TRIBUTES are rolling in as Armidale remembers the life of Australia’s 21st prime minister Gough Whitlam after he died yesterday, aged 98.
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Armidale’s Thelma McCarthy was a close family friend of the Whitlams, meeting Mr Whitlam in 1942 when he was in the Royal Australian Air Force.
“The squadron came to Canberra and that is where I met him. He was in the same squadron as my late husband [Bill McCarthy] and they were close friends.”
Mr Whitlam joined the RAAF in May 1942 when he underwent training as a navigator bomb-aimer. In 1943 he was posted in the No.13 squadron.
Mrs McCarthy said even back then he was charismatic and charming.
“I thought he was gorgeous. I was quiet short and he was so tall. I said to my daughter they used to call me Babe but he still called me Babe until recently.
“He always had a commanding presence and my husband said even when they were up north he would hold political rallies about conscription.”
She said it had been a very sad day for her after she heard the news but was very proud hearing all the tributes made by politicians past and present, and was “very impressed” by the generous remarks made by Malcolm Fraser, who replaced Mr Whitlam as prime minister on November 11, 1975.
I thought he was gorgeous. I was quiet short and he was so tall ... they used to call me Babe but he still called me Babe until recently
- Thelma McCarthy
“He always had a very good sense of humour. I was there at his 80th birthday and he received messages from leaders from all over the world.
“He got a message from the prime minister of Great Britain but he didn’t get a message from George W Bush.
“He said [Mr Bush] probably couldn’t spell Gough.” She said he often visited her and her husband in Armidale, his last visit being about 10 years ago for her 80th birthday.
Meanwhile, Labor party members in the city are remembering Mr Whitlam as an inspiring icon of politics, as well as the party.
Armidale Dumaresq deputy mayor Herman Beyersdorf met Mr Whitlam during the 1969 election campaign when he visited the University of New England.
“I was 21 at the time ... [but] it was in the 1972 campaign I was really inspired by him.”
Northern Tablelands Labor candidate in the forthcoming state election Debra O’Brien said she went to university because of Mr Whitlam.
“There was a great seismic shift in that period because his policies were about the community and helped the disadvantaged ... I really came of age during this era and he was why I joined the Labor party and why I came to Armidale.”
Leave your tributes in the comment section below.
- Universal healthcare through the introduction of Medibank, the precursor to Medicare
- Free university education
- Fairer funding between private and government schools
- Aboriginal land rights
- Introducing the Racial Discrimination Act
- Withdrawing from the Vietnam War
- Abolishing military conscription
- Establishing relationships with China
- Making Advance Australia Fair the national anthem
- Introducing of ‘no fault divorces’ through the Family Law Act
- “Well may we say ‘God save the Queen’, because nothing will save the Governor-General. The Proclamation which you have just heard read by the Governor-General’s Official Secretary was countersigned Malcolm Fraser, who will undoubtedly go down in Australian history from Remembrance Day 1975 as Kerr’s cur.”
- “Let me make quite clear that I am for abortion and, in your case Sir, we should make it retrospective.”
- “We would do absolutely nothing. Now that’s a blunt, truthful answer.”
- “I was profoundly embarrassed by it and did all I could to change it.”
- "Maintain your rage and enthusiasm."
- “When government makes opportunities for any of the citizens, it makes them for all the citizens. We are all diminished as citizens when any of us are poor. Poverty is a national waste as well as individual waste. We are all diminished when any of us are denied proper education. The nation is the poorer – a poorer economy, a poorer civilisation, because of this human and national waste.”
- “Vincent Lingiari, I solemnly hand to you these deeds as proof, in Australian law, that these lands belong to the Gurindji people and I put into your hands part of the earth itself as a sign that this land will be the possession of you and your children forever.”
- “The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race.”