"Well May We Say...": Australia without Gough Whitlam

Meko

Banned
Late 1915: A different sperm fertilises an egg.

July 11, 1916: the Whitlam's welcome a baby girl, Catherine Marie Whitlam

I'm new to this so where should I take it from here?

Do people want to see the life of the alternate female Whitlam or should I concentrate on how Australia at large is different without Gough?
 

Cook

Banned
I’ve always suspected that Margaret Whitlam was just Gough dressed in drag anyway.

I’ve yet to see them both in the same room at the same time so am convinced it’s all a Sir Les / Dame Edna game.
:p
 
I'm new to this so where should I take it from here?

Do people want to see the life of the alternate female Whitlam or should I concentrate on how Australia at large is different without Gough?

Try to have it both ways! Interested to see how this turns out.
 
It would be highly likely that Labor would win in 1972 if they managed to pull together a campaign against the anemic McMahon and his divided party who had been in power for twenty three years. Depending on who gets the Labor leadership will determine what happens.

Certainly the ALP will not be reformed in the way it did and will still retain much of its "socialist" legacy policies. Therefore left candidates, such as Jim Cairns might take the leadership.
 
I've been tempted to post something like this, but the problem with 'No Whitlam' is it's really a bunch of different PoDs, i.e. What-If No Whitlam in the Fifties, What-If No Whitlam in the Early Sixties, What-If No Whitlam in the Mid Sixties, etc.

Okay, no Whitlam at all is the most definitive version of the question.

Assuming everything goes the same until the late fifties*, then in my mind the first big difference is there will be another Stop Eddie Ward candidate in the partyroom caucus ballot to replace Arthur Calwell as deputy leader when Calwell succeeds Evatt for the top job. It could be the elder Crean, the elder Beazley, or Lance Barnard, as they all did seek the position. Maybe none of them can be successful as Whitlam was (he won by a vote or two).

Eddie Ward being elected deputy leader in 1960 is a big thing for the ALP, and will cause all sorts of changes, regardless of the fact he's dead in three years time. This is akin to Tony Benn becoming deputy leader of British Labour in the eighties, it's that controversial.

However, in OTL Whitlam's run for deputy leader was basically sponsored by the two leading ALP senators, Pat Kenneally and Nick McKenna. Gough being from Sydney & being on good terms with the NSW Right was his main appeal to them when it came to looking for a Stop Eddie candidate. I think it's entirely possible those two powerbrokers just decide to get somone into the HoR at the 1958 federal election from NSW, someone whom they can then back as an ATL Whitlam when the time comes. Nelson Lemmon, an ex-minister in the Chifley govenment who moved from WA to NSW in order to seek a new seat in parliament, he would be the most likely choice.

Certainly the ALP will not be reformed in the way it did and will still retain much of its "socialist" legacy policies. Therefore left candidates, such as Jim Cairns might take the leadership.

Gough's internal party reforms had nowt to do with Labor's socialist objective, they were all purely to do with replacing one group of people with another group of people in the party's councils. The fact the people losing power tended to view themselves as the greatest defenders of the party's objectives (including the socialist one, though that was really secondary to other things that concerned them) is where Gough's anti-Left reputation comes from.

And when he finally got to form a government there was something for everyone in the ALP, and most of the Left basically forgot the huge ideological chasm that kind of existed between him and them.



*I do believe in the butterfly effect, but okay, very few people here do. So I grant the handwave that everything goes the same way until EG Whitlam became an historical figure of some little importance, which would be when he became deputy leader of the Opposition.
 
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