Word: whitlam
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...Many of Whitlam's domestic reforms were blocked, however, by an anomaly of the Australian constitution-the Senate. Though the 1972 elections gave Whitlam a 67-58 edge in the House, the Senate, with its six-year terms for members, remained firmly in the hands of the opposition Liberal-Country Party coalition. The opposition could count on 31 votes, while Labor had only 26 seats. The Australian Senate is supposed to act only as a slowing brake on the House of Representatives, with deliberative-but not veto-powers. In fact, the conservative-dominated body managed to stop Whitlam...
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...
Think Again. According to last week's polls the electorate was almost evenly divided between Whitlam's Labor Party and Opposition Leader Billy Snedden's Liberal-Country Party conservative coalition. GO AHEAD, exhorted Laborite banners. "I am appealing to the people of Australia to give a fair go to the government they elected 17 months ago," said Whitlam, 57. THINK AGAIN, countered the Liberals. "The Labor experiment has been tried and it has failed," Snedden, 47, told audiences...
Though Snedden had been derided by one of his critics as a Milquetoast who "couldn't go two rounds with a revolving door," he has, in fact, turned out to have a distinct knack for political combat. He has unexpectedly put the more charismatic Whitlam on the defensive by his broadsides against Whitlam's abrasive policies. In foreign affairs, Snedden has accused Whitlam of needlessly alienating Australia's two closest friends, the U.S. and Britain, and has promised a more traditional, pro-Western policy...
...home, Snedden scored points by promising to restore the incentives to foreign investment that Whitlam took away-necessary incentives, Snedden argued, if Australia is to develop its vast resources-and pledged to give free enterprise a looser rein. Most important of all, he promised to put a curb on the country's worrisome economic problem, inflation, which is now running at the rate of 14% a year. He promised that he would resign in six months if he could not curb inflation-a promise that most Australians viewed with skepticism...