Whitlam’s economic record was ruinous.
He produced massively increased unemployment, the highest level in Australia since the great Depression. Inflation got above 20 per cent at one stage. This was partly influenced by the international oil shocks but the outcome in Australia was much worse than in comparable countries.
In 1974-75, government spending increased by 40 per cent, plainly a state of madness.
Tax increased by 30 per cent.
It wasn’t just that Whitlam was uninterested in economics, his economic policies were catastrophic and took many years to recover from.
Whitlam could not control his ministers, some of whom had pro-communist allegiances (read Mark Aarons’s book, The Family File) and made wildly ill-disciplined statements against the US alliance, which made his government look incoherent and amateurish.
The fact that modern Labor idolises Whitlam rather than Bob Hawke is one of the key causes of its policy malaise.
Whitlam had grand ambitions. His government, though, on almost every measure, was an unmitigated disaster.
Michael Pascoe:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/we-dont-mourn-gough-whitlam-we-mourn-ourselves-20141021-1195kc.html
The tributes for Gough Whitlam flooding mainstream and social media seem to be getting two things a little wrong, one economic, one a matter of personal perspective about death.
As these are business pages, the economic should be dealt with first. It was done so easily and briefly in two tweets by AMP chief economist, Shane Oliver:
Shane Oliver(1) Very sad news of Gough Whitlams death. 1972-75 was not great for macro econ mgt - but which country was? It was a bad time everywhere..
(2) ..but Gough Whitlam left a massive legacy of a more diverse, open & outward looking Australia that has paid huge econ & social dividends
And he deserves credit for his intent in slashing tariffs by 25 per cent – it was of course the right thing to do, but its speed and timing left it open to being called a mistake.
On the personal side, commiserations for everyone who is saddened by Gough's death – but there is a touch of the irrational about it.
It's wonderful and warm and human, but still a little irrational. He was 98.
He had done all and more that a man might reasonably think possible to do.
His contribution had been huge and the years were reducing him. And even Gough had suggested that even Gough might not be immortal.
To recall a phrase, it was time.
So why does his inevitable and any-day-now-for-the-past-several-years death strike such a chord?
I think it's partly because of the invidious comparison with what our nation has become.
The optimism, the positivity, the change, the opening up, the justice, the independence, the betterment of the nation, the internationalisation that Whitlam sought and represented has been replaced after four decades with a more general negativity, with so little ambition, with a conservative determination to uphold the status quo or even return to some earlier imagination of it, with white-bread nationalism resplendent.
I fear we don't mourn Gough, but ourselves.
nerowulf, repeating lies continually does not make them true maybe start a new thread if all you intend to do is try to smear Gough Whitlams memory with lies and take a cue from your beloved leader
A state memorial service is now planned after an offer from Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who spoke glowingly of Mr Whitlam as a man of great vision and strength.
"Gough Whitlam is gone but not forgotten, he will never be forgotten" Mr Abbott said.
https://newmatilda.com/2014/10/21/among-our-prime-ministers-whitlam-stood-tall-land-rights
Among Our Prime Ministers, Whitlam Stood Tall On Land Rights
I believe in the annals of history, Australian Prime Ministers will be remembered ultimately for what they did or didn’t do for First Nations people. The development of this country came after the unjust deaths of tens of thousands of Aboriginal people. We can’t mature as a country until we fix the injustices perpetrated as a result of colonisation.
Above all, Aboriginal people remember the failure of governments to deliver national land rights. Land has spiritual, economic and social significance to Aboriginal nations, and the absence of true land justice has compounded the deep disadvantage felt in Aboriginal communities.
Out of our recent Prime Ministers, there is only one who will be remembered favourably in regards to land rights. That man passed away today at age 98. His name was Gough Whitlam.
Whitlam was one of the first politicians to visit the Aboriginal Tent Embassy when he crossed the thin strip of bitumen separating Parliament House from the site of the longest running Aboriginal protest in modern history.
