Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Whitlam, Connor and their dismissals

By David Flint - posted Tuesday, 7 February 2006


In an opinion piece, “Lingering riddle of big Rex's downfall,” in the Daily Telegraph (2/2/06), Malcolm Farr asked the question: who misled whom in 1975 - Whitlam or Connor?

The official line was that Rex Connor had been forced to resign as minister for minerals and energy because he had disobeyed an instruction to cease negotiations for a huge loan, and had misled Prime Minister Gough Whitlam who then had inadvertently misled parliament.

This became the “reprehensible” behaviour which Malcolm Fraser had earlier warned would compel him to use the senate to deny supply. This would trigger the early election which Gough Whitlam and Lionel Murphy had long and often argued was constitutionally mandated.

Advertisement

The loans affair had involved the government in extraordinary negotiations with one Tirath Khemlani, whom Farr describes as a “shifty” Pakistani who worked “on the fringes of respectable money-raising”, and who was subsequently jailed for financial crime in the US.

It was beyond any rational understanding why the government avoided all legitimate avenues for such massive long term fund-raising for development purposes. The reason may have been in Attorney General Lionel Murphy’s notorious legal advice that the loan was for “short-term purposes”. This was to avoid Loan Council involvement, where the states would be involved. Going through a carpetbagger may have been seen as another way of ensuring that the states could not be involved.

The annual release of the relevant Cabinet papers under the 30-year rule should have thrown some light on these events. However, this is obfuscated by the increasingly bizarre practice of the National Archives Authority to turn this event into a platform for yet another of Mr E.G. Whitlam’s unpersuasive apologiae for the behaviour of what John Stone has called the worst and most incompetent government ever elected.

This is the third year in a row that the archives have allowed Mr Whitlam to demonstrate his undoubted thespian abilities.

As Ian Moore says in The Australian, (3/1/06), “Documents must speak for themselves”. This does “nothing to assert the objectivity of the presentation or provide an independent view of contemporary political history. Whitlam, however, managed to put us straight on one thing. If he was delusional in 1975, the condition remains untreated.”

The original approval for the borrowings was given, as Sir David Smith says, at an “irregular and possibly invalid” meeting of the Federal Executive Council on December 13, 1974 held in the absence of the governor-general. Sir David believes the planning for the meeting was kept from the governor-general.

Advertisement

This meeting and its extraordinary aftermath was the subject of a piece in The Australian (2/1/06) by John Stone, "Trials and tribulations of our worst cabinet".

He points out that the original amount of the proposed borrowing, $US4 billion, exceeded the then combined foreign debt of all Australian governments.

He reminds us of the obvious fact, which seems to have escaped the ministers, that you could not place any such authorisation in the hands of “a creature such as Khemlani” without international banks soon seeing it shopped around the world.

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

20 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

David Flint is a former chairman of the Australian Press Council and the Australian Broadcasting Authority, is author of The Twilight of the Elites, and Malice in Media Land, published by Freedom Publishing. His latest monograph is Her Majesty at 80: Impeccable Service in an Indispensable Office, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, Sydney, 2006

Other articles by this Author

All articles by David Flint

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of David Flint
Article Tools
Comment 20 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Latest from Australians for Constitutional Monarchy
 The formidable Fred Nile prevails: premier concedes
 Prorogue then intimidate
 The ‘Utegate’ affair and the constitution
 ETS: emissions trading scheme or energy tax swindle?
 Information and media manipulation par excellence
 More...
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy