Latest news with #GoughWhitlam
Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
It takes an army to make democracy work. It's time more of us enlisted
This story is part of the June 8 edition of Sunday Life. See all 14 stories. The election is done and dusted. Some people are delighted with the result, some relieved and some disappointed, as happens every cycle. But our system has worked and all of us should be happy that our democracy seems to be in good shape. The same is no longer true in many other countries. Indeed, we are starting to be talked about as a global outlier; a rare Western democracy that is not fighting off looming threats from populist right-wing parties. If watching what happens when one of those populists manages to win has taught us anything, it is that democracy is fragile. Perhaps that is why I see the increasing energy around our elections as largely a good thing. And perhaps as others have worked that out, too, that's why there is so much more buzz – both positive and negative – around them. It seems we can no longer afford to think that compulsory voting and an independent Australian Electoral Commission – important as they are – are protection enough, and that all we need to do every three years is turn up and vote. All those people in T-shirts promoting their chosen candidate, who were knocking on doors, handing out flyers, putting up corflutes and waving posters in long emu parades beside busy roads, have recognised that a functioning democracy takes work and must be protected. It takes time, energy, sunscreen and boot leather. I know getting flyers shoved under your nose outside your favourite cafe on a Saturday morning can be annoying, especially if they tout the candidate you don't support. But curb your irritation. The person doing the thrusting is doing their bit for democracy. By all means refuse their flyer, but do so politely. The volunteer is giving their time to support something they believe in: the essence of democracy. Polling day itself can feel like a frenzy. First, you need to find a park near a polling booth. Then, you must 'walk the gauntlet', as volunteers for each candidate wave their how-to-vote cards at you. It can feel overwhelming. I doubt my efforts changed a single vote, but it didn't matter. I made an effort, and that's the point. I know because I have been on both sides. The first time I handed out how-to-votes was in 1972, when I was 16 and volunteered for the ALP to try to get Gough Whitlam elected. If memory serves, it was pouring with rain and I was standing outside our local public school, soaked. Despite the ALP posters declaring 'It's Time', mine was a blue-ribbon conservative electorate and my somewhat soggy flyers were more often rejected than not. Mostly people were polite, but a few were nasty and intimidating. Perhaps this occurs more often with people who are worried their candidate is going to lose.
The Age
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Age
It takes an army to make democracy work. It's time more of us enlisted
This story is part of the June 8 edition of Sunday Life. See all 14 stories. The election is done and dusted. Some people are delighted with the result, some relieved and some disappointed, as happens every cycle. But our system has worked and all of us should be happy that our democracy seems to be in good shape. The same is no longer true in many other countries. Indeed, we are starting to be talked about as a global outlier; a rare Western democracy that is not fighting off looming threats from populist right-wing parties. If watching what happens when one of those populists manages to win has taught us anything, it is that democracy is fragile. Perhaps that is why I see the increasing energy around our elections as largely a good thing. And perhaps as others have worked that out, too, that's why there is so much more buzz – both positive and negative – around them. It seems we can no longer afford to think that compulsory voting and an independent Australian Electoral Commission – important as they are – are protection enough, and that all we need to do every three years is turn up and vote. All those people in T-shirts promoting their chosen candidate, who were knocking on doors, handing out flyers, putting up corflutes and waving posters in long emu parades beside busy roads, have recognised that a functioning democracy takes work and must be protected. It takes time, energy, sunscreen and boot leather. I know getting flyers shoved under your nose outside your favourite cafe on a Saturday morning can be annoying, especially if they tout the candidate you don't support. But curb your irritation. The person doing the thrusting is doing their bit for democracy. By all means refuse their flyer, but do so politely. The volunteer is giving their time to support something they believe in: the essence of democracy. Polling day itself can feel like a frenzy. First, you need to find a park near a polling booth. Then, you must 'walk the gauntlet', as volunteers for each candidate wave their how-to-vote cards at you. It can feel overwhelming. I doubt my efforts changed a single vote, but it didn't matter. I made an effort, and that's the point. I know because I have been on both sides. The first time I handed out how-to-votes was in 1972, when I was 16 and volunteered for the ALP to try to get Gough Whitlam elected. If memory serves, it was pouring with rain and I was standing outside our local public school, soaked. Despite the ALP posters declaring 'It's Time', mine was a blue-ribbon conservative electorate and my somewhat soggy flyers were more often rejected than not. Mostly people were polite, but a few were nasty and intimidating. Perhaps this occurs more often with people who are worried their candidate is going to lose.
Sydney Morning Herald
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
The battle for the soul of conservative Australia may have just begun
In the 1974 Queensland state election, the Bjelke-Petersen Country-Liberal coalition was re-elected in a landslide off the back of Gough Whitlam's massive unpopularity north of the Tweed, reducing Labor to a cricket team in parliament – a result not eclipsed until Campbell Newman's landslide in 2012 reduced it to a netball team. (Labor returned the favour with its own counter-landslide three years later, but that's another story.) Little noticed at the time was the result in the electorate of Wynnum, a bayside suburb of Brisbane. Labor was defeated in one of its safest seats – not by the Liberal candidate but, in a three-cornered contest – by the Country Party. It was the first time the Country Party won a capital city seat and heralded years of struggle between the two parties, culminating in the Liberal Party terminating the coalition in 1983. Like current Nationals' leader David Littleproud, the then-Liberal leader Terry White said it was a principled decision. (In White's case, this was true: the immediate catalyst of the split was Liberal demands for a parliamentary public accounts committee – thinly coded language for the need for a mechanism to expose the blatant corruption of ministers such as the storied Russ Hinze.) But the public saw only political chaos, for which they blamed the Liberals – White had theatrically torn up the coalition agreement at a press conference – who were decimated at the election the crisis precipitated. After two terms, Labor won a landslide victory in 1989 and remained in office for 30 of the next 35 years. (There are many landslides in Queensland elections. We are not famous for nuance.) The intense mutual antagonism of the former coalition partners continued in opposition, coming to an end only when the parties merged in 2008. That antagonism was initially fuelled by Liberal alarm that their erstwhile coalition partners were trying to drive them out of their urban political heartlands. The fears were well founded. After capturing its first capital city seat, the Country Party decided to expand into the cities. It began to de-ruralise its image: In 1975 it changed its name to 'National Country Party', and thereafter to the current 'National Party'. This was not a cosmetic change. The Queensland Nationals (unlike their interstate counterparts) were set on a deliberate strategy to supplant the Liberal Party completely. They challenged Liberals in three-cornered contests throughout Brisbane and in provincial cities. The plan worked: by the time of the 1986 election – Bjelke-Petersen's high-water mark – the Nationals had all but conquered the Liberal heartlands, including Brisbane, displacing Liberals in all but a handful of their traditional seats. Their success gave birth to even grander ambitions: the 'Joh for PM' campaign the following year (the last time the federal coalition split). That hubris-fuelled descent into political madness destroyed whatever chance John Howard had of winning the 1987 election. Nine more years of Labor government followed. While state and federal politics are very different, as the contagion of 'Joh for PM' demonstrates, political disunity at one level can spill over into the other. More importantly, the history of non-Labor politics in Queensland for most of the past half-century provides the clearest possible demonstration of how much more difficult it is to defeat a Labor government when the opposition is divided. Something that would make Tuesday's split even more damaging would be if it metastasised into the kind of fight over political territory that kept the non-Labor parties out of office in Queensland for so long.
The Age
21-05-2025
- Politics
- The Age
The battle for the soul of conservative Australia may have just begun
In the 1974 Queensland state election, the Bjelke-Petersen Country-Liberal coalition was re-elected in a landslide off the back of Gough Whitlam's massive unpopularity north of the Tweed, reducing Labor to a cricket team in parliament – a result not eclipsed until Campbell Newman's landslide in 2012 reduced it to a netball team. (Labor returned the favour with its own counter-landslide three years later, but that's another story.) Little noticed at the time was the result in the electorate of Wynnum, a bayside suburb of Brisbane. Labor was defeated in one of its safest seats – not by the Liberal candidate but, in a three-cornered contest – by the Country Party. It was the first time the Country Party won a capital city seat and heralded years of struggle between the two parties, culminating in the Liberal Party terminating the coalition in 1983. Like current Nationals' leader David Littleproud, the then-Liberal leader Terry White said it was a principled decision. (In White's case, this was true: the immediate catalyst of the split was Liberal demands for a parliamentary public accounts committee – thinly coded language for the need for a mechanism to expose the blatant corruption of ministers such as the storied Russ Hinze.) But the public saw only political chaos, for which they blamed the Liberals – White had theatrically torn up the coalition agreement at a press conference – who were decimated at the election the crisis precipitated. After two terms, Labor won a landslide victory in 1989 and remained in office for 30 of the next 35 years. (There are many landslides in Queensland elections. We are not famous for nuance.) The intense mutual antagonism of the former coalition partners continued in opposition, coming to an end only when the parties merged in 2008. That antagonism was initially fuelled by Liberal alarm that their erstwhile coalition partners were trying to drive them out of their urban political heartlands. The fears were well founded. After capturing its first capital city seat, the Country Party decided to expand into the cities. It began to de-ruralise its image: In 1975 it changed its name to 'National Country Party', and thereafter to the current 'National Party'. This was not a cosmetic change. The Queensland Nationals (unlike their interstate counterparts) were set on a deliberate strategy to supplant the Liberal Party completely. They challenged Liberals in three-cornered contests throughout Brisbane and in provincial cities. The plan worked: by the time of the 1986 election – Bjelke-Petersen's high-water mark – the Nationals had all but conquered the Liberal heartlands, including Brisbane, displacing Liberals in all but a handful of their traditional seats. Their success gave birth to even grander ambitions: the 'Joh for PM' campaign the following year (the last time the federal coalition split). That hubris-fuelled descent into political madness destroyed whatever chance John Howard had of winning the 1987 election. Nine more years of Labor government followed. While state and federal politics are very different, as the contagion of 'Joh for PM' demonstrates, political disunity at one level can spill over into the other. More importantly, the history of non-Labor politics in Queensland for most of the past half-century provides the clearest possible demonstration of how much more difficult it is to defeat a Labor government when the opposition is divided. Something that would make Tuesday's split even more damaging would be if it metastasised into the kind of fight over political territory that kept the non-Labor parties out of office in Queensland for so long.
SBS Australia
17-05-2025
- Politics
- SBS Australia
Why a former High Court judge is 'very concerned' about attacks on these Australians
Former High Court justice Michael Kirby says he's very concerned about transphobic attitudes in Australia. Source: Getty / Graham Denholm Human rights lawyer Michael Kirby says there's no chance he would have had a legal career, let alone become a high-profile High Court justice, had he come out as gay as a young man. On at least a weekly basis at that time, the front pages of newspapers were filled with stories about LGBTIQ+ people "who had been entrapped by police and humiliated and denounced", Kirby says. "There were no openly LGBTIQ people in federal parliament or in public life. It was an oppressive law, which was enforced," he says of life in Australia prior to homosexuality being decriminalised. "It was difficult to make any real progress on LGBTIQ+ rights and equality so long as you had criminal laws in place ... there was great distaste and dislike, even hatred, in Australian society," Kirby says. Most members of the public tended to think gay people were an abomination "as it said in the Bible" and there was an enormous resistance to change in Australia, Kirby says, adding that this sentiment didn't begin to abate until Gough Whitlam became prime minister in 1972 and led a raft of social reforms. "Gays were not alone in this respect — there were similar feelings to people of different racial origins … But the thing that was peculiar about gay people was that there were actual criminal laws and therefore if you made any indication that you were gay, you were subjecting yourself to attack on the grounds of illegality." In New South Wales, where Kirby has lived most of his life, laws that strictly outlawed sexual contact between people of the same sex were only abolished in 1984. Though Kirby didn't openly acknowledge his sexuality for most of his career, he did speak about LGBTIQ+ equality as a human rights issue and aligned himself with causes like developing strategies to combat HIV/AIDS and fighting the disease's stigma. In an interview with SBS News ahead of International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) on 17 May, Kirby compared the struggles of the transgender community to some of his own as a gay man when homosexuality was still criminalised. IDAHOBIT marks the day in 1990 when the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its classification of mental disorders. Kirby turned 86 in March and still works as a lawyer and advocate. He shared reflections on his six-decade legal career, witnessing and at times playing a starring role in achieving major progress in equality and social reform. He has been appointed Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission, judge to the Federal and High courts of Australia and recipient of the Australian Human rights award and Order of Australia medal. Kirby says he is very concerned about attacks on transgender people's rights, arguing they are on "the front line" of the fight for equality in Australia. He says he anti-transgender rhetoric in Australia is concerning because people's lives being discussed and debated in public is indicative that such people are privately suffering. "My own experience in dealing with the LGBTIQ+ communities generally is that trans people have a very difficult life. "Most gay people nowadays can get by being open — gays and lesbians are now well-known and recognised in society, and that recognition and acceptance has led to quite a significant change in attitudes." He says attitudes have changed in schools, in particular in the public system, and to some extent in churches too. "But the struggle isn't over and it's the trans people who are at the moment really on the front line. "And although it appeared that we were making progress in our world on the issue of transgender rights, suddenly, as a result of the advent of Donald Trump, this became a hot political issue in the United States and that has led to imitation in other countries including Australia, although to a lesser extent." Last month the UK Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on someone's assigned sex at birth, leading to . Kirby referred to an incident last month where demonstrators in Melbourne clashed over transgender rights, with some using similar rhetoric about the need for 'single-sex' bathrooms that had been used by the anti-transgender campaign in the UK. Organised by the Women's Voices Australia group, the demonstration involved around 50 people campaigning against expanding Victoria's hate speech laws to include LGBTIQ+ people, who were met by over 400 'Trans Liberation' counterprotesters, according to a report. "Sometimes [anti-transgender sentiment] is dressed up as a concern about equality in sporting competitions," Kirby says. "But fundamentally, it is the same problem that faced gay people back in the period before 1984 in New South Wales — it is a distaste for anyone who is not the same as oneself." There is still a lot of work to be done, particularly on countering discrimination in religious schools and some work environments, Kirby says. But he says his advice to younger Australians would always be that "things get much better." "Being LGBTIQ+ is just part of the variation of the human and other species. "And if you don't like it, you've just got to have a lie down, have an aspirin, and you get over it because it's not going to change — this is part and parcel of our species." Kirby realised his same-sex attraction when he was still in primary school. But he didn't publicly acknowledge it until 1999, when he agreed to list his long-term partner Johan van Vloten on a magazine list of 'Who's who in Australia'. He says in the lead-up to decriminalisation of homosexuality, he began to stop following the rules he believed were unjust. "I was like Nelson Mandela in this respect — I didn't comply. He didn't comply with the pass law and carry around a pass which had been imposed on the citizens in South Africa. "And I didn't comply after a while with the anti-gay laws." Asked about the biggest legal discrimination issues Australia faces in 2025, Kirby says in some ways they are the same as they were in the 1970s, when Whitlam embarked on reforming discrimination legislation, following 23 years of conservative government. "The first step in a serious reform will be to change the residue of injustices and inequalities that still exist in our legal system — in terms of women's equality, equality for Indigenous people and LGBTIQ+ rights. And also to develop the concept of having a national bill of rights or a human rights statute." Kirby initially expressed his opposition to Australia's postal vote on marriage equality in 2017, arguing it "devalued" the community to have the public vote on their rights and encouraged people to boycott the vote. When it was time to vote, he did vote 'yes' and in 2019 decided it would be "very romantic" to marry his partner Johan on their 50th anniversary as a couple. Reflecting on 56 years together, Kirby says he feels lucky to have such a long relationship in his life as well as "such an intelligent partner". "Even though he is now 86 — which when I was young and when I first met him in 1969, I would've regarded as the age of Methuselah — he is still I think a good-looking man. Mind you, he's had a very blessed life having me as his partner, but he is vigorous, he plays tennis, he has a personal trainer, he looks after himself and all I do is work. "The thing I've learned is you have to have one partner who gives in — in any relationship there are battles and there are disagreements and sometimes very strong disagreements". Kirby says the giving in is done by him. "Generally [Johan]'s in the right, but sometimes he's not, but I still give in because I love him and I'm grateful to him and I thank him for what he does for us and I want this to continue." LGBTIQ+ Australians seeking support with mental health can contact QLife on 1800 184 527 or visit . also has a list of support services.
