Some journalists took to Twitter today to tell us Mungo MacCallum was dead, but he wasn’t and isn’t.
Still, any excuse to remember one of my favourite Mungo pieces. It appeared in Nation Review on December 27, 1974.
It was a month after Malcolm Fraser had failed to dislodge Bill Snedden from the Liberal leadership. It’s easy to see leadership changes as inevitable in retrospect, but foretelling the future is fraught at the best of times. [Read more…]
Today is the 40th anniversary of the Joint Sitting of the House of Representatives and the Senate, held during the term of the Whitlam Labor government.
The Joint Sitting, the first and only ever held, took place over two days, August 6 and 7, 1974.
Gough Whitlam described the sitting as “a last resort to enable the democratic will of the Australian people to prevail over blind obstruction”.
The proceedings took place in what is now Old Parliament House. They were chaired by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Jim Cope. The Liberal Opposition Leader was Bill Snedden. The Governor-General was the just-appointed Sir John Kerr.
The only member of either house who attended the Joint Sitting and is still serving is Philip Ruddock. Now the member for Berowra, in 1974 he was the 31-year-old Liberal member for Parramatta and still in his first year as a member of the House.
Six bills were submitted to the Joint Sitting, all of which had been first passed by the House of Representatives in 1973, following the election of the Whitlam government. [Read more…]
John Howard became leader of the Liberal Party for the first time at a bizarre meeting of the parliamentary party called to remove him as deputy leader.
The party meeting was called by leader Andrew Peacock in an attempt to remove Howard from the deputy leadership. Peacock had demanded an assurance from Howard that he would not challenge for the leadership but Howard refused to give one.
A contest between Howard and John Moore saw Howard re-elected deputy leader by 38 votes to 31. Peacock then resigned and Howard was elected leader, defeating Jim Carlton by 57 votes to 6. Neil Brown became deputy leader. [Read more…]
The 1972 Federal Election brought to an end 23 years of Liberal-Country Party government that began with Robert Menzies in 1949.
This 22-minute compilation contains radio segments broadcast on the ABC’s “PM” program on November 27, 28 & 29, 1972. [Read more…]
