Gough Whitlam

The Honourable Gough Whitlam AC QC
Official portrait, 1972
21st Prime Minister of Australia
In office 5 December 1972 – 11 November 1975
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Governors‑General	Sir Paul Hasluck Sir John Kerr
Deputy	Lance Barnard Jim Cairns Frank Crean
Preceded by	William McMahon
Succeeded by	Malcolm Fraser
Leader of the Opposition
In office 11 November 1975 – 22 December 1977
Prime Minister	Malcolm Fraser
Deputy	Frank Crean Tom Uren
Preceded by	Malcolm Fraser
Succeeded by	Bill Hayden
In office 9 February 1967 – 5 December 1972
Prime Minister	Harold Holt John McEwen John Gorton William McMahon
Deputy	Lance Barnard
Preceded by	Arthur Calwell
Succeeded by	Billy Snedden
Minister for Foreign Affairs
In office 5 December 1972 – 6 November 1973
Prime Minister	Himself
Preceded by	Nigel Bowen
Succeeded by	Don Willesee
Leader of the Labor Party
In office 9 February 1967 – 22 December 1977
Deputy	Lance Barnard Jim Cairns Frank Crean Tom Uren
Preceded by	Arthur Calwell
Succeeded by	Bill Hayden
Deputy Leader of the Labor Party
In office 7 March 1960 – 9 February 1967
Leader	Arthur Calwell
Preceded by	Arthur Calwell
Succeeded by	Lance Barnard
Member of the Australian Parliament for Werriwa
In office 29 November 1952 – 31 July 1978
Preceded by	Bert Lazzarini
Succeeded by	John Kerin
Personal details
Born	Edward Gough Whitlam (1916-07-11)11 July 1916 Kew, Victoria, Australia
Died	21 October 2014(2014-10-21) (aged 98) Elizabeth Bay, New South Wales, Australia
Political party	Labor
Height	6 ft 4 in (194 cm)[1]
Spouse	Margaret Dovey ​ ​ (m. 1942; died 2012)​
Children	4, including Tony and Nicholas
Parent	Fred Whitlam (father)
Relatives	Freda Whitlam (sister) Bill Dovey (father-in-law) William Dovey (brother-in-law)
Alma mater	University of Sydney
Occupation	Barrister diplomat politician
Signature
Military service
Branch/service	Royal Australian Air Force
Years of service	1941–1945
Rank	Flight lieutenant
Unit	No. 13 Squadron
Battles/wars	World War II

Edward Gough Whitlam^[a] AC QC (11 July 1916 – 21 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from December 1972 to November 1975. To date the longest-serving leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), he was notable for being the head of a reformist and socially progressive government that ended with his controversial dismissal by the then-governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, at the climax of the 1975 constitutional crisis. Whitlam remains the only Australian prime minister to have been removed from office by a governor-general.

Whitlam was an air navigator in the Royal Australian Air Force for four years during World War II, and worked as a barrister following the war. He was first elected to the Australian House of Representatives in 1952, becoming a member of parliament (MP) for the division of Werriwa. Whitlam became deputy leader of the Labor Party in 1960, and in 1967, after the retirement of Arthur Calwell, was elected leader of the party and became the Leader of the Opposition. After narrowly losing the 1969 federal election to John Gorton, Whitlam led Labor to victory at the 1972 election, after 23 years of Coalition government.

In its first term, the Whitlam government introduced numerous socially progressive and reformist policies and initiatives, including the termination of military conscription and the end of Australian involvement in the Vietnam War, institution of universal health care and free university education, and the implementation of legal aid programmes. With the opposition-controlled Australian Senate delaying passage of bills, Whitlam called a snap double dissolution election in May 1974 in which he won a slightly reduced majority in the House of Representatives, and picked up three Senate seats to hold equal Senate numbers to the opposition. The Whitlam government then instituted the first and only joint sitting enabled under section 57 of the Australian constitution as part of the double dissolution process. His government's second term was dominated by a declining economy suffering from the 1973 oil crisis and the 1970s global recession, as well as a political scandal known as the Loans affair, which led to the removal of two government ministers. The opposition continued to obstruct Whitlam's agenda in the Senate.

In late 1975, the opposition senators refused to allow a vote on the government's appropriation bills, returning them to the House of Representatives with a demand that the government go to an election. Whitlam argued that his government, which held a clear majority in the House of Representatives, was being held to ransom by the Senate. The crisis ended in mid-November, when governor-general Sir John Kerr dismissed him from office and commissioned the opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser, as caretaker prime minister. Labor lost the subsequent election by a landslide. Whitlam stepped down as leader of the party after losing again at the 1977 election, and retired from parliament the following year. Upon the election of the Hawke government in 1983, he was appointed as Ambassador to UNESCO, a position he filled with distinction, and was elected a member of the UNESCO Executive Board. He remained active into his nineties. The propriety and circumstances of his dismissal and the legacy of his government have been frequently debated in the decades since he left office. Whitlam is often ranked in the upper-tier of Australian prime ministers by political experts and academics,^[2][3][4][5] with political journalist Paul Kelly writing in 1994 that "there is no doubt that in three years his government was responsible for more reforms and innovations than any other government in Australian history".^[6]

This article is part of a series about Gough Whitlam
Early life World War II service Member for Werriwa (1952–1978) Deputy Labor leadership Labor Party spills 1967 1968 1976 May 1977 Prime Minister of Australia Term of government (1972–1975) Vietnam War withdrawal National Sewerage Program Medibank Advance Australia Fair 1973 Murphy raids 1973 referendum Gair Affair 1974 referendum Loans affair Papua independence Family Law reform Racial Discrimination Act 1975 Australian constitutional crisis Palace letters Ministries First Second Third Elections 1969 1972 1974 1975 1977 Related It's Time Birthplace
v t e

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).