Word: australian
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Party coalition might have found itself back in federal power. The Liberal Party demonstrated its strength at the state level last month by increasing its majority over Labor in Victoria. Australian state elections often do not reflect federal voting patterns, but Whitlam had incautiously characterized the Victoria contest in advance as a sounding board for his policies...
Although his government introduced a record number of 114 bills in its first parliamentary session, many of them promised more improvements in the quality of life than he could immediately deliver. Complained the political correspondent of The Australian, a national daily that was one of the few major newspapers to have supported Whitlam's election: "[The bills] are like much of Labor's initial six months -long on potential but short on performance." Most important to voters, perhaps, Whitlam's government has failed to curb the inflation rate...
...Whitlam continues to suffer from the actions of some members of his erratic Cabinet. Attorney General Lionel Murphy got him into a mess by overreacting to complaints by the Yugoslav government about Croatian terrorists' using Australia as a training ground. Murphy personally led an extraordinary invasion of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization to unearth files that had supposedly been withheld from him. It was rather as if a U.S. Attorney General had stormed the FBI. Shortly after that incident, federal and New South Wales state police staged dawn raids on 68 Croatian homes. Australians barely had time to complain...
Whitlam, not uncoincidentally, has already asked Britain to end the Privy Council's role as the last court of appeal for Australian litigants...
...China-an act endorsed even by the opposition-has led to important new trade ties. His dogged opposition to proposed French nuclear tests in the South Pacific has earned him widespread acclaim. The Labor government's skillful renegotiation of mining contracts with Japan (to offset revaluation of the Australian dollar) pleasantly surprised the Australian business community...