I think you're giving far too much credit to Gough for the demise of Gordon. Don't forget Gordon was a Liberal maverick. He wasn't overly liked by his Liberal Party colleagues in the first place for his Australian patriotic ideals which were more Labor orientated than Liberal. Likewise McMahon pretty much hated Gordon -especially in the light that Gordon came down from the Senate in order to become PM at the expense of McMahon in 1968. So it's probably fairer to say, it wasn't Gough who did Gordon in but his own party who decided to crucify him. Needless to say Gordon left the Liberals a few year later & ran as an independent.
I think Gorton's leaving the Liberals wasn't so much ideological as that he really, really hated Fraser--who, after all, began the crisis that offed him as leader.
Similarly again I'd dare say you're giving far too much credit to Gough for the death of Holt. Whatever really happened to Holt, his motivations for that swim on that fateful day, we'll never really know, but if it was suicide I don't think you can blame the pressures coming from Gough which caused Holt to off himself.
I certainly wasn't implying suicide--merely that he was preoccupied, and thus distracted, and thus...well, I just thought it was an interesting butterfly. Six months without Gough could change anything on the political scene.
And this would ensure the ALP would stay in the political wilderness for several years, although to be fair, when the ALP came to power in 1972, Carins was rather popular with the general public in his own right. It's just that during his time in government he managed to shoot himself, & just about everyone else connected to him, in the foot & then some. In other words the idiotic side of Carins came out after the ALP won the election & not before. So that, in itself, shouldn't have any baring prior to the 1972 election, unless as leader he repeats his OTL antics when in government, albeit as Opposition Leader in your scenario here.
Well...Cairns' actions weren't just one-off, they were the result of deep-seated aspects of his personality. The individualism, the 'alternative lifestyles', the unorthodoxy, the...weirdness...I think that popular or not, a self-destruction would just be a matter of time. Brilliance manifests itself in many ways, and unfortunately for Cairns it came out as...well, selling books in a Melbourne flea market.
Now these are very astute observations which I completely agree with. And add to this list is no Constitutional Crisis. Still, I can't see Hawke becoming leader in 1972 or 75. There's a chance in 1977, but I doubt it. 1980 though is possible.
Actually, having no Whitlam as a martyr would be
very interesting. We Aussies do love our martyrs, don't we? No 'Whitlam industry' could completely change how the Australian left look at ourselves. Without Whitlam's reforms in the 1960s, the ALP would remain a very Calwellian body--socially conservative, anti-state aid to private schools, very linked to the unions, and probably more left-wing in general. For the ALP to ever regain power,
someone needed to reform the organisation--and that person will
not be Cairns, for a whole bunch of reasons. In fact, this raises the very interesting possibility that a John Gorton-led Liberal Party, against a socially conservative, democratic socialist Labor Party, could be much more 'progressive' in many respects.
And I'll grant your points on Hawke--still too young, still too inexperienced. That leaves what, Kim Beazley senior or Fred Daly to take over once Cairns Cairns out?
On another point, what happens to an expelled Whitlam?
