Steve Price: Anthony Albanese turns Remembrance Day into ‘feel sorry for Gough day’
Anthony Albanese turned the sombre recognition of our war dead into “feel sorry for Gough” day, hijacking November 11 to pay tribute to the worst Prime Minister our country has ever seen.
Anthony Albanese hijacked Remembrance Day on Tuesday this week, turning the sombre recognition of our war dead into “feel sorry for Gough” day.
He may as well declare November 11 Whitlam day, make it an extra public holiday and order all three – or is it four now? – of our flags to be lowered to half-mast.
At a concocted Labor love-in on the eve of Remembrance Day, the Prime Minister even chose to announce his government had – wait for it – commissioned a statue of Whitlam.
Sound familiar?
According to Albanese, this statue of the worst Prime Minister Australia has ever had will be erected in Canberra and not stuck up next to the upcoming statue of the worst Premier Victoria has ever had — the despised Daniel Andrews.
To be fair the PM did turn up to a Remembrance Day ceremony in Canberra along with our new Governor-General Sam Mostyn and opposition leader – for this week at least – Sussan Ley. But you could only surmise the PM returned to his office thinking about 1975, not November 11 in 1918.
He was in year 7 at school in Sydney on that infamous day in 1975 and even remembers the name of his teacher – Vince Crow – and claims the teacher rushed into the classroom shouting “our government has been sacked”.
The bronze statue of Whitlam — according to this new and previously unknown tribute — will stand next to former PM’s Barton, Menzies, Curtin and Chifley, among others. I think he means Whitlam will be added to other statues around Canberra of former politicians and may even end up on the steps of Old Parliament House.
True, it has been 50 years since that explosive day in Australian politics and most of us can remember where we were. But November 11th as Remembrance Day must take precedent over the sacking of a terrible PM — even if Whitlam is a God-like figure in Labor politics.
The Great War claimed the lives of an estimated 60,000 soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force. On the Western Front alone we lost 46,000 men, while another 100,000 – an MCG-sized crowd – were wounded there.
World War I remains our costliest conflict in terms of deaths and casualties. From a population of less than five million people, more than 400,000 men enlisted — fighting in the trenches of Gallipoli as well as the bloody killing fields of France and Belgium.
I’ve walked Anzac Cove and visited the Somme, Bullecourt, Fromelles and Passchendaele, and it’s one of the most defining things you can do in your life. The young heart of a nation was torn out by that war and those who returned were mentally scarred for life, which means we should never forget.
To downgrade November 11 and turn it into a Gough lovefest — as happened this year — shouldn’t be allowed to happen. As a one-off on the 50th anniversary of Sir John Kerr sacking a PM maybe, but the date is too important to be swallowed up in speeches about “calculated plots” and “scheming and pursuit of power” to happen year after year. November 11th and Anzac Day on April 25 must survive as bookends to Australian sacrifice and should be used to educate younger Australians about what those who came before them were prepared to do to maintain our freedoms.
How else can we possibly think that, if Australia has to again call on the young men and women of our nation to put their hands up to defend their country, that they would?
If they have a distorted view of history — which seems to be seeping ever deeper into our school curriculums — do we really think Australians would volunteer in numbers like we saw in those conflicts of the past? It’s hardly likely and makes proper observance of our key historical dates around WW1 and WW11 even more important.
What really annoyed me about this November 11 — and Labor and Albanese’s obsessive attempts to rewrite history — was this claim that Whitlam’s sacking wasn’t proven justified by the election result that followed. How ridiculous a claim is that? The facts show that the PM needs to be called out on it.
Malcolm Fraser agreed to call an election as part of the arrangements with Kerr after being installed as a caretaker PM. The election was held on December 13 in 1975 a month after the dismissal. The result was a complete rebuttal of the four years of the dysfunctional Whitlam government, and they were smashed with the second biggest two-party preferred vote in post-war history.
Fraser won 30 seats from Labor and commanded a 91-36 seat majority, with more than 53 per cent of the vote and a two-party preferred swing of 7.4 to the Coalition.
You must ask, then, how Albanese could this week make the ridiculous claim, “and the result of the election that followed (1975) does not wash any of that (the dismissal) away”.
He went on with this Whitlam adulation and rewrite of history by calling the dismissal a “calculated plot hatched by conservative forces which sacrificed conventions and institutions in the pursuit of power”.
Then he really went overboard, calling the sacking a personal blow to the Labor faithful who had waited decades for the party to return to government. He called previous coalition governments “old suffocating conservatism” that had “reached out of its political grave” to drag down a democratically-elected government.
Clearly in Albanese’s year 7 classes they were shielded from the chaotic disaster Whitlam and his mates had delivered as the worst federal government in living memory.
Inflation had ticked to over 15 per cent and the unemployment rate hit its highest level since the end of WWII. Consumer prices were rising at around 17 per cent annually — the highest jump since the 1950s — with business investment falling three years in a row.
If you had a bank mortgage, you were paying a 10.38 per cent interest rate. And if you were an employer, you were being hit with record wage rises.
Of course, the Labor faithful refuse to accept what a failure Whitlam was and only ever bang on about free university and the start of Medicare — ignoring the damage he was doing to our country.
If you must build his statue and stick it in Canberra’s political triangle, as a symbol of Australians being generous enough to acknowledge his role in Australian political history — fine. But save us the pompous lecturing about how great he was.
And next November 11 let’s concentrate on all those brave Australian men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice for Australia – their lives.
Likes
• National tributes to talkback radio legend John Laws, plus a state funeral – a life well lived.
• The team of buglers in Melbourne’s CBD to mark the 11th hour of the 11th day.
• Belated admission from Premier Jacinta Allan, copying Queensland’s adult crime/adult time laws.
• Princess Anne’s Australian visit. All class — pity about her grubby brother Andrew.
Dislikes
• Federal Liberals needing three meetings to decide whether or not to dump net-zero.
• Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny ignoring local wishes and ramming through a housing project on the old Kingswood golf course.
• Business Council of Australia labelling Victoria the worst state in Australia to do business — what a surprise!
• Organised crime using teenagers to steal cigarettes from petrol stations, letting them keep any cash from the till.
Originally published as Steve Price: Anthony Albanese turns Remembrance Day into ‘feel sorry for Gough day’
Deery: The Allan government’s numbers just don’t add up
