Page 3541 - Week 11 - Thursday, 23 October 2014
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My inaugural speech spoke of Gough Whitlam as one of the heroes who inspired me to join the Labor Party. His vision for a better society, a better Australia, changed our social and political landscape forever. And as I said, the Whitlam government fostered Australian participation in international agreements and international organisations. By ensuring Australia was a party to these agreements, the Whitlam government initiated Australia’s first federal legislation on human rights, the environment and heritage. Whitlam laid the foundations of modern Australian life with the Family Law Act, the Australian Legal Aid Office, the Consumer Affairs Commission, the Racial Discrimination Act, Medibank, the Trade Practices Commission and the Australia Council. On 16 August 1975 Gough Whitlam, as Prime Minister, formally handed the Gurindji people at Wattle Creek in the Northern Territory title deeds to part of their traditional lands.
Could we even imagine an Australia without these progressive social changes? These changes are mighty, national monuments to Gough Whitlam. But they are not his greatest legacy. His greatest legacy is the means by which these monuments were erected—the Australian Labor Party.
Gough found a party introspective, divided and backward looking. His achievement was to transform it into a modern, progressive party, a party true to the core beliefs expressed by Curtin and Chifley, a party able to deliver those reforms which Australians craved, a party that continues to deliver those reforms, as we have done here in the ACT with the Stanhope and Gallagher Labor governments. I think this is Gough Whitlam’s greatest legacy and I am proud to be part of it.
MS BERRY (Ginninderra): Gough Whitlam was a prime minister who firmly believed in the role of federal government to provide the resources, authority and leadership needed to deal with the problems that affected the living standards and opportunities of Australians. He recognised the consequence of poor investment in infrastructure and accordingly invested for the future of our communities. He championed issues and ideas that were seen at the time as radical. He moved us to become a more modern and progressive nation and a fairer and more equal nation.
I was happy to hear Mr Gentleman mention the work that the Whitlam government put into Glebe. Glebe was a part of New South Wales where I spent the first years of my life and had it not been for the changes that the Whitlam government implemented all those years ago it certainly would be a very different place to the city that it is today.
The Whitlam government also provided a significant boost in funding to state governments for the construction of new homes for low income earners. And in 1974-75 the construction of 3,500 homes was funded. The changes the Whitlam government enacted in health care were transformative. The introduction of the universal healthcare system was met with ferocious opposition, with many opponents arguing it was a socialist takeover and that the freedom of Australian citizens was at stake. Today we find ourselves needing to ferociously defend our universal healthcare system as a fundamental right for all Australians.
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