Author Topic: Gough Whitlam passed away  (Read 7400 times)

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Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Gough Whitlam passed away
« on: October 21, 2014, 05:10:53 am »
Gough Whitlam, one of the greatest Prime Ministers Australia has ever had passed away today, his reign as prime Minister ended in 1975 when his government was dismissed by the Governor General in an unprecedented constitutional maneuver.

Here's a brief list of his achievements.

● Got Australia out of the Vietnam War and abolished conscription.
● Formally recognized China.
● Established Medibank, the precursor to Medicare and Australia's current universal healthcare system.
● Initiated a supporting mother's benefit and welfare payments for the homeless people.
● Equal pay for women
● Instituted the Australian Law Reform Commission.
● Abolished the death penalty for Commonwealth offences
● Simplified the Family Law Act providing for a national Family Court was enacted, introduced non-punitive divorce laws.
● Established needs-based funding for schools
● Instituted free university education, stripped by later governments but never return to the bastion of the very rich elite it once was.
● Reduced the voting age to 18.
● Replaced God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair as the national anthem.
● Passed the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 which conferred rights to equality before the law and bound the Commonwealth and the states to the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.
● Set up a Department of Aboriginal Affairs
● First Commonwealth government to grant land rights to indigenous Australians
● Established the National Gallery of Australia, the Australia Council for the Arts, and the Australian Heritage Commission.
● Introduced FM radio, and helped 2JJ who's mission was to support Australian music, got a lot of Aussie musicians started.
● Set up the first multicultural radio stations  2EA in Sydney and 3EA in Melbourne, the precursors to SBS and issued licences to community radio stations for the first time.
● Instituted the Australian Film and Television School which helped start the modern Australian film industry
● Granted national independence to former territory Papua New Guinea

A true statesman and one of my personal heroes, he'll be sadly missed.

Offline dpareja

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2014, 05:16:32 am »
Gough Whitlam, one of the greatest Prime Ministers Australia has ever had passed away today, his reign as prime Minister ended in 1975 when his government was dismissed by the Governor General in an unprecedented constitutional maneuver.

Unprecedented, you said?
« Last Edit: October 21, 2014, 05:19:51 am by dpareja »
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Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #2 on: October 21, 2014, 05:18:19 am »
Wow, did not know about that.

Unprecedented in my country anyway.

Offline dpareja

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #3 on: October 21, 2014, 05:23:34 am »
Wow, did not know about that.

Unprecedented in my country anyway.

I just edited my post to split it into two links; there was an earlier one well before Australia became a country. It's the last time a British monarch attempted to dismiss a Prime Minister and appoint a new one that could not command the confidence of the House as it sat (but unlike earlier cases, that time the appointed Prime Minister didn't win the ensuing election).
Quote from: Jordan Duram
It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

Quote from: Supreme Court of Canada
Being required by someone else’s religious beliefs to behave contrary to one’s sexual identity is degrading and disrespectful.

Offline Ultimate Paragon

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2014, 09:25:45 am »
The fact that he did all that in only three years is nothing short of impressive.

Offline SpaceProg

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #5 on: October 21, 2014, 02:18:58 pm »
His epitaph should read: 

Gough Whitlam


Got shit done.

Offline mellenORL

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2014, 12:25:37 pm »
Wow. Whitlam was a true legend. That's an astounding record of progressive achievement. FDR sorta comes close, until yeah - you realize how much got done in Oz in so few years with Whitlam's guidance and involvement, though no doubt the political groundwork leading to it he toiled to lay for many years prior to becoming PM.
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Offline Lt. Fred

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #7 on: October 23, 2014, 01:46:03 am »
The fact that he did all that in only three years is nothing short of impressive.

Newspapers took to printing front-page stories headlined "Stuff the government did today", below which you'd get a list of new legislation. And it'd be important stuff!

Whitlam also set up community radio, including my community radio station, the one I work at.

Quote
● Replaced God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair as the national anthem.

Well, nobody ever said he got everything right, am I right?

As a lifelong cynic, I have to point out that Whitlam was closely involved in the genocide in Timor-Leste. He signed off on Indonesia's invasion.
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Art Vandelay

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #8 on: October 23, 2014, 01:55:35 am »
Quote
● Replaced God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair as the national anthem.

Well, nobody ever said he got everything right, am I right?

Say what you will about Advance Australia Fair, but it's a far better choice than God Save the Queen.

Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #9 on: October 23, 2014, 02:44:34 am »
The fact that he did all that in only three years is nothing short of impressive.

Newspapers took to printing front-page stories headlined "Stuff the government did today", below which you'd get a list of new legislation. And it'd be important stuff!

Whitlam also set up community radio, including my community radio station, the one I work at.

Quote
● Replaced God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair as the national anthem.

Well, nobody ever said he got everything right, am I right?

As a lifelong cynic, I have to point out that Whitlam was closely involved in the genocide in Timor-Leste. He signed off on Indonesia's invasion.

That's not cynical, that just means you have eyes in your head. He know what was happening and he looked the other way.

While I'm bitterly disappointed at that, he remains the best Prime Minister we've had for the other reasons that I've outlined.

Never understood the Australian national anthem, just spent a long time as a kid wondering why we were telling the world we were "dirt by sea" when the whole time the word was "girt", not "dirt."

Not that this made much of an improvement.

Offline Lt. Fred

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #10 on: October 23, 2014, 08:57:14 am »
Quote
● Replaced God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair as the national anthem.

Well, nobody ever said he got everything right, am I right?

Say what you will about Advance Australia Fair, but it's a far better choice than God Save the Queen.

Maybe so, but it was a silly mistake.

We should replace it, by the way, with the following (and different lyrics):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1CyPjQQTAM
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http://fqa.digibase.ca/index.php?topic=6936.0

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Offline mellenORL

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #11 on: October 23, 2014, 09:58:44 am »
Advance, Australia Fair is really lovely, I think. Why co-opt that German tune at all? Waltzing Matilda would be more poignant and better at conveying Aussie pathos and history. As would America the Beautiful for the U.S.

Most all national anthems are problematic, as they tend to be too stodgy, religious, and/or jingoistic. But, I've always liked this national hymn by Finnish composer Sibelius with Lloyd Stone's lyrics -

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDXNHPeRB0k" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDXNHPeRB0k</a>

 
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Offline Lt. Fred

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #12 on: October 23, 2014, 05:41:55 pm »
Advance, Australia Fair is really lovely, I think. Why co-opt that German tune at all? Waltzing Matilda would be more poignant and better at conveying Aussie pathos and history. As would America the Beautiful for the U.S. 

Can't be Waltzing Matilda. Waltzing Matilda is really great because it isn't the national anthem. You'd lose the scrappiness if it became official.

Risen from Ruins is good for three reasons

1) It's a great tune, written by a Hollywood composer
2) It has a proven track record. Can't say that about most anthems
3) Nobody is using it right now
Ultimate Paragon admits to fabricating a hit piece on Politico.

http://fqa.digibase.ca/index.php?topic=6936.0

The party's name is the Democratic Party. It has been since 1830. Please spell correctly.

"The party must go wholly one way or wholly the other. It cannot face in both directions at the same time."
-FDR

Art Vandelay

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #13 on: October 23, 2014, 06:54:23 pm »
Can't be Waltzing Matilda. Waltzing Matilda is really great because it isn't the national anthem. You'd lose the scrappiness if it became official.
That and it's also about a bum who steals a sheep, then when the cops show up, he kills himself rather than face the consequences. While some may argue that that much more closely reflects Australia as a whole than Advance Australia Fair, the vast majority would say it's not nearly pompous and self-aggrandising enough to be national anthem material.
Advance, Australia Fair is really lovely, I think.
I don't know. The first couple of verses that we're all familiar with are alright, but, well, let's just say there's a reason we pretend that the rest of the song doesn't exist.

Offline Lt. Fred

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Re: Gough Whitlam passed away
« Reply #14 on: October 23, 2014, 07:41:29 pm »
Just make it Khe Sanh. Everyone wants it.
Ultimate Paragon admits to fabricating a hit piece on Politico.

http://fqa.digibase.ca/index.php?topic=6936.0

The party's name is the Democratic Party. It has been since 1830. Please spell correctly.

"The party must go wholly one way or wholly the other. It cannot face in both directions at the same time."
-FDR