Politics
The dismissal, 50 years on
We still haven’t dealt with the issues that precipitated a constitutional crisis in 1975.
Imagine that the Greens and the Coalition are using their numbers in the Senate to block crucial legislation. There’s bluffing and posturing, and some Coalition and Green Senators are hinting that they are ready to wave the legislation through.
Rather than waiting it out however, Governor-General Sam Moyston arranges with Opposition Leader Sussan Ley to dissolve Parliament, to dismiss Albanese, to appoint Ley as caretaker Prime Minister, and to call a double-dissolution election. Governor-General Moyston has not revealed her intentions to anyone in the government, but she has consulted with representatives of a foreign government on her options.
Change the main characters, add in a tumultuous global economic situation, and you start to understand the context of the dismissal of the Whitlam government fifty years ago on 11 November, 1975. Even though the government had lost public support, most Australians were shocked by the Governor-General’s actions. It was one of those “do you remember what you were doing when X happened?” occasions.
Although the specific actions of Governor-General John Kerr, Opposition Leader Malcolm Fraser, and shady characters in England’s Buckingham Palace were not known – in spite of Jenny Hocking’s tireless efforts they are still not fully revealed – there was widespread public disapproval of the conspiracy, because something sneaky, something un-Australian had been done. Constitutional experts were in no doubt that Kerr had exceeded his authority.
On Late Night Live, Paul Kelly of The Australian and David Marr describe the political context of the events leading up to the dismissal. The Whitlam government was in chaos, with ministers running their own grandiose agendas in defiance of any notion of cabinet solidarity. Kelly describes an electorate that was keen to see a change in government, but which strongly disapproved the way that change was achieved. In fact many political historians believe that the Fraser government in its first term of office, in spite of its huge Parliamentary majority, was hobbled by a widespread belief that its mode of achieving power was illegitimate.
Kelly’s context is incomplete because he does not mention how the fates were lined up against the Whitlam government. It was elected in late 1972, and re-elected in early 1974 after it called a double-dissolution to clear the Senate’s obstruction of reforms. But just as the Scullin Labor government in 1929 had been elected two weeks before the Wall Street crash and the onset of the Great Depression, so did the Whitlam government suffer a similar misfortune of timing. Over 1974 the world fell into a state of economic turmoil on a scale that makes the 2008 Global Financial Crisis look like a statistical blip. The Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates had collapsed, the OPEC oil-producing states had imposed an oil embargo resulting in more than a doubling of the price of oil, and stagflation had broken out in many countries. In the USA for example the unemployment rate and the inflation rate rose simultaneously (to 7 percent and 11 percent respectively) and the Republican government had imposed wage and price controls.
Government House. The GG needs a clearer role.
No government managed well in a situation where all the rules of macroeconomic management had been challenged. The Whitlam government was dealing not only with that wild world environment: it was also dealing with a Coalition opposition with such a strong assumption that it was the naturally entitled party to govern that it was doing all it could to make the economic situation worse.
Those times were extraordinary, but any student of history knows that global destabilization can occur quickly and with little warning. As Crispin Hull reminds us in his post Senate unfixed 50 years on, “nothing has been done to rectify the Constitution to ensure there is no repetition and nothing has been done to rectify the anomalous position the Senate has in our democracy”.
The other serious Constitutional ambiguity calling for resolution relates to the legitimacy of the position of the Governor-General, so long as there remains the possibility that he or she may be seen to be subject to the influence of a foreign government. Sam Moyston deserves a clearer job description.
The Cronulla riots, 20 years on
The far right has taken over the colonial-era flag. That clears the space to develop an Australian flag that can be respected as a symbol of national unity.
As summer approaches so too does the twentieth anniversary of the 2005 Cronulla riots.
Writing on the ABC website Shiloh Payne recounts first-hand experiences of people who were subject to physical violence and disgusting abuse from thousands of aggressive louts, egged on by commercial radio shock jocks, who sought to “reclaim their beach” from migrants, particularly migrants from the Middle East.
Formal colonial-era attire.
The stories are confronting, and it is clear that the police were caught off-guard. Our law-enforcement authorities were slow to recognize the growing threat from right-wing extremism.
Observing the recent anti-immigration demonstrations, Payne asks rhetorically how far we have advanced over the last twenty years.
I was in the Cronulla vicinity at the time, and was struck by the appearance of the rioters, particularly by the way they draped themselves in the flag. Barry Humphries’ makeup staff could not have done a better job in depicting the ugly Australian, but these were no actors.
Uniting the riots of 2005 and the confrontational demonstrations of 2025 has been that flag, a symbol of our country’s colonial past. It carries strong symbolism of a time when Australia was a “white” country, settled by “white” people from a “white” England, whose Union Jack occupies pride of place. It has been offensive to Australians of Irish origin, and to many First Nations Australians. It is now firmly established as a symbol adopted by nazis and others of the racist right who stand against everything Australia has become over the last fifty years.
We need our own flag.
Opinion polls
A flood of opinion polls on voting intention, the Australia-US relationship, our path to net zero, our thoughts on how the country is travelling, and housing policy.
Voting intention – the Coalition has become a regional party rather than a national party
The latest national opinion polls reported on William Bowe’s Poll Bludger continue to portray a dismal and deteriorating level of support for the Coalition, at both national and state levels. The latest Morgan Pollsuggests that if an election were held today the Albanese government would be re-elected with an increasedmajority, on the basis of a 57:43 TPP outcome, and only 27 percent primary support for the Coalition (down from 32 percent at the May election). Among women and voters under 50 Labor holds a commanding lead over the Coalition. (Our national median age is 38.)
Polls confirm that most of the Coalition’s loss is to One Nation. Kos Samaras provides detailed analysis of One Nation support on an ABC post by Shalailah Medhora: Why has support for One Nation surged since the federal election, and will it last?.
Only in Queensland does the Coalition seem to be travelling well on a state level, where the Crisafulli government is holding its election-winning lead over Labor. That lines up with an emerging political trajectory of Australia’s right-wing parties, which have abandoned our large cities. The Coalition is now dominated by Queensland’s LNP, with strong representation in non-metropolitan Queensland, and by the National Party in New South Wales and Victoria. It has become a populist rural party, in one of the world’s most urbanized democracies.
There is a message in these polls for what’s left of the Liberal Party: it should forget about the National Party, and go its own way to build a centre-right party based on Europe’s Christian Democrat models, or Menzies’ “broad church” model, but it’s not heeding that message.
Our relationship with the US – we don’t like or trust Trump
There are two polls relating to our relationship with the United States. One, by the United States Studies Centre, confirms that we see Trump’s second term as bad for Australia, and that we are now more likely to see the United States as harmful rather than helpful in Asia.
We still want America’s peacemakers.
Although support for the US alliance is falling, we aren’t in favour of withdrawing from it. It also shows that almost three quarters of Australians are concerned about the future of US democracy.
The 2025 Lowy Pollreveals similar negative feelings towards the United States government.
It also reveals that Australians believe that Albanese is better at handling foreign policy than Dutton would have been – and this poll was conducted before Albanese’s recent meetings with Trump which have generally received strong approval. Perceived competence in foreign relations, particularly with the US, was once one of the Coalition’s (undeserved) electoral assets.
Climate change – no clear support for or opposition to net zero
The same Lowy poll surveys Australians on climate change. There is still support for strong action on climate change: 51 percent of respondents agree that “Global warming is a serious and pressing problem. We should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs”. That’s down from 61 percent agreement in 2018, but it’s still positive, because another 33 percent believe we should take action, but more slowly. We’re pretty well split 50:50 on believing whether achieving net zero by 2050 will render us better off or worse off.
The way surveys about climate change are framed count. One frame is to refer to the “cost” of dealing with climate change, while the other is to refer to “investment” in dealing with climate change. One frame with negative connotations, the other with positive connotations.
A political reading of the Lowy questions on climate change and renewable energy is that neither those who advocate abandoning net zero nor those who want us to go all out on net zero have captured public support. That may explain why politicians, particularly on the right, are finding it so hard to assert strong principles on climate change.
How the country is travelling – no “crisis”, but we could do better
The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index for 2025, a project conducted in association with Deakin University, adds another year to its time series of Australians’ subjective assessment of their personal and the nation’s wellbeing. Because it started in 2002 it essentially covers the present century so far.
There are many ways to interrogate the index – by region (including electorate), by age group, by gender, and by one’s own economic situation.
Our personal wellbeing index has held remarkably steady. Our material standard of living has fallen only a little over the last few years, but that takes it back to where it was at the beginning of the century. It paints a picture of stagnation in our material standards, rather than a cost-of-living “crisis”.
One notable finding is that our feeling of personal safety has improved significantly: this aligns with official data on crime victimization, but not with law’n’order scare campaigns conducted by populist media.
Our attitudes on national wellbeing are less stable. We believe that Australia’s economic situation has deteriorated.
Four of the researchers of the index have a Conversation post: How do Australians feel about their lives? It depends on where they live. They summarize their regional findings in three paragraphs:
On average, rural electorates had higher personal wellbeing. They reported particularly high relationship satisfaction, but lower satisfaction with health. Capital city electorates showed the opposite pattern.
There were sharp contrasts within cities themselves. Almost all electorates in the top 10 percent and lowest 10 percent for personal wellbeing were in metro areas.
Echoing national patterns, the highest-scoring electorates typically had older populations living on higher incomes. Those with the lowest personal wellbeing tended to have younger residents and higher rates of unemployment and renting.
This opinion poll echoes a pattern revealed in other polls, in that we tend to be more positive about our own economic situation than we are about the nation’s. At first sight it’s hard to reconcile this contrast. It may be that people are conscious of economic structural weaknesses from which they are personally immune, but that implies an unrealistically high level of economic sophistication in the electorate. It’s more likely that it reflects the influence of “ain’t it awful” stories in the media, and economic scare campaigns run by opposition parties.
Housing
Researchers at Macquarie University have published the results of a major study on people’s attitudes to and understanding of housing policy: Housing and the 2025 Australian Federal Election: Between Crisis and Inertia. It confirms much of what is expressed in mainstream media, but with some refinements.
On most matters to do with housing there are predictable divisions between young people and renters on one hand, and older and established home owners on the other.
Coalition and populist right voters tend to see immigration as a cause of our housing problems, while younger voters are more likely to blame low wage growth.
First-homebuyer grants are popular across all age groups, but on some other existing and mooted policy measures there are strong differences in attitudes. For example younger respondents are much more in favour of limits to rent increases than older respondents are.
There are significant divisions based on people’s voting preferences (which would correlate with age). Labor and Greens voters are particularly enthusiastic about investment in social housing and limiting rent increases, and are particularly unenthusiastic about allowing first homebuyers access to superannuation.