Word: gair
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Totally frustrated, Whitlam tried to upset the balance in the Senate by persuading a longtime foe, Senator Vincent Gair, to accept the ambassadorship to Ireland. What Whitlam saw as a masterly stroke, his opponents, together with most of the Australian press, viewed as a cynical ploy. Whatever it was, the plan backfired. Instead of Gair's seat going to a Whitlam supporter as the Prime Minister expected, the premier of Queensland State used a loophole in the law to put in another conservative. Finally, when the opposition in the Senate, spoiling for a fight, began to carry...
...furor mounted, opposition leaders tried to sabotage Whitlam's stratagem. The Country Party premier of Queensland, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, noticed that by some oversight Gair had not yet officially resigned from the Senate, and immediately published midnight election writs for his seat. This meant, according to the constitution, that the seat would be filled by the Queensland government-therefore by a non-Labor nominee-until the next general election in December 1975. Whitlam's efforts to pick up an extra Senate seat were thus stymied...
Then the opposition made a blunder of its own. Sensing Whitlam's embarrassment over the Gair affair, it attempted to use its Senate majority to bring down the government. Recklessly, it decided to vote down a money-supply bill essential for the day-to-day workings of the government...
...money-supply bill. But Whitlam took up the challenge: he said that he would treat a Senate deferral as a refusal of supply. He therefore sought the dissolution of Parliament and called for general elections to be held on May 18. Frustrated by his defeat in the Gair imbroglio and the Senate's long-term obstruction of his program, Whitlam had only one means of gaining control in the Senate-to take the risk of a new election...
...more independent voice. Whitlam, 58, is also a more popular and commanding figure than the untried Snedden, 47, a former Perth newsboy who took over as Liberal leader after the 1972 elections. The race will be close. But most observers feel that the government, having recovered well from the Gair affair, starts out as a slight favorite to retain office...