I don't normally get emotional about the death of public figures. I admire people who feel enough empathy for people they have never met other than through a television screen to grieve their passing. When Robin Williams died I hugged those who grieved, but internally I reacted the same way as I did every other time a public figure I never met or encountered died - I went about my day. But as I am writing this memorial for a man I not only never had the pleasure of meeting, but served his term in office a decade before I was even born, I am unsuccessfully choking back tears. Why? Because Gough Whitlam made it possible to be a morally fulfilled Australian patriot. He changed Australia for the better more in 3 years in office than every other prime minister has in 111 years combined. He transformed his country more than the combined contribution to their own country of every single American president. In fact I struggle to find a left wing leader in history whose legacy compares to his. What is more, he did it in three short years (three!) in a country that elects conservative governments far more frequently than even the USA. The left has lost one of their greatest reformers today. His achievements after the jump
Below is a non exhaustive list of Gough's reforms
universal sewerage
universal healthcare
universal kindergarten
making it financially possible for the majority of Australians to finish highschool
universal legal aid
universal (free!) access to higher education
abolishing the death penalty
abolishing the draft
abolishing (to a degree) institutionalized discrimination
aboriginal land rights
withdrawing from Vietnam
making 18 the voting age
making advanced Australia fair our national anthem
Winding back the White Australian policy
Creating relations with China from scratch (our current largest trading partner)
Allowing no fault divorce
Allowing women in power
Scrapping the knights and Dames system and introducing the Order of Australia
protecting Environmental sites including the Great barrier reef
Creating a youth radio station for up and comers to get a leg up to promote their music
Created equal pay for women (although this got watered down slightly it is more equitable legislation than the USA has to this day)
Created specialist health services for women
Created Australian council for the arts
Created the national gallery of Australia
Created our film industry
Expanded access to public transport
Signed and implemented the following human rights conventions
1953 Covenant on the Political Rights of Women
1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons
1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness
1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
1966 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees
ILO Convention No. 86—Contracts of Employment (Indigenous Workers) Convention, 1974
ILO Convention No. 87—Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise, 1948
ILO Convention No. 98—Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively, 1949
ILO Convention No. 100 – Equal Remuneration, 1951
ILO Convention No. 107 – Indigenous and Tribal Populations
ILO Convention No. 111—Discrimination (Employment and Occupation), 1958
ILO Convention No. 131—Minimum Wage Fixing, 1970
Please join me in grieving the passing of a true hero of the left