Wednesday, 12 November 2025

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (13:38): Fifty years since the Dismissal I rise to both recognise the most undemocratic moment in Australian political history and remember the significant legacy of the Whitlam government. The dismissal of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister was a treacherous act by the Governor-General that undermined Australian democracy, an undemocratic act enabled by the obstructionism of the Liberal Party, who were intent on bringing down a legitimately elected government because they did not like Gough or his policies – a Liberal Party who refused to recognise that winning two elections in three years gave Whitlam the right to govern and who sought to bring down his government by blocking supply. I am glad that here in Victoria in 2003 we changed our constitution to prevent that action from happening in this state, and I think our democracy is the better for it. But the legacy of the Whitlam government should not be defined by a final act of treachery. Here is what they achieved: ending conscription; establishing Medibank; the Racial Discrimination Act 1975; the Trade Practices Act 1974; the Family Law Act 1975, which allowed for no-fault divorce in Australia; land rights; handing land back to the Gurindji; creating the Commonwealth legal aid program and the Australian Law Reform Commission; an equal pay case that extended the adult minimum wage to include women; the single mothers pension – an issue very close to my heart; abolishing the Commonwealth death penalty; the National Sewerage Program; independence for PNG; and the diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China. Whitlam was an extraordinary Australian and is rightly remembered as a Labor giant.