Page 3530 - Week 11 - Thursday, 23 October 2014
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Madam Speaker, I am very proud to move this motion which records the Legislative Assembly’s deep condolence to the Whitlam family and the recognition of a great leader and visionary. We have lost a great Australian, but the national outpouring of grief has brought with it a reaffirmation—perhaps a regeneration—of the principles he stood for. In death, as in life, there can be no silencing of such a towering figure in Australia’s modern history. Gough Whitlam’s legacy lives on in the millions of lives he touched.
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition): Madam Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Canberra Liberals to pay our respects to the former Prime Minister of this country, the Hon Edward Gough Whitlam.
Everyone who chooses politics as their calling does so with one aim—to make a difference. No matter what side of politics we support, there would be few who could claim to have achieved that goal to such an extent as Gough Whitlam. That is not to say that I agree with every change that Gough made, but change he certainly achieved.
Mr Whitlam was born in Kew in Melbourne in 1916. He moved to Canberra when he was 10 years old, was educated at Telopea Park School and Canberra Grammar School, and is still the only Prime Minister we can claim as having grown up here in the national capital. He is well known as a legal mind and a political warrior, but I would like to take a moment to recognise another, somewhat less known aspect of his public service—that of his time in our armed forces.
In 1942 he signed up to the Royal Australian Air Force and served as a navigator and bomb aimer. In 1943 he was posted to No 13 Squadron RAAF. The squadron patrolled Northern Australia, providing convoy escort and attacking Japanese positions and shipping. This was during a time when attacks on Australia were far more common than usually understood, and Gough was very much in the front line of our nation’s defence. The Australian War Memorial’s “50 Australians” projects recount his activities:
In April 1944 Whitlam went to Merauke, from where operations were conducted against Tanimbar and Aroe Islands. The next year he was flying from Truscott airfield in northern Western Australia as far as Soembawa. During 1945 his crew flew long routes, usually through Morotai. These operations extended to the Philippines.
The war was a busy period for Whitlam. Not only did he serve, he married, and also became committed to politics. After discharge he joined the Darlinghurst branch of the Labor Party, and was also admitted to the New South Wales bar. He was active in civic groups, including the Returned Servicemen’s League.
It was only after this very formative experience that he finished his studies and was admitted as a barrister in 1947. After a promising legal start, he was increasingly attracted to politics. He joined the Labor Party but was not an immediate success. Indeed it took him three attempts to get elected, but when he did so he won convincingly, taking 66 per cent of the vote in the 1952 by-election for the seat of Werriwa.
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