A Different Australia - a wikibox TL

The election of 1966 was held only months after the assassination of the Labor party leader, Arthur Calwell. His successor, Gough Whitlam, began a rapid programme of party modernisation, abandoning the most controversial Labor policies, particularly the White Australia policy.
The Liberal party also had new leadership in the form of Harold Holt. Under Holt the Liberal party remained relatively united, and with a strong economy, and relatively popular military intervention in Vietnam, the government was always likely to be re-elected.



As expected, the Coalition government was re-elected, but suffered a significant swing against it. Whitlam was judged to have run an effective campaign, and Labor hopes were high for 1969.

The 1969 election centred heavily on the two party Leaders, Gough Whitlam and John Gorton. Gorton inherited a small but workable majority in parliament from his predecessor, the late Harold Holt. However Gorton's policies and personality alienated many more conservative Liberal voters, and the Vietnam war, which in 1966 had been relatively popular with the public was now much more controversial. Whitlam on the other hand had modernised his party, abandoning old and outdated policies, such as the White Australia policy, and the ideological commitment to socialism.



The election was seen as a major realigning election, as it ended the long period of Liberal hegemony in Canberra, and ushered in a new reforming Labor government. After 20 years in power, many Australians simply wanted a change....and change they got.

The first Whitlam government (1969-72) was amongst the most reforming and radical in Australian history.
In Foreign Affairs Whitlam secured the withdrawal of Australian troops from Vietnam, narrowly within the July 1st 1970 deadline he set upon coming to power. In 1971 Whitlam became the first western leader to visit communist China, pre-empting a visit by US President Nixon. Conscription was also abolished in 1971.
In 1971 the government held a referendum on whether to abolish the Senate, turning Australia into a unicameral system similar to New Zealand. Whitlam insisted that the "House of Representatives should be invested with the full democratic powers of the federal government, and end the impasse of a potentially obstructive Senate". Contrary to predictions, the referendum narrowly passed and the Senate was abolished.
However it was in domestic policy where the Whitlam government was most radical, abolishing University fees, establishing the Australian schools commission and abolishing the death penalty. The government also began a series of Urban development projects, and via a referendum brought the Railways under federal government control.
But it was the creation of the National Healthcare System (NHS) that proved the most popular and expansive of the Whitlam government's reforms, providing free healthcare at the point of delivery (either through health insurance or federal/state run hospitals) paid for through taxation.

Meanwhile in opposition the Liberal/Country coalition proved incoherent and divided. The Liberal party split between supporters of John Gorton (who resigned the leadership before all the results had been declared in 1969), and William McMahon. The split ran bitter and deep, and McMahon was regularly outflanked by Whitlam in parliament, and was a poor media performer.

In August 1972 Whitlam called an election, running on his government's record, and claiming McMahon was "not yesterday's man...the day before yesterday's man". As the Senate was to cease to exist following the election, the House of Representatives was expanded by 16 seats.



Whitlam was re-elected in a landslide with majority of 31 seats.

bumpy bump

shame im never up to post an update when people down under are up.

AdmiralBlake said:

bumpy bump

shame im never up to post an update when people down under are up.

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Don't you worry Admiral. We're here and we're watching.

JamesG said:

Don't you worry Admiral. We're here and we're watching.

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that's alright then, next update coming soon

I see I've got a copycat thread.

Question- are you using some kind of extension to make your infoboxes fit your screen if they're too big? Because they would look better (and not be quite as difficult to read) if you copy+pasted it together in MS Paint or some such program instead.

Abolishing the Senate is ASB. The Coalition *would* oppose the referendum, as would the small states.

Frances said:

Abolishing the Senate is ASB. The Coalition *would* oppose the referendum, as would the small states.

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it is pretty ASB, but its the only way I can get the timeline to progress without having to calculate half senate elections, double dissolutions, senate terms, etc, etc... having an election every three years is bad enough.

I did toy with the idea of a referendum on simultaneous elections being passed, but if I did that the same thing would happen to the Whitlam government as it did OTL, Coalition would block supply and an early election in 1974/5 with Fraser winning or Whitlam would be dismissed.

this way I can make elections simple, and decisive, and also have some major butterflies.

lord caedus said:

I see I've got a copycat thread.

Question- are you using some kind of extension to make your infoboxes fit your screen if they're too big? Because they would look better (and not be quite as difficult to read) if you copy+pasted it together in MS Paint or some such program instead.

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id wanted to do one for a while, Canadiantory did a great wikibox thread a while ago, but yours did encourage me to actually do it, yep

I know the resolution for the infoboxes is terrible, at the moment what im doing is:
filling in all the info in a wikibox
printscreening, pasting into word, and cropping
inserting the new politician portraits over the old ones
printscreening, and cropping and making it the same size as its predecessors
copy and pasting that into Paint
saving into pictures, then posting it through Imgur

if anyones having trouble reading the figures, I can summarise every once in a while.

AdmiralBlake said:

id wanted to do one for a while, Canadiantory did a great wikibox thread a while ago, but yours did encourage me to actually do it, yep

I know the resolution for the infoboxes is terrible, at the moment what im doing is:
filling in all the info in a wikibox
printscreening, pasting into word, and cropping
inserting the new politician portraits over the old ones
printscreening, and cropping and making it the same size as its predecessors
copy and pasting that into Paint
saving into pictures, then posting it through Imgur

if anyones having trouble reading the figures, I can summarise every once in a while.

Click to expand...

Wait, why are you doing this? Just post it in MS Paint and keep it the same size as it was when you printscreen'd it. You'll have to paste the infobox together if it's too big to get in one go, but it will look better and you won't have to run Word at all.

lord caedus said:

Wait, why are you doing this? Just post it in MS Paint and keep it the same size as it was when you printscreen'd it. You'll have to paste the infobox together if it's too big to get in one go, but it will look better and you won't have to run Word at all.

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because im a noob.

if I paste it into paint I don't know how to insert the new leader portraits on top of the old ones, if theres a way to do that ill do it. Ive already done the '75 election, which ill put up later tonight.

AdmiralBlake said:

because im a noob.

if I paste it into paint I don't know how to insert the new leader portraits on top of the old ones, if theres a way to do that ill do it. Ive already done the '75 election, which ill put up later tonight.

Click to expand...

Um, the easy way to put them on is to paste them over the placeholder images.

You might need to re-size the pictures either in Paint (in a different file than the infobox you're working on) or in something like GIMP or Photoshop to fit in the space the placeholders occupy.

lord caedus said:

Um, the easy way to put them on is to paste them over the placeholder images.

You might need to re-size the pictures either in Paint (in a different file than the infobox you're working on) or in something like GIMP or Photoshop to fit in the space the placeholders occupy.

Click to expand...

ahh right, ok I think ive got it. Ive already done the '75 election, but when I do the '78 election tomorrow ill try and see if I can just do it all in paint

I can see the smaller states raising merry hell about the abolition of the senate and its affects on them.

The Second Whitlam government (1972-75) was dominated by the first oil shock.
At first it appeared as though Australia would make it through the crisis unscathed, but by early 1974 it was clear that inflation and unemployment were on the increase. As a response the government introduced the so called Big Bang project, of massive federal investment in infrastructure and harnessing Australia's natural resources. Big Bang, although initially successful at reducing unemployment, proved incredibly expensive, and the 1974-75 federal budget recorded a record deficit.
Also in 1974 the government came to an accord with the ACTU, led by Bob Hawke, with regard to fixing wage increases in an attempt to reduce inflation.
By the time the 1975 election came around, unemployment was running at nearly 5%, and inflation was also high. The Liberal Party was confident that it could significantly reduce the massive Labor majority in parliament, and perhaps even win back government.
The 1975 election was also the first to feature a televised Leaders debate between Whitlam and the Liberal leader Billy Snedden, millions tuned in to watch, and Whitlam's strong performance has been credited with preventing Labor from losing more seats than it did.



The Whitlam government was re-elected, but its majority was almost halved to 17.

johnboy said:

I can see the smaller states raising merry hell about the abolition of the senate and its affects on them.

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as I said above, abolition the senate is pretty ASB, but I decided to go down that route just to help the story progress

I suppose smaller states would be miffed, but would be happy to receive more federal funding for infrastructure projects.

How are the states reacting? The likes of conservative Premiers Askins, Bjelke-Peterse and Bolte/Hamer will throw everything in their arsenals to try and bring Whitlam down now. It's going to get ugly real quick and as soon as the Coalition take back Canberra (at some point) they are going to dismantle Whitlam's legacy with no upper house to stop them.

Given you've said the Big Bang project goes ahead, does that mean that they managed to finance it from the petro-dollars in the Middle East like OTLs scheme (providing of course you believe that Khemlani was telling the truth) or they use some other broker to get Middle East money?

Also, if the governments pumping that much money into the economy, that's going to send inflation up. Whilst I don't disagree that Hawke would be able to negotiate a wages accord, he's gambling a lot on the government getting it right and fairly quickly, otherwise his political career won't get very far if he's seen as
a sellout by the unions.

Also, 5% unemployment is pretty low considering historic labour force trends with the unemployment only really dipping below 5% during the peak of the mining construction boom years of the mid noughties.

Interesting to see where this goes.

Colonel Grubb said:

How are the states reacting? The likes of conservative Premiers Askins, Bjelke-Peterse and Bolte/Hamer will throw everything in their arsenals to try and bring Whitlam down now. It's going to get ugly real quick and as soon as the Coalition take back Canberra (at some point) they are going to dismantle Whitlam's legacy with no upper house to stop them.

Given you've said the Big Bang project goes ahead, does that mean that they managed to finance it from the petro-dollars in the Middle East like OTLs scheme (providing of course you believe that Khemlani was telling the truth) or they use some other broker to get Middle East money?

Also, if the governments pumping that much money into the economy, that's going to send inflation up. Whilst I don't disagree that Hawke would be able to negotiate a wages accord, he's gambling a lot on the government getting it right and fairly quickly, otherwise his political career won't get very far if he's seen as
a sellout by the unions.

Also, 5% unemployment is pretty low considering historic labour force trends with the unemployment only really dipping below 5% during the peak of the mining construction boom years of the mid noughties.

Interesting to see where this goes.

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Sir Joh will be very, very mad. As for most of the other states, they will be happy for receiving infrastructure projects from the federal government

the whole loans affair has been butterflied away, as this Whitlam government is more technocratic, there is no rush to implement all these radical policies in a single term.

yes, there will be very high inflation. Ill try and mention more about Whitlam's economic travails in the '78 election post.

that's true, but remember from 1949-1972 Aus unemployment levels were consistently under 2%.

ok, sorry this hasn't been updated in a shamefully long time

ive decided to take a break from it, I will come back to it in a few months, but decided that this didn't get off to a great start, particularly abolishing the senate (which has made a pretty plausible timeline completely ASB).