I'm not a political commenter or historian, but I remember stuff and I read stuff and I talk to other people who lived through what is now called history; and I can tell you that, despite all the myth-making and hagiographic articles, Gough Whitlam was not the Great Saviour of Australia. He was probably the most destructive leader that Australia ever had. Sure, he had some great ideas; I was the beneficiary of at least one of them. But having great ideas is not good enough. Sweeping reforms are all very nice, but once you get past the drama and the romance of it all, who pays the bill? And that's what brought him undone.
In 1972, when Whitlam was voted into office after 23 years of Liberal government, he had the media on his side and a catchy slogan - 'It's time', as in, 'It's time for a change'- and it was towards the end of the Vietnam war. Australia had been supportive of the US (who could forget Harold Holt and 'All the way with LBJ'- I swear I am not making this up) but it was becoming clear that the US was not winning and that conscription was not making a difference to the outcome, and everyone was saddened and angry and disillusioned, and even then, Whitlam scraped through to electoral victory with a majority of just 9 seats.
Once he achieved power, he was like a maniac. His cabinet had little ministerial experience and Gough had towering ambitions and vision. In his short but rather violent innings as PM (and that included another election in 1974 after a double dissolution) he instigated enormous change. He ended conscription, as the ALP promised it would. So that was good.
He made university education free, and students received the TEAS (Tertiary education allowance scheme) allowance, of which I was a beneficiary. So I was paid a living allowance so I could study for free! Amazing. On what planet is tertiary education free, not just for war veterans but for everyone? Seriously, name me one other country! He also established universal health insurance, then called Medibank (later Medicare, with Medibank Private being a private health insurance fund), which was funded by taxing 1% of income. I think a monkey could have worked out that this was never going to cover much. I mean, if you look at genuinely socialistic countries like Sweden, you can see how enormous the taxes are to cover what is being offered by the government.
Now that I am a doctor, having studied 1972-1978 in Melbourne University and St Vincent's Hospital clinical school, it is clear that I was fortunate; I like to think that I would have managed as a scholarship student, as I had since year 8, but even so, thank you Gough. I remember my colleagues, all a bit rough and ready and shaggy compared to the previous intakes of fancy-pants private school graduates, and it must have been a bit of a shock to the professors. But maybe not; in the end, it was still the kids with the highest marks in the prerequisite subjects who got in, and probably there was not as much of a demographic shift as believed. Maybe everyone was shaggy and hairy because it was 1972, and that's how we rolled then. Anyway.
Medicare. Apart from it being underfunded then as now, time has shown us that people don't value things that are free. I mean, there were always doctors who would do pro bono work for the 'deserving poor' and the pensioners etc. But now, doctors were inundated by people who would perhaps have had a hot lemon drink and some aspirin for the sore throat before; but once going to the doctor was free, hey, let's go get some real medical treatment. It probably also contributed to the overuse of antibiotics which we are only beginning to pay the price for now, with increasing bacterial resistance. That's just my theory. And at first, Medicare looked like a windfall; doctors would always get paid! No bad debts! But then as the government tried to cut corners by not raising rebates, and by offering doctors 85% of the fee if they agreed to bulk-bill, whereby the patient would just sign a paper and not have to pay up and be reimbursed- well that looked like a good deal to some doctors, but if only you punters out there realised how it degrades the practice of Medicine on so many different levels. I have always refused to bulk bill as I think that there is importance in the transaction between doctor and patient; I will charge the rebate if the patient can't afford to pay any extras, but at least they are being grown ups and are involved in the transaction themselves. Now there's the co-payment business, and I don't know where it's going. But that's the reality; universal health insurance is very expensive in the end. The government-run hospitals rely on the people with private insurance to go to private hospitals, or else the system would collapse.
And the other result of these reforms was this massive burgeoning of the bureaucracy needed to keep track of everything, and once that's in place it's there forever. Hello, Public Service! A job for life, even when there's not a lot to do.
The economy was in the poo in 1974 also, partly because of the OPEC - orchestrated oil crisis, but partly because of just incompetent economic policy. Interest rates were up to 20%. Inflation was rampant. And Whitlam's government continued to spend like a drunken sailor until someone realised that the party was drawing to a close, and tried to borrow $4.5 BILLION dollars through a shonky con-man, Khemlani, and that was the end of the Whitlam era. That sort of money in 1975 is like a trillion today. Had that loan somehow gone through, whatever was in Whitlam's fevered imagination, our great-grandchildren would still be paying it off. But it was never going to happen as it was totally illegal and absolutely crazy.
What else? Oh yes, removal of tariffs and flooding Australia with cheap imports, thus destroying Australia's manufacturing base. This probably would have happened eventually, but the speed and the violence with which it occurred threw thousands and thousands of people out of work. My father-in-law had to sack 900 workers from the textile mills in Geelong because almost overnight there were no orders and the business ground to a halt. It wasn't just the workers, and the resulting impact on their lives and families: it was also the loss of an important skill and all the other trades which service the core business. It was economically devastating.
What else? Visiting China, even before Nixon; yes it was visionary, but basically it threw Taiwan under the bus. His foreign policy approach resembled a bull in a china shop, and echoed his one personal philosophy of 'Crash through, or crash'.
His cruelty to the South Vietnamese who had been allies, helpers of Australian diplomats and military, in that morass of a war. After the fall of Saigon, he refused to give refuge to them, famously saying, 'I'm not having hundreds of f***ing Vietnamese Balts coming into this country with their religious and political hatreds against us!' And leaving them to their fate at the hands of their enemies.
His stance on East Timor when Indonesia invaded- again, nothing. Even after the Balibo 5 were killed by Indonesian troops. This was in October 1975, so I imagine Whitlam was otherwise occupied because he was kicked out of his position as PM in November.
I also clearly remember the sorrow of my parents, staunch Labor supporters and true believers, at his 'even-handed' stance regarding Israel-Arab relations. We all felt betrayed, all the Jews who supported him and Labor and remembered Doc Evatt, who had been president of the UN General Assembly 1948-49 and was an important player in the creation of the State of Israel. He even said in his memoirs, 'I regard the creation of Israel as a great victory of the the United Nations.' Can you imagine that?
Whitlam's 'even-handed' comment was made after the Yom Kippur War, which had triggered an oil crisis, where OPEC essentially decided to use their oil as a weapon against the West by withholding it and boosting the price, like the cartel it is. So Whitlam was essentially sucking up to the Arabs. Maybe that was why he thought he could get money from the Middle East, refer to the Loans Affair, above.
So much more. But he was a towering figure, physically, intellectually, with charisma in spades. And completely arrogant and autocratic, bordering on deluded. So was his legacy a good one or a bad one? Who can answer these questions. Certainly he left his mark on Australia.
So he was a man who was elected with a catchy slogan, as an agent of change, and once in power proceeded to make vast, sweeping changes in foreign policy, economic policy, domestic policy, most of which ended in disaster. I can't help but make comparisons to a certain sitting US president. The difference is that we Australians (first the Governor-General backed by the Senate, and then the people at the next election) had the sense to kick him out before he saw out a term. The Americans went and voted their president in for a second term. Let's hope we all survive that presidency.
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