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K Rudd's reign (2.0)

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Runner

Nev Cottrell (35)
The Pink Batts thing will be forgotten very, very soon. It was a storm in a teacup.

Sadly four people died during the rollout. From what I have read, the rate of accidents was not really any higher than what ordinarily happens in the industry. It was just the fact that the rate of installations was many times higher than what would happen in a normal year.

Unfortunately accidents in the workplace are all too common.

We will see if the letters and statements that warned of the deaths before they occurred but ignored come to light. Then that is a completely different situation.

Like Whitlam denied for decades that he or Australian officials new about the reporters deaths in Indonesia. He has lived long enough to see that lie exposed.
 

Ruggo

Mark Ella (57)
Perhaps. I think pink batts, carbon tax made up on a plane trip to WA and the assorted other wonderous failures will be what comics and folks will remember. Oh and the hair issue.


Only in your memory me thinks Runner.
 

Runner

Nev Cottrell (35)
PM's legacy's are rarely remembered for the bad in general. History tends to wash some things away. Take Menzies for example. It is just the way it is.

Ask Billy McMahon or Whitlam.

With media files now in history archives and everyone in the ALP going on record as to how bad Rudd/Gillard?Rudd was I suspect a different set of memories will evolve here.
 

Ruggo

Mark Ella (57)
You have your head in the clouds if you think Whitlam's legacy is not positive.

Give it time as history takes time. A bit longer than a few years mate. It is only now that the era of the Howard government is starting to be washed clean.
 

Runner

Nev Cottrell (35)
You have your head in the clouds if you think Whitlam's legacy is not positive.

Give it time as history takes time. A bit longer than a few years mate. It is only now that the era of the Howard government is starting to be washed clean.

Whitlam was 40 years ago. Who could forget Cairns and Marosi, Dr Kamlani and his hot money-- make Obed look honoest.

I will remember the shambles they were till Rudd/Dillard/Rudd came along evermore
I suspect that with the visual and written record of ALP leaders who think it was a shambles available, that history will be unkind.
 

Ruggo

Mark Ella (57)
Whitlam - This is his legacy Runner. The stuff that stands the test of time.

  • Withdrawal of troops from Vietnam
  • Medibank.
  • Universal Tertiary education access.
  • Indigenous rights advancement.
You don't see this because you demonstrate the average lack of peripheral vision that conservatives demonstrate.
 

Runner

Nev Cottrell (35)
Whitlam - This is his legacy Runner. The stuff that stands the test of time.

  • Withdrawal of troops from Vietnam
  • Medibank.
  • Universal Tertiary education access.
  • Indigenous rights advancement.
You don't see this because you demonstrate the average lack of peripheral vision that conservatives demonstrate.


Troopers already on way home before Whitlam won.
Medicare removed the incentive for people to not use hospital for trivial colds flu etc and has caused the difficulties in emergency wards as people think it free as Whitlam said it was.
Uni worked really well everyone went and failed it cost millions. Keating fixed part of the with HEC
Indigenous gave us the sit down mentality that Noel Pearson and other think is a blight on his people.

Not blinked, peripheral vision etc -- conservatism perhaps but that doesn't make it wrong.
 

Lindommer

Steve Williams (59)
Staff member
Ruggo, there are two events concerning Whitlam which are incorrectly quoted ad nauseam: he didn't come back from his European tour immediately after Cyclone Tracy and he pulled the Australian troops out of Vietnam. The facts: Gough DID fly back from Europe to inspect the damage from Tracy, and he DIDN'T bring our troops back from Vietnam. To be fair to Gorton and McMahon the decision to leave Vietnam was made by them (in concert with the Septics) and all combat troops were back in Oz before December 1972. There were a few Australian advisers left in Vietnam when Gough came to office.

Some background reading:
http://ntlapp.nt.gov.au/tracy/advanced/Reconstruction.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Australia_during_the_Vietnam_War

BTW, I'm not a member of the ALP nor am I an urger for them.
 

Ruggo

Mark Ella (57)
Ruggo, there are two events concerning Whitlam which are incorrectly quoted ad nauseam: he didn't come back from his European tour immediately after Cyclone Tracy and he pulled the Australian troops out of Vietnam. The facts: Gough DID fly back from Europe to insect the damage from Tracy, and he DIDN'T bring our troops back from Vietnam. To be fair to Gorton and McMahon the decision to leave Vietnam was made by them (in concert with the Septics) and all combat troops were back in Oz before December 1972. There were a few Australian advisers left in Vietnam when Gough came to office.

Some background reading:
http://ntlapp.nt.gov.au/tracy/advanced/Reconstruction.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Australia_during_the_Vietnam_War

BTW, I'm not a member of the ALP nor am I an urger for them.


You are right regarding the withdrawal of troops and yes Whitlam got the credit being the PM when the last were withdrawn (the last being a platoon guarding the Australian embasy in 1973). A big point of difference is that did he nor the Labor Party ever supported the war.

Regarding the response to cyclone Tracy, I wouldn't count that as part of his legacy either way. The bigger legacy regarding Tracy goes to Fraiser. The swift reconstruction of Darwin I think is a credit to his leadership. Keep in mind this was before the NT was granted self governance.

If credit in legacy from responses to natural disaster were to go to political leaders, I would site Howards response to the boxing day Tsunami. I can't stand him personally but he should rightly get credit for that.

On the other side of the coin, look at Tony Abbott's response after the QLD floods and Cyclone Yasi. He opposed the levy to refund the repairs but he seriously can think of a deficit levy. WTF?
 

Runner

Nev Cottrell (35)
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/28844

"During 1966, the ALP opposed Australian involvement in the Vietnam War. This was a big factor in building support for the anti-war forces. However, in the November 1966 federal election, the ALP suffered an electoral disaster in large part due to the strong anti-war stand of its leader, Arthur Calwell.
Following the election, Calwell was replaced as Labor leader by Gough Whitlam, who in 1967 led a right-wing attack on the ALP's anti-war policy. The Labor Party's previous policy of calling for the withdrawal of Australian troops from Vietnam was watered down to a position of "withdraw to holding areas", which meant accepting continued US and Australian occupation of Vietnamese territory. The new ALP position, which made no commitment to immediately bring Australian troops home, was adopted unanimously by the ALP federal parliamentary caucus."
 
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