(Gallery by Sydney bureau chief Ross Jones) Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s memorial service in Sydney
yesterday was an occasion memorable for its reticence, proud good taste
and meaningful contributions, writes Bob Ellis.
For a time it seemed Rudd must sit beside Gillard, but it was soon
sorted, and they sat, eyes averted, two apart. Keating, entering, with Annita, got huge applause; Hawke with Blanche, less so, Penny Wong and her ‘spouse’ a great deal, Garrett a little more.
Silence greeted Howard and Jannette. Abbott, unaccompanied,
materialised in the front row, from, it seemed, a secret entrance,
having been booed out on the street.
Jill Wran was there. Albo and Carmel, Deputy Premier and Deputy
Premier, man and wife. John Brown. Smith and Swan. Menadue. Spiegelman.
Two Fergusons. Les Johnson and Doug McClelland. Barry Jones,
famous now since 1948, irrepressible, buoyant, grizzled. Phillip Adams,
looking as he did since he was twenty-five. Latham was not there, of
course; of course. Like Hemingway, he never forgave a favour.
Huge pipe organ music as the tall family entered; a ‘flotilla of Whitlams’, I used to call them, fewer now.
From the upper level, near the front, I could see all the faces, like
a perfect stained glass window of a gathering of sainted worthies, in a
sacred site, the Town Hall, where, six months ago, Nifty’s coffin had lain, and his daughter, now on a charge of murder, had spoken over him, quoting Shakespeare.
There was the national anthem and Kerry O’Brien came forward, tawny
and mild-mannered, Steve McQueen-like, as always, and I remembered how,
on the day of the sacking, he, beside me in the press gallery, had said:
“Let slip the dogs of war.”
He told of working on Gough’s last campaign — the energy, the detail, the generosity, the fury, the joy.
And then there was a welcome to country, and a potent didgeridoo, and then ... Freudenberg.
The years melted away and I remembered Freudy in 1977 after Gough resigned, saying:
“I’m, what, forty-two, and my life is over. It ended tonight.”
I remembered ten years ago, after a lunch with Jeff Shaw, Gough saying: “Lend me a shoulder, comrade” and, leaning on Freudy, walked from the building, linked forever to his collaborator and chronicler.
Freudy’s speech ‒ and his delivery of it ‒ showed the great orator
the Legislative Assembly lost when the Labor Party, in its wisdom, nominated Eddie Obeid instead. Like his speech on getting life lembership, in the same Town Hall, it was among the best ten of our nation. But there was more, and better, to come.
Across the world, with perfect symmetry, America’s Whitlam, Obama, was being ended by ebola and Fox News, the toy of Murdoch, who had ended Gough also, and the choir and the orchestra performed the St Matthew Passion final chorus by J.F. Bach.
Cate Blanchett came forward and spoke of
how she, as a woman, was better able to explore what she could do in
the world because of Whitlam’s free universities and Abbott, the minister for women, cringed in the front row. The choir sang the chorus of the Chorus of the Hebrew Slavesby Verdi and things notched up a bit.
Fifteen years ago, I called Noel Pearson ‘Australia’s best orator’, after sharing a stage with him in Mosman.
He proved it again before a vaster audience in Town Hall with an oration rich in wile and fury,
almost Elizabethan in its intimacy, clarity and beauty, in which, being
now himself a man of no party, he extolled the ‘old man’ he, his
people, and Australia, owed so much.
Quickly hailed as the ‘best Australian speech, ever’, it became, like Lincoln’s second inaugural, a new benchmark of the language well used in a great cause on a high occasion.
Faulkner’s tribute and Tony Whitlam’s thanks then swiftly followed and the first chords of Jerusalem, as always, had me in tears.
I remembered Gough at Margaret’s funeral theatrically steering his wheelchair out of the church as the choir sang ‘I shall not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand’
and knowing, I think, precisely knowing, that this was the last that
most of us would see of him, heroically engulfed in this great Labour
anthem, tragically leaving, making his exit, the job unfinished. And
here was the song again.
It was swiftly sung, and that was it. No coffin was carried out. There was silence.
The orchestra conductor stood undecided. Would there be more? No. An inconclusive, shuffling silence.
And that was it.
It was an occasion memorable for its reticence, proud good taste and
almost Anglican harmony of soul. No humorous montage of wacky television
moments was projected. Gough’s own voice did not occur, though the
imitations of others, on stage and at the party afterwards, were many
and usually good — Mike Carlton’s, as always, the best.
There was a feeling not so much of sadness, or even happiness at a
great life well concluded, as of an enormous, high-vaulting life
interrupted, diverted, dislocated and of thirty-eight years then
somewhat, although not altogether, diminished in a sort of grand
nightclub act, of a stand-up elder statesman for a nation’s posterity.
Language honours and forgives / Everyone by whom it lives, as Auden said of Yeats.
Lincoln, Churchill, the Kennedys, Obama, had varying successes and
great failures in war and peace, but their gift of language, of the
smooth self-mocking utterance, of bringing the house down with gales
laughter, made up for their failings while millions died.
Whitlam’s record was better than theirs. He embarked on no new war.
He ended one. He uplifted three generals to a possibility of personal
excellence like none before him, or after. He fought the good fight, he
finished, or almost finished, the course. He kept the faith. Now there
is laid up for him a crown of righteousness.
Gough Whitlam talks to Kerry O'Brien about his leadership style,
political donations and the virtues of television interviews in a
classic 1976 exchange.
Extraordinary could only describe the atmosphere
inside Sydney Town Hall, with its grand organ piping heart-wrenching
tunes, as people arrived to take a much coveted seat at the memorial
service for former prime minister Gough Whitlam.
The service for
such a gigantic presence in the landscape of Australian politics, and a
revered hero among the Labor Party and its true believers, was
extraordinary from beginning to end.
An unusual thing happened as
smartly dressed people filed in - a surprise standing ovation and
raucous applause erupted out of nowhere as people craned their necks to
see who, out of all the who's who at this grand memorial, had arrived.
It
was for Paul Keating and a surprise companion - his ex wife Anita - as
they walked down the red carpet aisle towards the front of the service
to take their seats.
There was this overwhelming, palpable feeling
of adoration and warmth, and a sense of belonging that erupted among
the crowd inside.
Former and current MPs, members of Mr Whitlam's
cabinet, dignitaries and ordinary mortals erupted in such joy and pride
- like fans of a beloved AFL football team cheering a captain and team
after a grand final win - like I had not seen at a memorial before.
It continued for Bob Hawke and Blanche d'Alpuget,
for Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd and even for current Labor politicians,
beginning with Penny Wong and her partner as they walked down the aisle
of adoration.
John Howard was booed by the gigantic crowd watching on outside, but Mr Whitlam's comradeship was alive and well inside.
The
Howards sat side-by-side with his former political foe Bob Hawke and
Blanche and they chatted like any other normal old friends or family who
only catch up at funerals or weddings and are genuinely pleased to see
each other.
The last ovation was for Mr Whitlam's family, who
arrived to the sounds of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Sydney
Philharmonia Choir.
And then to the national anthem - it was an
incredible experience knowing that seven prime ministers were in the
same room singing Advance Australia Fair with everyone.
Speakers
like Graham Freudenberg recounted numerous anecdotes, like Mr Whitlam
referring to his wife Margaret as "the other member for Werriwa".
It aroused warm laughter among the distinguished throng for a great man who reached a position most will only ever dream about.
At times it felt so much bigger than a memorial.
When
Noel Pearson spoke of "this old man's legacy with no partisan brief"
and counted off Mr Whitlam's achievements, there was great applause
inside and a great "Yes" could be heard from the masses outside.
It felt like a US presidential inauguration rather
than a farewell. It was a reminder of Mr Whitlam's value of equality and
his lasting impact still, alive in people's minds.
Many were
reduced to tears and some sang along when - as Kerry O'Brien called it -
Australia's other anthem, From Little Things Big Things Grow, was
performed by Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody.
After hearing of his
supporters talk of the greatness of his achievements and his place in
history, it was then to his son Antony, where the reminder of being a
memorial service of someone's dad started to sink in.
All leaned in to listen with respect as the greatness of his father was spoken of again.
He then introduced the closing hymn Jerusalem, as a farewell to his father and his legacy.
The
ovations began again as Mr Whitlam's family, seven former prime
ministers, his cabinet and hundreds of politicians past and present
filed out of a town hall that felt luminous with heartfelt admiration
poured into one space to remember a man of conviction, who arguably
changed the landscape of Australian politics forever.
The political malaise currently gripping Australia is made all the more poignant when an iconic leader of the past leaves us.
Whatever your political bent, the passing of Gough Whitlam reminds us of a time when leaders helped shape what the country would become and what it meant to be Australian.
The visionary jingoism of Gough’s time is now a relic of the past.
The benefits and complexities of living in a globalised, multicultural
world is giving rise to two conflicting ideologies.
The first is a new kind of humanist consciousness, which is often at
odds with national policy making and the second, an ever more insular
hyper capitalism in which organisations shape policy and democracy ‒ of,
by and for the people ‒ takes a back seat to capital markets.
For any nation looking to prosper in a world becoming more connected ‒
where nations are increasingly dependent on one another ‒ forging your
own path, living to your own values is sadly seen as politically
dangerous and diplomatically reckless regardless which party you
represent.
In the past twenty years, Australia has moved from being the envy of
the world ‒ a strong, free, principled, fair and welcoming society ‒ to
becoming a more mean-spirited, intolerant, arrogant and crude sidekick
of Westminster and the Oval Office. This transition was intended to
endear us to larger, richer, stronger nations thought to be in the best
position to protect and support us . From whom I still have no idea.
It is true that Australia’s relationship with the United States and
Britain provides us with benefits, but does it deliver enough value to
compensate for the damage it has and continues to cause to our freedom,
our democratic rights and our national identity?
I am not yet forty years old, but in my lifetime we have gone to war
in Iraq three times. We have destroyed a nation on the other side of the
world that never threatened nor attacked us.
Confusingly, however, we allow the genocide of impoverished people in
Africa without raising an eyebrow. We stand silently as a generation of
people fight for freedom and democracy in Hong Kong and Tibet and we say nothing.
Our diggers went to war in Europe, Korea and Vietnam, fighting for
the principles of democracy, fighting for freedom of all people — and
yet now, when others want to secure that very same right, we remain
silent; the aggressor is a major trading partner and heaven forbid we
offend the golden goose.
It seems our moral conscience has a price and our federal politicians have been under instruction to sell, sell, sell!
The reason Australia teeters on the edge of a moral identity crisis is that we have allowed the slow, steady erosion of our democracy.
The leadership required to turn the ship around ‒ visionary leadership
and political courage like that provided by Whitlam ‒ simply cannot
exist in today’s political system. A system which has nothing at all to
do with delivering the will people and everything to do with power and
partisanship.
In 2006, the ABS counted political party members at just 1.3% of the Australian adult population — yet political parties are required to deliver the outcomes sought by their members.
But what about the other 98.7% of voting aged Australians, who want their politics, sans entrenched ideology?
There is no other environment in the world in which the selection of a leader based on capacity, merit and intelligence could install Tony Abbott ahead of Malcolm Turnbull.
Only political party politics ‒ a system that relentlessly protects
its base, operates with factions and is driven by powerful ideology ‒
could provide Australia’s current Cabinet.
Change is not just inevitable, it is vital for our survival.
Everything in your world has been innovated in the last forty years —
your technology, entertainment, job, food, medical support, transport,
travel, telecommunications and a thousand other things. My grandmother
is 98 years old and today’s world is unrecognisable from the world she
was born into, just as it is unrecognisable from the world she lived in
when she was the age I am now.
Everything has changed, been innovated, evolved and been improved.
Yet, our system of government ‒ which is older than my grandmother
and is intended to serve our entire society ‒ has remained unchanged. Real democracy requires a complete overhaul of what we the people are prepared to accept from our representatives.
Real democracy that will deliver nation building demands an informed
constituency, accountability of representatives, transparency and
removal of all corporate donations and lobbyists; a system based on
merit, an agnostic non-partisan approach to all issues, a fact based
solutions oriented commitment from all sides of politics and equality of
opportunity for those willing to participate and commit themselves to
civic duty.
Many people across the globe are exploring what Democracy 2.0 might look like and it is time Australia joins the conversation.
