It is 50 years since the US/British coup on 11 November 1975 to oust the Whitlam Labor Government, ostensibly a ‘Dismissal’ by the Governor General, John Kerr.
Most analysis and commentary since 1975, and currently, fail to mention a critical factor into why the overthrow of an elected Labor government succeeded.
This was the failure of the Labor Party and the ACTU to take sustained industrial action to protect the Whitlam Labor Government. It is time to learn our lessons from the coup and draw the correct conclusions.
The Labor leaders were frightened of the people. They failed to put their trust in the strength and wisdom of the people. What should have been organised was an unprecedented industrial campaign to maintain the government. Millions of people understood that it was Us versus the Establishment.
On 11 November 1975 after the coup there were spontaneous strikes and demonstrations all over Australia by workers, students, academics and other patriots. They were demanding and expecting leadership, but what did they get? Whitlam and Hawke, the leader of the ACTU and National President of the Labor Party, backed off.
A couple days after the coup we attended a massive demonstration in Hyde Park, Sydney where Hawke, other union leaders and Whitlam Government ministers, addressed the militant crowd and were at great pains to tell the people to leave it up to them, the Labor Party officials.
‘No. 1 Fireman’ Bob Hawke, notorious for putting out industrial disputes (usually surreptitiously on the bosses’ side) as ACTU President, told the angry crowd that he and the ACTU ‘opposed a general strike’, that ‘we understand your anger but cool down’, that we should ‘show restraint’ and that everyone should ‘donate a day’s pay to the ALP election campaign’.
Workers were gobsmacked! At a critical time there was a complete failure of leadership. The reaction by the people was bewilderment and betrayal. And anger!
The hierarchy of the Labor Party and the ACTU went to great pains to keep the struggle within the confines of the parliamentary system. They went into overdrive – above all the parliamentary system must be protected. In reality the progressive bourgeoisie were afraid of the people.
Bob Hawke, the English Rhodes Scholar, had been taught well – defend the British parliamentary system in Australia at all costs.
Whitlam played by the rules set by the US and Britain. He was overthrown and they got away with it.
Trust the Workers and the People
In 1969 the Penal Powers were defeated. The Penal Powers were government laws to fine unions for industrial action. In 1969 Clarrie O’Shea, the Victorian Secretary of the Tramways Union, was gaoled indefinitely for Contempt of Court and refusing to pay fines for action by his Tramways Union members for better wages. The Judge of the Industrial Court who gaoled O’Shea was none other than John Kerr!
More than 1 million workers went on strike around Australia over O’Shea’s gaoling and there was a planned ongoing industrial campaign. It was organised and led by a united front of the leaders of the Centre/Left of the Labor Party, the two Australian Communist Parties, and the leaderships and the rank and file of the militant trade unions. The bosses lost a tremendous amount of money and after 6 days in gaol, Clarrie O’Shea was released. A great victory was won. It showed if you take them on, the bosses and conservatives will back off.
The US Imperialists, their subordinate British Imperialists and their allied Local Monopoly Capitalists could have been forced to back off the Whitlam Government removal. The Labor Party needed to trust the people.
For the last 50 years the Labor Party has spent cringing in fear – ‘Don’t upset the Yanks and the British and the local Conservatives’. They are living in fear that they might be removed again. They have learnt to not rock the boat about US Bases in Australia as Whitlam had done. Whitlam had tentatively supported the movement for independence and sovereignty in Australia and the removal of US Bases.
The 1970s was a time of massive rebellion by the people to the bosses and Conservatives – the anti Vietnam War Movement and anti conscription, the Anti US Bases Movement, the struggle for ownership of Australia’s minerals, the wages explosion, the fight for rights and conditions in the workplace, long overdue health and education reforms, women’s rights, Aboriginal land rights, gay and lesbian rights, the struggle for government cultural patronage of the Australian arts etc etc.
The government of Gough Whitlam and Jim Cairns, Deputy Prime Minister, gave some voice to the people’s demands. Even a mildly reformist government caused extreme reaction by the bosses, the media barons and the Establishment.
It’s time to take stock and learn our lessons for the future. We need a United Front of all the workers and allied progressive classes for a truly independent and sovereign Australia.
There is room for unity between sections of the Labor Party and the Communists for a better, independent Australia. A United Front learning from the past to rid Australia of the imperialists headed by the US.
Imagine a free Australia, free from US and British military, political, economic and cultural domination. Imagine a non-aligned foreign policy, brave enough to make our own way, to stand on our own feet, free from the cultural cringe and the shame of bowing to the masters.
In the spirit of Aboriginal Resistance, the Eureka Rebellion, an organised militant working class and a mighty People’s Independence Movement: a new People’s Australia.
