Runner
Nev Cottrell (35)
So if Whitlam was "such a disaster" economically, how come he left Australia with no net debt, which Howard and Fraser then fucked up completely? And if Medicare was so unaffordable, how come Fraser Howard and Abbott haven't dared touch it since? Have a read of this:
Any and all suggestions that Whitlam was no good economically are demonstrably false.
On a few of those points you raised and others.
Land tile went through under Fraser and in some ways lead to the Hawke government and its failed ATSIC policies. Why? To me the focus of the debate became land rights an area which has been very divisive in the country and caused many to lose sympathy with the aboriginal cause. The debate should have been about the other issues we are really just getting to now with leaders like Noel Pearson who see the focus on education, health and welfare as more important.
The debt point is easy in that Whitlam was there to start the expenditure but not there to see the bill. Consequences we see today with people still believeing that Medibank was free rather than see that the Commonwealth now created a system where debts would rise overtime in the system. Why not get rid of it, well some changes have been tried and blocked and the Lib's learned that if you say it's free then the electorate will not want it to go away. Hawke and Keating made varipus changes to cut cost and even tried a co payment system for awhile.
Today there are some 8000 public servants that oversee the medical system working for the Federal government but employing only a handfull of doctors and nurses and running one hospital directly. Work out the wages and super for each who in Canberra.
Remember also health, education aboriginal affairs, dept of environment all in Canberra are really state responsibilities but have heaps of public servants duplicating the process. Consequences of decisions made many years ago.
The same with free education which simply created overtime more costs that Hawke and Keating saw was unsustainable and introduced HEC's so slow things down. A mess we are still trying to sort out today.
As for Hockey he is in the same boat as the Fraser govt and Howard -- debt was created by others. It can take decades for some of the decisions to have a full impact.