It’s party time! Here’s how to celebrate the end of Australia’s worst Labor government ever

Look ahead to a jumpin’ Australia-wide jamboree the likes of which we haven’t enjoyed for decades. Look ahead to the glorious 50th anniversary of Gough Whitlam’s dismissal, writes Tim Blair

Everybody is celebrating something. Everybody except Australia.

The US is celebrating the 250th anniversary of its armed forces. Insane leftists are simultaneously celebrating their latest conspiracy theory, which is that time-travelling US President Donald Trump wickedly arranged for his own birthday to fall on the same date as the military’s founding.

Israel is celebrating its latest victory over the forces of ignorant and primitive anti-Jewish fanaticism. Let’s not make this all about our friends in the Greens, though. Israel also landed a punch or two on Iran.

And South Africans are celebrating not choking for once in a cricket final. Good for them. Although Kyle Verreynne did kind of choke a little bit right at the end there.

Members of the American Military University march in the 250th birthday parade for the U.S. Army on June 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. Picture: Getty Images via AFP

But here we are in Australia with nothing to party about. Nothing at all.

Except that we do! In the absence of any immediate celebratory events, we’ve simply got to plan well in advance.

So lock your festive peepers on, everybody, and look ahead to November 11.

South Africa fans celebrate during day 4 of the ICC World Test Championship, final match between South Africa and Australia at Lords Cricket Ground on June 14, 2025. Picture: Getty Images

Look ahead to a jumpin’ Australia-wide jamboree the likes of which we haven’t enjoyed for decades.

Look ahead to the glorious 50th anniversary of Gough Whitlam’s stupid government being thrown out of office way back in 1975.

I know of at least one formal black-tie affair currently in the works to commemorate our wondrous de-Goughing, but there’s no need for anything too elaborate. Just follow these handy tips and you’ll throw a Gough’s-gone knees-up that’s guaranteed to impress the whole neighbourhood.

Even that sad couple at number 16. The ones who bought the BYD.

First, set a proper 1975 scene. It won’t be difficult, because all you need for a 1970s party is to drag out all the same costumes and decorations you used for 1970s parties in the 2010s, 2000s, 1990s and 1980s.

During Australia's constitutional crisis of 1975, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam addresses reporters outside the Parliament building in Canberra after his dismissal by Australia's Governor-General. Picture: Getty Images

(One guaranteed icebreaker: ask attendees when they first went to a 1970s party. Mine was in 1984. Some guests didn’t even need fancy dress.)

Make sure you’ve teed up a decent mid-70s playlist. If you don’t have time, just hold your party next to an elderly care facility. They play all the hits, and – due to hearing assistance devices being so easily mislaid – they play them LOUD.

But this shouldn’t be a generic 70s occasion. You need politics. By which I mean pointing and laughing at left-wing politics, and ripping into St Gough himself.

Invite lots of Vietnamese, because Whitlam hated them. His government’s foreign minister, Don Willesee, urged Whitlam to accept South Vietnamese refugees who were fleeing communist tyranny, but holy Gough wouldn’t cop it.

“I’m not having these f--king Vietnamese Balts coming into the country with their religious and political prejudices against us,” Whitlam told his cabinet, according to Labor colleague Clyde Cameron.

Gough Whitlam’s former Cabramatta home, a fair bit more modest than Anthony Albanese’s Cenral Coast spread.

By “us”, Whitlam didn’t mean Australians. He meant Labor. That’s how small he was.

Of course, a few Labor types may turn up to defend their pompous loser god, making the usual worshipful claims about Whitlam connecting Western Sydney to a plumbed sewerage system.

Well, of course he did. Whitlam needed all of those thousands of extra toilets because that’s where he put Australia’s future.

Speaking of spectacular dunny-based Labor progress, future Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrote this in 2021, about Whitlam’s election 49 years earlier: “He’d go on to to create universal healthcare, support equal pay, make school funding fairer, deliver the Racial Discrimination Act, hand land back to its traditional owners, and lift Australians out of poverty.”

Note the “to to create”.

Gough could apparently do everything, but death rendered him tragically unable to proofread Albo’s online staffer love notes.

An early photo of Gough Whitlam and Anthony Albanese.

As for handing land back to its traditional owners, the PM owns more Australian real estate than Bennelong probably ever saw – and so far he hasn’t handed back a single square centimetre of it.

Come on, Albo. Get with Gough’s program. Gift-wrap that Central Coast love shack and return it to our First Nation peoples.

But back to our party. Fancy dress should be encouraged, but think beyond the usual wide ties and sideburns.

Rock up in full Norman Gunston gear, shaving cuts and all, because Norman was there and being hilarious on the Parliament House steps in 1975. Bob Hawke was absolutely furious with him, making it all the more amusing.

Party hosts are obliged to serve steak, and vegan guests are obliged to eat it, on account of Whitlam ordering a steak lunch after being informed of his dismissal by Governor-General Sir John Kerr.

It’s important to stick with the known facts. Probably means you’ll have no lefty guests, then.
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