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Last updated on March 5th, 2018 at 01:44 pm
Scott Wilcox emails:
Add Seattle to the cities celebrating GoughFest 2005. Fun to be had by all at the Hales Brew Pub on Leary between Fremont and Ballard. All welcome (especially the BLF).
For others outside of the Sydney area, Nora Charles provides an excellent cocktail map by which you may recall the Whitlam era. Readers are encouraged to send pictures of their Whitlam-sacking festivities; many will be taken at the Bellevue Hotel, where Sydney Morning Herald readers have mischievously been directed. These manly types may help protect us from savage unionists! See you all at 7pm; see you all blurry and in triplicate at 10pm.
- Tim, I regret that distance and finance prevent my attendance. However, I will be toasting you and Australia from Flip’s Wine Bar in Oklahoma City… I expect that you remember Flip’s… wine, friends, conversation. Ohh, and don’t forget the pretty girls (sheilas)!Posted by Franklin on 2005 11 10 at 01:57 PM • permalink
- Actually it’s Scott Wilcox.
I’ve been trying to think of appropriate activities for GoughFest 2005 to simulate the misery I experienced under Gough’s regime. Other then being robbed and beaten (which is what it felt like every time I received my pay packet in 1975) I can’t think of any. Do all you creative folks out there have suggestions?
Pictures from GoughFest 2005 to follow.
Posted by swassociates on 2005 11 10 at 02:23 PM • permalink
- Anybody celebrating in the Chicago area?Posted by carpetback on 2005 11 10 at 06:08 PM • permalink
- I have only a vague notion (other than Gough = Carter, which is certainly meaningful) what I am celebrating, but hey, that has never stopped me.
The line up: The Black Chook Dhiraz Viognier, 2004; Kay Brothers Amery Vineyards, Hillside Shiraz, 2002; The Winners Tank, Langhorne Creek, 2004 Shiraz.
I may need to call in for reinforcements from the hubbie!
Posted by Kathy from Austin on 2005 11 10 at 06:33 PM • permalink
- I’m looking forward to the party.
BTW lovely quote from Lindsay Tanner:
The Dismissal “means very little to younger Australians”, he says. “Though my rage and enthusiasm are essentially undimmed after 30 years, I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion it’s time we got over it.”
I must say, however I’ve never been able to understand the rage bit. I think Kerr is a bit of a hero and demonstrated the Constitution works well, thank you very much.
Whitlam’s dismissal was the release of a safety valve. The absolutely right thing to do was to go back to the Australian people and ask for a mandate.
Which Whitlam lost in 1975. And 1977.
I’ve never been able to get a straight answer from a leftie on the question – if Gough was so good why wasn’t he re-elected?
— NoraPosted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 11 10 at 06:44 PM • permalink
- I was 10 years old and at my Catholic all boys school. Before anyone smacks me with the ‘rich’ stick, it was full of struggling immigrant sons, the children of plumbers and builders, and even public servants (love you Dad). We had an open style class room (a style I believe has largely been discredited – now for the rest of the leftie education system), small tables rather than desks and moulded plastic seats. A teacher stuck his head in to our class room and called out to our teacher – ‘Gough’s been sacked!’. The room erupted with joy! Every kid whooped it up. If the cane (3 foot of corporal punishment) hadn’t been swinging around our heads we would have danced on the tables. Our teachers were stunned. We were 10 years old. We didn’t know politics. But, we could here our parents every morning opening up the paper and saying ‘What have those lunatics done now!’. Soon after all the nonsense on the front steps with Gough preaching to the converted, the country endorsed the removal of those fools from power in one of greatest landslides in history. This is why I love my country. It may make mistakes but it comes to its senses quickly, corrects the mistake and gets on with the business of living.
Anyway, I’ll be having a dozen at home. I shall sing the national anthem from the roof of my house at 11pm. And streak down the main street at 11.15pm. I love a celebration! Happy days!
- I was working in an engineering business as a machinist and a welder in Shepparton in 1975. I took three pay cuts from the owner in order to help him survive the terrible business climate. It didn’t help as he folded anyway. I worked like a slave at multiple jobs to keep up with my mortgage, food, and expenses. When I heard Gough was sacked I did a back flip, left work for the pub, and drank away the night. To this day I still remember how good it felt. Thank God Oz is keeping Labour out of government.Posted by swassociates on 2005 11 10 at 07:41 PM • permalink
- I too have happy memories of 11 Nov 1975 – I was working in a fully unionised printing works and when we heard the news people ran out into the street to tell all and sundry the good word.
The boss put on a BBQ and shouted a few `crates’ of Emu Export.
A week later scumbags from Trades Hall trolled around and demanded a hefty contribution from all of us `comrades’ towards the re-elect Goff fund – we told them to fuck off.
They did fuck off but the business suffered because of our `lack of solidarity – the TWU refused to deliver or pick up from us and several of our customers were frightened to do business with us.
Things got back to normal after the election when it was obvious Goff had been cleaned up by Fraser in the largest landslide in Australian political history.
Great days – hot pants, boob tubes and Goff – well, `goffed’.
Pity Fraser has turned into a pillock!
- BLF… The Bright Lights Foundation guys? The ones who challenge, create and act?
- All this is before my time and half a world away, but just give it a few months and I’m sure Ron Sims will figure out something for the misery part. As for the Seattle gathering it sounds interesting, but I don’t think I’d be willing to risk a trip through Fremont (a neighborhood whose most prized possession is its statue of Lenin) for it…
- hmmmm, it seems not only is 11th november rememberance day for all the soldiers who lost their lives defending our liberty, and the day that some @sshole charaltan got the boot from the governor general, but its also the anniversary of the death of tea towel head yasser crack-a-fat from what i am reading??? 1st annivesary today of him kicking the bucket…. another good reason to celebrate… (i hope this doesn’t sound insensitive???)
- I didn’t think there was anything new to be said about Whitlam’s exit, but I heard a snippet from David Smith on the radio. Smith was the man who read the proclamation on the steps of Parliament House that day – he pointed out that the ALP had also attempted to block supply. I could be wrong but I thought the figure he quoted was 170 times during their years in opposition. Can anybody confirm that?Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2005 11 10 at 10:41 PM • permalink
- I well remember the day. I was working in the University of Sydney, in the medical school complex. When the news was known, bedlam broke out. People were laughing and cheering and rushing in and out of offices and out onto the front lawns to congratulate each other. Doctors, academics, librarians, researchers, admin. staff and students – everyone was delirious with joy.
Apparently the same was happening around the other professional faculties.
Up at the top end of the campus, however, the lefties in the Faculty of Arts were assembling in rage in the Quadrangle, ready to march down town to express their anger in their usual way.
Never was the split between the professions and the humanities more obvious.
- Casanova! You left out ‘brainless’ and ‘leaderless’!Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2005 11 10 at 11:03 PM • permalink
- In an article in Quadrant an article in Quadrant earlier this year, Sir David Smith says
On June 18, 1970, Senator Lionel Murphy, Leader of the Labor Opposition in the Senate, told the Senate that it was entitled to refuse its concurrence to any financial measure, including a tax bill; that the Australian Labor Party has acted consistently in accordance with the tradition that it will oppose in the Senate any tax or money bill or other financial measure whenever necessary to carry out the party’s principles and policies; and that the Opposition had done this over the years. At the end of his speech Senator Murphy tabled a list of 169 occasions since 1950 when Labor Oppositions had attempted to oppose money bills in the Senate for the sole purpose of forcing the government of the day to an early election.
It’s a good read but a touch long-winded.
Posted by Semi-conductor on 2005 11 11 at 01:03 AM • permalink
- #14 – David Smith has a substantial op-ed in The Australia two days ago on this. I posted the link in the earlier Gough topic. It’s now dropped off the opinion pages but will still be available if access directly.Posted by walterplinge on 2005 11 11 at 03:37 AM • permalink
- #19. you just reminded me how corrupt Whitlam’s Labore cabinet was.
There was Grassby implicated in the murder of Donald Mackay and then there was Lionel Murphy and his little mate.Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 11 11 at 04:58 AM • permalink
- #21 walterplinge
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17169376%255E7583,00.html
Posted by benson swears a lot on 2005 11 11 at 05:43 AM • permalink
- Another “little mate” of Lionel Murphy, often forgotten or deliberately obsured is George Negus (yes, THAT George Negus) who accompanied Lionel Murphy on his infamous raid on the ASIO offices.
Every time I recall that period, I manage to dredge up some more utterly appalling sewer rats that tagged along with the Gough Whitlam debacle.
Ned Kelly was a gentleman compared to these slimy toads.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2005 11 11 at 06:30 AM • permalink
- #25 It is also, I think, the day Brezhnev died.Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 11 11 at 10:27 AM • permalink
- Fun imbibing and listening to L.N.Lies with Phatty sucking up to Whitless ad nauseum.
Best part was Phatty trying to get Whitless to say that there WAS a CIA conspiracy behind his sacking.
Whitless denied it categorically.
Sad to hear all concerned still stuck fast in the twitter and bisted past,unable to dig themselves out of the mire and get a life for themselves.Gough would like his sacking to be the Dunkirk of Australian history but it’s not..
- Scott—shame on me for getting you name wrong. Now fixed.
No Problem Tim. The sun was probably in your eyes. Something that we in Seattle never experience in November.
Posted by swassociates on 2005 11 11 at 11:38 AM • permalink
- The BLF didn’t show—more free booze for us!Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 11 11 at 09:43 PM • permalink
- I’m sorry to say GoughFest 2005 in Seattle was a bust. Hales Brew Pub had the usual yuppie scum crowd and I couldn’t find one person that was alive when Gough was sacked, let alone cared. So I sped off to the Kangaroo and Kiwi Pub on Aurora for a look. Unfortunately the barkeep was a POME who had no idea who Gough was let alone cared. I sank a Fosters Special Bitter and pissed off.
All and all a very sad GoughFest 2005. I’m now home drowning my GoughFest happiness in Deschutes Brewery Jubilale.
Long Live The Liberal Party!!
Posted by swassociates on 2005 11 11 at 11:01 PM • permalink
- <b>HELLO, TIM! HOW WAS THE PARTY! HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD TIME! HOW’S YOUR HEAD THIS MORNING! HOW ABOUT THAT NEW HOWARD DEAN SPEECH HEY?! YEEEEEEARGH!</n>Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 11 12 at 01:55 AM • permalink
- Please note that no dinkum Aussie ever drinks Foster’s Special Bitter, or indeed any variety of Foster’s Lager.
I realize that more then you can imagine. However with no VB available in Seattle you take what you can get.
Posted by swassociates on 2005 11 12 at 10:11 AM • permalink
<b>HELLO, TIM! HOW WAS THE PARTY! HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD TIME! HOW’S YOUR HEAD THIS MORNING! HOW ABOUT THAT NEW HOWARD DEAN SPEECH HEY?! YEEEEEEARGH!</n>
Why is everybody screaming? And stomping around? And why are these god damned LIGHTS so bright?
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 11 12 at 07:00 PM • permalink
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