Word: whitlam
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Little more than six months ago, Gough Whitlam bounded into office with all the bounce of a caged kangaroo suddenly given the run of a green pasture. The first Labor Party leader to become Prime Minister of Australia in 23 years, he was fairly bursting with energy and new ideas (TIME, March 26). In February, a poll indicated that 62% of Australians approved of what he was doing. Whitlam is still bouncing, but fewer Aussies are marveling...
According to the most recent public opinion poll, approval of Whitlam has slipped to 51%. More significantly, another poll indicated that support for the Labor Party had slid to 44% last month, down from the 50% it received in the December general election. If another election had coincided with that poll, the conservative Liberal-Country...
Party coalition might have found itself back in federal power. The Liberal Party demonstrated its strength at the state level last month by increasing its majority over Labor in Victoria. Australian state elections often do not reflect federal voting patterns, but Whitlam had incautiously characterized the Victoria contest in advance as a sounding board for his policies...
...relatively minor but symbolic matter of protocol, Whitlam apparently got Elizabeth to agree that henceforth the credentials of Australian ambassadors need not be sent halfway around the world for her signature but can be signed in Canberra by her Governor General. The Prime Minister also got from Whitehall an agreement in principle that Australia's own High Court should replace Britain's Privy Council as the last court of appeal for Australian litigants. There was somewhat less harmony on a more substantive issue -namely, that Britain should join Australia and New Zealand in opposing further French nuclear tests...
...Whitlam took it in stride. Asked at a press conference how he would rate Sir Alec's response on a scale of "bored to pusillanimous," Whitlam replied: "I wouldn't use either of those words. He was courteous and helpful." Whitlam's only truly tart words in London, in fact, were directed at the French, who insist that their tests are not nearly as dangerous as the Australians fear. "If there is nothing wrong with the tests," he said, "then why don't the French save some money and hold them in Corsica...