Those of us who were around at the time Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister in December 1972 can well remember how everything started to go wrong for both him and his ALP government in mid-1974.
Aloof and arrogant, Whitlam was no man of the people and no Prime Minister was shunned by them so comprehensively.
Whitlam ruled chaotically for just under three years until he was sacked by governor-general Sir John Kerr to end a damaging stalemate in the Senate, where the Opposition had cut off the scandal-racked government’s money.
Whitlam imposed typical ‘Big Government’ socialist tactics, quadrupling spending on health and education and letting wages explode by 28 per cent in a single year. Money was seen to be plentiful and of no great importance.
But Whitlam had little care for where it came from — so little, that the Labor Party even negotiated with a Pakistani banker Tirath Khemlani to secretly borrow money from the Middle East in direct violation of Treasury rules and Australia’s Constitution.
Disaster was inevitable. With the Budget blown and the international oil shock hitting a weakened economy, the Whitlam government saw unemployment nearly triple, the tax take double, the deficit blow out and inflation soar to almost 20 per cent.
Many Australians lost their jobs, their business, savings, dreams and hated Whitlam for what he’d done to them.
Future ALP Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, learned from the debacle. Whitlam was shunned and Hawke ministers used “Whitlamite” as the ultimate insult directed at colleagues who promised big government schemes with no care for the cost.
Does all this look familiar in today’s world?
It should because our current ALP-Greens government is going down exactly the same path as Whitlam’s.
Consider what has occurred within roughly the same time-frame as Whitlam’s honeymoon period of about 18 months.
First and foremost, we endured Albanese’s personal crusade with the Voice referendum. Even when he knew it was bound to fail, he still pushed ahead creating massive division within our society and costing taxpayers in excess of $450 million.
Then there is the post-pandemic debacle. Despite all the disruption, trauma and wasted taxpayer money caused by our federal and state governments during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Albanese government has decided to exclude state and territory governments from the planned ‘lessons learnt’ inquiry.
This means that former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews will get off scot-free despite his total mismanagement of this unnecessary crisis. And he’s certainly not alone.
Then we have Australia’s ‘dunce of the century’ Chris ‘Blackouts’ Bowen (pictured below) who is causing untold misery to so many people in regional Australia and driving all of us taxpayers down a path that will cost us literally trillions of dollars.
What makes it worse, is that his obsession with ‘saving the planet’ from global warming is totally misplaced as there is clearly no climate crisis or emergency – nor will there be.
Moreover, Australia only produces just over 1% of global CO2 emissions, so nothing we do will have any meaningful effect on global warming. Bowen and others just don’t seem to understand what this means and what we should do about it.
The simple answer is, we just need to sensibly manage natural changes in our climate as previous generations have done without all the drama and without scaring our kids!!!
The Albanese government is now planning to introduce a ‘Misinformation Bill’ and, separately, a Bill to prioritise the ABC and SBS on our Smart TVs, so that we are more likely to hear their left-wing propaganda rather than the truth from channels like Sky News.
These outrageous joint attacks on free speech are straight out of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 and need to be vigorously opposed.
Meanwhile, this government has allowed a huge increase in immigration which will negatively impact on housing costs and rental property availability as well as place even more burden on our road and rail networks.
Having done that, they then have the gall to cancel funding to the tune of $1.4 billion for critical road and rail development ! Instead, that money is being spent on ridiculous attempts to achieve Net Zero and thereby supposedly ‘save the planet’.
What we’d all really like to know is who is going to save us from the increasingly bizarre and obsessed Chris ‘Blackouts’ Bowen?
Most of the road and rail projects being defunded will impact on regional communities already hard hit with the unnecessary installation of wind transmission towers and turbines on prime farming land.
However, our major cities will certainly not avoid the federal government’s defunding of critical infrastructure as all state capitals will be adversely affected.
Then there was the Qantas debacle that added hugely to our travel costs merely to allow Albanese to please his mate Qantas CEO Alan Joyce.
And then there are all the union-sponsored IR reforms that have created huge resentment and pushback from the business sector and which will increase the cost of goods produced and transported. This, in turn, will increase the cost of those goods in our supermarkets and shops.
And now, within just the past few days, we’ve witnessed yet again the total incompetence of the Albanese government. This time it was over the release of potentially hundreds of detainees from indefinite immigration detention, many of whom have committed crimes such as murder, rape, paedophilia and sexual assault. Our Minister of Home Affairs, Clare O’Neil, and Minister for Immigration, Andrew Giles, (both pictured below) were shown to be totally out of their depth on this issue.
And with all the social unrest and violence in our country, Albanese has done virtually nothing to stop the violence and anti-semitic behaviour or explain the difference between Hamas terrorism and the Palestinian cause and why they are two totally different issues.
He’s chosen instead to run away and grandstand overseas.
The list of the Albanese government’s failures is already extensive and there will undoubtedly be plenty more to come. They are an incompetent rabble – just like Whitlam’s mob.
Apart from these failures and attempts to stifle free speech that have, and will, negatively impact on so many people, we have also witnessed our government totally ignore the very real threat of a regional or even global war.
Experts have told this government in very simple terms that we are militarily unprepared for such an event and yet they even failed to fully spend last year’s budgeted defence allocation. This meant that much of it had to be returned to general revenue instead of being used to buy critical defence equipment.
It’s known that one of our Prime Minister’s heroes was Gough Whitlam. Albanese even spent taxpayer’s money on a recent trip to China primarily to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Whitlam’s first visit to Communist China.
Nothing of substance was achieved by Albanese during that visit; certainly nothing that will deter China’s planned invasion of Taiwan or lead to a softening of Xi Jinping’s ‘grand plan’ to ultimately dominate the world both economically and militarily.
All he came back with was a possible improvement in trade. Someone should take Albanese aside and point out to him in words of one syllable that if we go to war with China all trade will cease!
And Xi Jinping made it very clear just a few days ago that he intends to invade Taiwan. Based on that – and the promises made by several countries including Australia to defend Taiwan – we can only assume at this point in time that war with China is inevitable.
Hopefully, our exporters have come to the same logical conclusion. The need to find alternative markets for our China-affected products is critically important – and urgent.
Reviewing all the above and seeing where we’re heading with the Albanese government, the words of Oliver Cromwell in 1653 when addressing Britain’s government come to mind.
He said: “You have been sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go !”
We should be demanding the same of our own government before they do any more damage.
