Gough dreamed of a country that never was, and asked why not?

On the day of Gough Whitlam’s death, Paul Keating said on ABC’s 730, “He was a grenade thrower…. He was in the direct hit business. He wanted to make Australia fairer, more decent, more open, more confident, more exciting…. And he did.”

There is only one reason anyone cares about what happened 50 years ago today when Kerr sacked Whitlam, and it is not because of what happened on that day, but because of what Whitlam and his government did in the previous 3 years – because of all the direct hit his policies landed.

Had Whitlam’s government merely bobbed along with only a few tweaks, his sacking would be a curiosity of Australian politics, a good thing to study in Year 12 Legal Studies or first year politics. Instead, today is a moment to look back on with anger of what happened and despair at what was lost.

We at the Australia Institute often talk about the need for political bravery – to aim for things that will change lives and the country for the better. Housing unaffordability, old age poverty, Indigenous disadvantage, climate change, and inequality don’t exist because of small things, but because of systems designed to ensure those outcomes.

Political and policy bravery requires seeing beyond the system and knowing when to throw the grenade that destroys it and allows for a better one to be built. Gough knew this.

To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, some Prime Ministers see the country as it is and ask why, Gough dreamed of a country that never was and asked why not.

Why not have a racial discrimination act that put the final stake through the heart of the White Australia policy, why not have no-fault divorce, why not end conscription, why not recognise China, why not ban sporting teams from apartheid South Africa, why not abolish the death penalty, why not introduce free healthcare, why not ratify the World Heritage Convention, why not have equal pay for women and welfare assistance for single mothers and maternity leave for Commonwealth employees, why not have free tertiary education, why not have a Law Reform Commission, a National Gallery, and a National Council for the Arts, why not recognise Indigenous land rights, why not lower the voting age to 18, why not ditch Imperial Honors and why not have a national anthem?

I could go on. Those who throw out the tiredest line in Australian politics that whichever Labor leader in place is “the most left-wing Labor leader since Gough Whitlam” generally ignore that Whitlam’s government cut tariffs across the board by 25%. His government also introduced the Trade Practices Act, which was vital for fostering competition and productivity by making price-fixing and collusion illegal.

It is easy to focus on the narrative around his economic performance – and forget the times he governed were extraordinarily unlucky. The month after the December 1972 election the world price of oil jumped 11%, in April 1973 it rose 13%, then 15% in July, followed by a 52% rise in October, and finally a 217% (yes, you read that right) increase in January 1974.

For context, in January 1970 the oil price of $1.21/barrel was 25% cheaper than it was in January 1960. In the first 13 months of Whitlam’s government, it rose from 595% from US$1.87/barrel to US$13.00. Not surprisingly Whitlam’s economics looked unsteady. But over his period of government Australia’s economy grew faster than the United States, the G7 and the OECD; by contrast during Malcolm Fraser’s government, Australia’s economy was outperformed by all three.

And yet it is Whitlam who is tarred forever as the poor manager of the economy.

But economics is not just GDP. The National Sewerage Program in 2025 sounds like a relic from another age, yet it was vital to the economy and greatly changed society and our cities.

So much was done that much is oft forgot. For example, the Seas and Submerged Lands Act and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act which prevented drilling for oil in the barrier reef, as Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen desired.

Few, if any of the changes were easy, or without controversy. The six states took the Whitlam government to court over its assertion that it had control of the seas (they lost). The Racial Discrimination Act took four attempts to get through parliament. Reading the text of Hansard of the debate is to read speakers at great pains to say “We are opposed unequivocally to racial discrimination… but…”.

The introduction of maternity leave for Commonwealth employees had the Opposition Spokesperson on Labour, Philip Lynch, worrying about “possibility of women joining the Commonwealth Public Service when pregnant in order to take advantage” and that the bill would “introduce an element of positive discrimination in favour of working women who raise a family. Those women receive benefits while women who choose to be housewives do not.”

Bipartisanship and political ease are not things that occur when you are trying to change the country to help those without power.

Bravery is what made the Whitlam Government – the knowledge that the solution to systemic and deeply rooted problems could not be solved by working within the parameters set by conservative governments.

There will today of course be much commentary about the lessons for the Albanese government and most will be based around conservative parameters – that Whitlam lost control of the budget or that he tried to do too much too soon, and so Albanese needs to not be so bold or brave.

We should not fall victim to those parameters. Those who seek to underplay the Dismissal do so because they wish to wipe the achievements of Gough, to judge them by their conservative lens to ensure no government ever is so bold again.

Gough Whitlam wrenched Australia out of its post-war malaise, and 50 years since the Dismissal, urgency and bravery remains just as necessary and so too is to have a government that keeps asking why not.

Greg Jericho is chief economist at the Australia Institute.