Word: whitlam
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Only a few short months ago, Deputy Prime Minister Jim Cairns, 60, was a man to watch in Australian politics. A onetime detective and university lecturer, he was running the government in the absence overseas of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam when a cyclone devastated the city of Darwin last December (TIME, Jan. 6). Cairns supervised the massive relief effort for the stricken areas so well that he was talked about as a possible replacement for Whitlam, who at the time was experiencing one of the popularity lows that have periodically marked his career...
...sooner had Cairns come within reach of the top than his decline began. Last week Whitlam sacked his second in command in the midst of the worst political scandal in Australia's history. At issue were charges that associates of Cairns had used their influence to seek foreign loans for the government that would have brought them millions of dollars in commissions...
...partly because she had been associated with some companies which had been under investigation. Since November, Cairns had served in the cabinet as Treasurer as well as Deputy Prime Minister. He had been strongly criticized by opposition parties for his handling of Australia's economic policy. Last month, Whitlam transferred Cairns to the less sensitive Ministry of Environment...
...stepson Phillip and associates stood to gain more than $1.4 million in commissions if the government had managed to secure a $2 billion loan from Saudi Arabia. Phillip denied the allegations and there was no suggestion that Cairns himself would have profited in any way. Nonetheless, an angry Whitlam released a letter from Cairns to a friend of his named George Harris, in which the Deputy Prime Minister offered Harris' firm a 2.5% brokerage fee on any overseas loan it could arrange for the government. Cairns, who had earlier denied in the House of Representatives that he had ever...
...member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development will meet in Paris to renew a free-trade pledge, but Britain's vote, at least, is in doubt. The grim facts of recession can overwhelm the best of intentions, as Australia has already proved. After Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's Labor government took office in 1972, it fulfilled an election pledge for tariff reform by slashing levies 25% across the board. As late as last December, Whitlam was telling Europeans that "a retreat into economic isolation is no answer for us or any other nation." But even as he spoke...