Word: whitlam
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When Australia's Governor General Sir John Kerr fired Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam last month for failing to get his budget funded by the conservative-controlled Senate, it appeared that Whitlam might easily get his job back. For one thing, there seemed to be some truth to Whitlam's protest that he had been the victim of a ruthless power play. Then again, Kerr had named as caretaker Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, 45, the tough but untested leader of the conservative coalition composed of his own Liberal Party and the rural National Country Party...
...time Australia's 8 million voters went to the polls last week, the early groundswell of sympathy for Whitlam had all but vanished. Fraser and his coalition swept to power in a landslide victory, handing Whitlam the worst defeat of his career...
...Whitlam's mistake was to wage his campaign chiefly on the issue of his ouster. He claimed that the future of Australian democracy required that he be returned to office to void the Governor General's "legal coup d'état." In a brief paroxysm of rage over Kerr's action, strikers shut down slaughterhouses, construction sites and steelworks all over Australia. But before long, Australian voters decided that Whitlam's firing was not the main issue after all. Opinion polls showed that voters were more concerned about bread-and-butter issues-inflation, industrial unrest...
...within a week of each other. This week Australian voters go to the polls to resolve the constitutional crisis created when Malcolm Fraser, head of the Liberal-National Country Party coalition, was named by Governor General Sir John Kerr to form a caretaker government, replacing Labor Party Leader Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister (TIME, Nov. 24). Australia's Labor Party, like New Zealand's, was accused of economic mismanagement in office. Though voting patterns in the two countries often diverge, the fate of Rowling's party was still not a hopeful omen for Whitlam...
...House of Representatives, there is a chance that Labor will win in the Senate, which could mean a replay of the budget impasse that caused the current crisis. This possibility makes it almost certain that no matter who wins, the authority of the Senate will be trimmed; and if Whitlam wins, Sir John may well be forced to resign. When his secretary finished his proclamation to Parliament with the traditional "God save the Queen," Whitlam had an angry riposte. "Well may we say God save the Queen," he shouted, "because nothing will save the Governor General...