Word: whitlam
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Friendship, tradition, history and language still unite Australia with the British Crown and Commonwealth. The big question for Australians these days is how long the old ties will last under the independence-minded Labor government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Arriving in London last week. Lionel Murphy, the Attorney General of Australia ("You will notice we no longer say the Commonwealth of Australia," announced his press aide), demanded the removal of "all the residual legislative, executive and judicial authority over Australia." These ties, he said, were demeaning "relics of colonialism." Murphy was referring specifically to two archaic legal technicalities...
There has also been talk in Canberra that Australia might eventually declare itself a republic. Whitlam has let it be known that he considers the Queen something of a constitutional anachronism. "The monarch is usually resident overseas," he noted dryly. Presumably his affections for Queen Elizabeth were not increased by the fact that he received a Christmas card from Buckingham Palace addressed simply to "The Prime Minister of Australia." No name was attached to the card...
Australia's first Labor Prime Minister in 23 years, Edward Gough Whitlam, 56, last week was off to the most amazing, assertive start of any leader in his country's history. True to a party promise of new initiatives that would rival those of President Franklin Roosevelt's famous 100 days, Whitlam bounded into action on an extraordinary range of issues from conscription to contraceptives-and left his countrymen, who had yawned through much of the election campaign, suddenly agape...
Moving as fast as a bush fire in the Outback, Whitlam had himself sworn into office along with Deputy Leader Lance Barnard several days sooner than is customary in an Australian change of government, and quickly demonstrated a faculty for imaginative agility. Unable to install a full Cabinet until after his party caucuses this week, the new Prime Minister assumed temporary custody of 13 portfolios (including foreign affairs, which he will keep) and gave Barnard the remaining 14. As perhaps the smallest Cabinet ever in a democracy, the two men promptly engineered a series of sudden shifts in Australian policies...
Even before being sworn in, Whitlam had recalled the Australian Ambassador to Taipei and instructed Canberra's Ambassador to France to start talks with the Chinese in Paris aimed at establishing diplomatic relations with Peking. Now the Australian Ambassador to the United Nations was directed to back moves for a neutralized zone in the Indian Ocean. He was also told to reverse field and support Third World resolutions against white-supremacist Rhodesia. A Rhodesian information of fice in Sydney was ordered shut down. South Africa was told that sporting teams selected along racial lines would not be allowed into...