Suchergebnisse

Governor-General Sir John Kerr's dismissal of the elected Whitlam Government in 1975, more or less at the behest of the Liberal-Country Party Coalition led by Malcolm Fraser, was among the most momentous events in Australian political history. Born into a privileged life Whitlam joined the Australian Labor Party, rose to be its Parliamentary leader and took it into power after twenty-three years in the wilderness. But the pace of change scared too many people, and sudden changes in the world economic environment threw down challenges he just could not overcome. Nor could he overcome the local political challenges thrown down by the conservative forces,and he and his colleagues seemed determined to keep providing him with the ammunition they needed to shoot him down. On 11 November 1975, they did.

Considers the nature of the Australian Labor Party and Labor governments in the course of a critique of two books on the Party. Stresses the continuity in the ALP's pursuit of the interests of Australian capital when it is in office and its 'structural constitution', that is its distinctive relationship with the working class, especially through the union movement, and with the capitalist class. Evidence to support the analysis is drawn from the experience of the Chifley government during the 1940s, the Whitlam government during the 1970s and the Hawke government during the 1980s.

[Introduction]:.I want to concentrate on what Australian Governments have done and should do to improve Australia's system of representative government. Federal parliamentarians have the main responsibility because they and they alone can initiate constitutional referendums and enact international instruments. In all my own accounts and analyses of the matter, I contend that November 1975 was fundamentally a political crisis, fully capable of a political resolution, and, indeed, about to be so resolved, not more than 48 hours later than my government's dismissal. That is, by the fully attested switch of votes imminent on the part of at least four coalition senators. One such defection would have been enough to end the crisis. The dismissal was needless and premature. More recent accounts go to this conclusion. John Menadue's indispensable book, Things You Learn Along the Way, was published last year. Tonight, however, I propose only to touch on some aspects which point to changes in the Constitution which, if made before 1975, would have prevented the crisis or which, if made now, would prevent a repetition.

[Introduction]:.The choice of topic was, for me, an easy one. The campaign for open government was the first topic on which I developed an academic and professional interest. That was at a time, in the early 1970s, when the concept of open government did not enjoy widespread acceptance. The mood was aptly captured a little later by Sir Arnold Robinson's explanation to Sir Humphrey Appleby – "Open government is a contradiction in terms. You can be open – or you can have government". Sir Humphrey agreed: the word "secretary", he noted, is after all a derivative of "secret". The first assurance of change was a promise by the new Whitlam Government in 1972 to enact a freedom of information Act along the lines of the 1967 United States law. The realisation of that promise, ten years later, was a confirmation that government was changing, but of how difficult it was to accomplish that change. The intervening development of the legislative model told the story. An interdepartmental committee appointed by the Government to develop a legislative model took nearly two years to prepare its report of 18 pages. Sent back to the drawing board, it returned two years later with a report that had grown to 100 pages. The Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs then took control of the reform agenda, conducting hearings around Australia, receiving submissions in support of a stronger law from over 125 individuals, public interest groups, unions and professional associations, and delivering finally a report of over 500 pages, heralded at the time as one of the finest products of the Senate committee system. The momentum was sustained when six government senators crossed the floor to vote with the Opposition in favour of a stronger FOI law. The Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) was a part, a small but vital part, of the revolution in government and thinking that occurred in Australia. The Act thus serves as a barometer of sorts for measuring the strength of government commitment to openness. I want to return to that issue –problems with the FOI Act, and contemporary challenges to open government – but before doing so it is important to paint a fuller picture of the current structural basis for open government in Australia. I will look at three areas of structural support – legal doctrine, the framework of government, and our philosophy of government.

Australian Constitutional Landmarks presents the most significant cases and controversies in the Australian constitutional landscape up to its original publication in 2003. Including the Communist Party case, the dismissal of the Whitlam government, the Free Speech cases, a discussion of the race power, the Lionel Murphy saga, and the Tasmanian Dam case, this book highlights turning points in the shaping of the Australian nation since Federation. Each chapter clearly examines the legal and political context leading to the case or controversy and the impact on later constitutional reform. With contributions by leading constitutional lawyers and judges, as well as two former chief justices, this book will appeal to members of the judiciary, lawyers, political scientists, historians and people with a general interest in Australian politics, government and history