the better. His far-sighted views on what Australia could be informed his vision of this country.
Before Whitlam, we always had to take a back seat to forces outside our control: the economy, the budget, the [Vietnam] war, the threat of communism, British or American interests. Whitlam made it OK to question that, he gave us hope. Many Australians realised that hope by making their ways in industry, the arts, politics and education.
If not for Gough, many of my generation would never have received a university education. He opened up the universities to talent regardless of income or class.
Gough had his differences with unions. But he always paid appropriate respect to the collective power and wisdom of workers, and their representatives. He freed up the capacity of workers by making it affordable to get a trade, a diploma or a degree.
Gough developed our cities, with basic things like sewerage and train lines. He made health care free. He recognised China and struck an independent foreign policy, so finally we emerged as a player in our own region in our own right, rather than only an ally of Britain or the US.
Gough was the last Labor PM to refer to himself proudly as a socialist. He believed that by strengthening public ownership of assets that we could have a properly mixed economy, not one subject to the whims of capital or the ravages of an unregulated market.”
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