On this week’s New Politics podcast, we look at the 50th anniversary of the Dismissal and explore why the ghost of Gough Whitlam still haunts Australian politics. The commemorations have focused on 1975, but the more urgent question is whether a reformer like Whitlam could even survive inside the modern Labor Party. In an era of poll-driven politics, rigid message discipline and factional gatekeeping, would a leader who introduced universal healthcare, free tertiary education and bold social reforms be dismissed as “unelectable” today? With voters turning away from the two-party system and demanding far more ambition on housing, health, education and climate, it’s worth asking: what would Whitlam do in 2025? From cancelling AUKUS, recognising Palestine, expanding Medicare to dental and mental health, rebuilding the ABC, and pushing for a republic and treaty, his agenda would collide head-on with the managerial, risk-averse culture of modern government.
We trace the parallels between 1972 and 2022 – a nation emerging from decades of conservative rule, a political class exhausted by late-stage neoliberalism, housing insecurity, climate collapse and shrinking democratic imagination. And we examine why the Labor Party learned all the wrong lessons from the Dismissal: instead of building on Whitlam’s belief that government can change people’s lives, generations of Labor leaders – Hawke, Rudd, Albanese – absorbed the fear of bold reform. Constitutional questions return too. If Australia wants real renewal, from fixed four-year terms to a modern constitution, it needs to confront how 19th-century rules keep blocking 21st-century progress – and why referendums fail when politics lacks courage.
We also break down the extraordinary double standards in Australia’s policing of protest. After NSW police authorised a neo-Nazi rally outside Parliament – complete with white-supremacist banners and anti-immigration chants – the contrast with their violent treatment of peaceful pro-Palestine protests couldn’t be clearer. We analyse why hate-speech laws weren’t used, what this reveals about institutional sympathies and political power, and why Premier Chris Minns is pushing for even more extreme police powers while ignoring the laws he already has. From police bias to media narratives to the policing of dissent, this is a case study in how democracy erodes.
Finally, we turn to the Coalition’s latest self-destructive spiral during the political “killing season”. With Sussan Ley on borrowed time and the party flirting with an Angus Taylor–Tim Wilson leadership team, the Liberals have doubled down on rejecting net-zero emissions, dismissing gender quotas, and ignoring an electorate that has already moved on. We look at the factional warfare, the rise of conservative religious blocs, the generational collapse in Liberal support, and why the party’s refusal to adapt on climate, women’s representation and multicultural Australia may keep them out of power for multiple election cycles. As other advanced economies surge ahead on clean-energy transitions and long-term planning, the Liberal Party’s resistance to net-zero is rapidly transforming it into an unelectable relic of the past.
