THE scene, perhaps the most dramatic in modern Australian politics, was replayed so often that it was a wonder the tape survived. Gough Whitlam, prime minister since 1972, now sensationally made ex-prime minister at a stroke by Her Majesty’s representative, Governor-General Sir John Kerr, stood facing a phalanx of microphones on the steps of Parliament House. More eager reporters, sideburned to their chins (this was 1975), jostled behind him. The governor-general’s official secretary, his hands shaking, had ended his declaration: “God save the queen.” “Well may we say ‘God save the queen’,” hurled back Mr Whitlam, over rising shouts of “We want Gough!”; “because nothing will save the governor-general.”Australia had barely had time to catch its breath during his time in office. He came in like a hurricane, a Labor man after 23 years of Liberal-and-Country Party debris, and swept it all away. In his first ten days alone, governing as a duumvirate with his deputy, he crossed off well over half of his to-do list: got Australia’s last troops out of Vietnam, ended conscription, and set up commissions to look into school funding, equal pay and aboriginal land rights. You...
from The Economist: Obituary http://ift.tt/1q3bYDL
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