It's Time: The Passing of Caring Cancerian Gough Whitlam

Gough Whitlam with Little Pattie (It's Time Australian Labor Party campaign, 1972 Australian federal election)

 

‘Dying will happen sometime. As you know, I plan for the ages, not just for this life’ – Gough Whitlam, 11 July 1916 to 21 October 2014

The passing of Edward Gough Whitlam, on 21 October 2014 at the age of ninety-eight, has divided the nation into Gough enthusiasts and detractors while generating a tumult of emotions from both camps - an almost spooky re-enactment of the 1975 Dismissal. Whatever the triumphs or shortfalls of his government were, it’s difficult to dispute Whitlam’s role in our country’s development. 

In its three short years (1972 to 1975), the Labor government under Whitlam activated the policies that engineered social change, dragging Australia into the modern era. Those who remember a pre-Whitlam Australia can recall a dreary and insular period of social conservatism engineered by the Menzies government in the 1950s. Australia bypassed the 1960s altogether. While hippies experienced free love and wore flowers in their hair in San Francisco and other parts of the world, Australia was comfortably slumbering in a social and cultural coma.

To give a clearer picture, 1960s Australia went something like this:

• Left wing political movements were under routine surveillance
• James Joyce’s novel Ulysses and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov were banned
• Australian film and music industries didn't exist as such
• Creatives such as Germaine Greer, Clive James, Barry Humphries, Brett Whitley, Olivia Newtown John, the Bee Gees, and the Easybeats left the country to gain recognition elsewhere
• Contraceptive pill was only available to married women
• Abortion was illegal
• Single mothers, homosexuals and lesbians were ostracised from mainstream society
• Women and children abused in toxic nuclear families were invisible and lived lives of quiet desperation
• Women in general were treated as second class citizens and were denied the social and financial opportunities gifted to men
• Indigenous and new Australians (Italians, Greeks, Lebanese) were low on the social and political rung (Aboriginal land rights were not recognised and indigenous people did not have the vote)

Need I go on?

By the early 1970s, social change was inevitable. The Labor party's 1972 campaign’s catchphrase It’s Time adds up to 32/5, which signals a shift in consciousness. Whitlam was extolled as an Agent of Change (Uranus bi-quintile the Ascendant/Uranus quintile Jupiter on the Midheaven/Moon semi-square Pluto). A psychically loaded birthdate – 11 July – expresses Messiah-like qualities. Such was his persona that he was applauded for introducing reforms that were already in place, such as no-fault divorce and the removal of troops from Vietnam. 

A mythological figure with a penchant for cherishing ideals that weren’t always practical, Whitlam reached for a higher ground (first house Neptune square Jupiter on the Midheaven). An influential 26/8 life path denotes a visionary leader of Roman God proportions with the ability to direct the Australian Labor Party out of the wilderness of twenty-three years of conservative rule.

A Stellium of planets in Cancer (Sun, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Pluto) indicates a strong humanitarian streak. Whitlam was genuinely interested in and concerned about people. He cared deeply and intensely about his country, and had the ability to regenerate it (Scorpio Moon as chart ruler in the fourth house). A fourth house Scorpio Moon can dramatically end certain life phases, as illustrated by the dismissal of Whitlam’s government on 11 November 1975 (transiting Sun eclipsed his natal Moon). Altruism is expressed via the Jupiter conjunct Midheaven quintile Uranus aspect:

‘In spite of repeated disappointments, he never lost that faith in humanity. This, above all, made him such an attractive human being’ – Mungo MacCallum, political journalist

A highly physical Taurus in Jupiter sits on the Midheaven. Liberal frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull states that what people remember most about Whitlam is ‘a bigness, a generosity, an enormous optimism’. Indeed, at 194 centremetres, he was an inescapable human tower of power and fortitude. Smugness is often associated with this aspect. Modesty was never Gough Whitlam’s strong point:

‘He was someone who, whether in a small room … or at a public event, everyone else seemed to fade to black and white, while this giant of a man – physically, intellectually – appeared in full colour and dominated wherever he was’ – Anthony Albanese, Labor politician.

To list and elaborate on the changes brought about by the Whitlam government would require a sizeable amount of blog space. But I do want to mention Whitlam’s commitment to culture (Stellium in Cancer/Venus conjunct Pluto/Venus sextile Jupiter-Midheaven) because it’s one of those formative things that shaped me as a young person, especially the birth of one of his more exciting ventures, that of a youth radio station in 1975 - Double J (now Triple J). 

Idealistic young Australians in the late 1970s and 1980s enjoyed the opportunity to form bands and develop their craft free from exorbitant financial constraints. Punk rock, with its anti-establishment philosophy, gained momentum in the mid-1970s as both a musical genre and a lifestyle choice. This newly found DIY culture influenced kids from the suburbs to create some of Australia’s most innovative and experimental music. Double J was instrumental in giving this underground scene a voice. In retrospect, it’s difficult to believe that the following bands – some of them considered unlistenable – were given air time:

 

~ Severed Heads ~ Tactics ~ Boys Next Door ~ The Birthday Party ~ Radio Birdman ~ The Scientists ~ The Saints ~ SPK ~ The Riptides ~ Machinations ~ Laughing Clowns ~ The Triffids ~ Go Betweens ~ David Virgin ~ Primitive Calculators ~ The Stems ~ Died Pretty ~ Sekret Sekret ~ Sardine ~ Do Re Mi ~ X ~ Eastern Dark ~ Wet Taxis ~ Celibate Rifles ~ The Sunnyboys ~ Cosmic Pyschos ~ The Hard-Ons ~ The Plunderers ~ Pel Mel ~ Mark of Cain ~ La Femme ~ The Riptides ~ Makers of the Dead Travel Fast ~ The Numbers ~ Toys Went Berserk ~ The Moodists ~ Box of Fish ~ Scared Cowboys ~ XL Capris ~ TISM ~ Whirlywirld ~ The Whitlams (of course) …

Love or hate him, it’s almost impossible to feel indifferent about Gough Whitlam. His government certainly had its flaws but it always pushed the boundaries of stifling conservatism. He envisioned Australia as a progressive, exciting and benevolent society where equality of opportunity belonged to everyone.

Vale, Gough.

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