THE passing of Gough Whitlam, prime minister for 35 months (1972-1975), certainly energised the epistolary efforts of many people.
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Most put aside their critical faculties and indulged in rampant myth-making.
In The Northern Daily Leader, Messrs. Forscutt (November 12) and Stannard (November 15) lavishly praised Whitlam for a range of ideas, which they insist changed Australia for the better.
The most irritating of Mr Forscutt’s opinions was a comparison between the actions of John Curtin and Whitlam.
He asserts that Whitlam’s decisions between 1972-1975 “ranked in importance” with Curtin’s decision to confront Winston Churchill and the British War Office and bring back two divisions of Australian troops from the Middle East to defend Australia against the Japanese incursions through South East Asia into Papua New Guinea (1941-42).
This decision took immense courage, and had serious effects on Curtin’s health.
It was also one of the most significant decisions in Australia’s war effort, and helped to force Japanese retreats in our region.
Churchill wanted the Australian troops to defend British interests in Burma and India, and he impeded Curtin all the way.
The Australian 9th Division was finally brought home in November 1942.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, in Whitlam’s efforts between 1972-1975 remotely compares with Curtin’s strength of understanding and his fortitude in protecting Australia’s interests.
Curtin’s actions helped Australia in perilous times. Whitlam’s actions, in comfortable security, mired Australia in deepening debt.
Mr Stannard makes much of Whitlam’s war service, concluding that he had a better understanding of conflict than other politicians.
He asserts that Whitlam withdrew our troops from Vietnam.
In fact, Harold Holt started the withdrawal, and by December 1972, when Whitlam became prime minister, the bulk of the troops had returned from Vietnam, leaving a small number of advisors and security for the Australian embassy.
Whitlam happily abolished conscription, well after the need for it had disappeared.
It followed that draft-resisters could be released from prison.
It was all too easy.
Discussions about national security have to confront Whitlam’s rather odd ideas.
Recognising communist China at that time was not universally approved, so it could be interpreted as a bold move. The ALP also supported a victory for the North Vietnamese communists.
Whitlam’s government also betrayed the Vietnamese who had been working with Australian security forces, the embassy and intelligence groups during the war.
His views and actions earned the contempt of various SE Asian leaders, such as Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew.
He also upset Thailand when he criticised the presence of US troops in Thailand.
Mr Stannard believes Whitlam’s abysmal economic performance “left zero government debt to Malcolm Fraser”. This is rank nonsense.
The consensus of economic opinion is that it took four prime ministers and two decades of solid effort to bring Australia back to a viable economic position.
“The Age of Aquarius” that swept the western world in the 1960s, which Whitlam rode in insouciant fashion, led inexorably to the “Age of Entitlement” during the Rudd-Gillard years.
The consequence is that the current Coalition government has to start all over again, but this time the “idea” of entitlement is much more deeply embedded, and the problems far more serious.
It’s no use even thinking about John F Kennedy’s inauguration remark, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.
It now appears that he plagiarised it from his old school headmaster, George St John, of Choate School, Connecticut.
It’s all rather typical of those from the trendy-left side of political debate.
Bruce Watson
Kentucky