FOR PRESS: PM No. 106/ 1970
MR. WHrrLAM'S SENATE CPENING
Comment by the Prime Minister, Mr. John Gorton
Speaking beneath a banner inscribed " A Labor Senate Makes Sense" Mr. Whitlam, who is pledged to the abolition of the Senate, last night delivered a lack-lustre rehash of denigration and generalisation.
While doing so he was divided from the Opposition Leader in the Senate. This gentleman was absent owing, it is said, to the divisive effects of a discussion on who got what television time.
Nevertheless the dull and stodgy speech contained as many falsehoods as a suet pudding contains currants. last year.
there was. It is simply not true that there was a 50 cost of living increace
It is simply not true that the Treasu7er ever " admitted" that
It is simply not true that the National Liberation Front is recognised
as a principal party in the negotiations at Paris, or that the approach of the
Government to helping the sick aged is discriminatory, or that if a Government
does not do what the Opposition demands it is therefore being divisive.
But perhaps the most intriguing part of the address, which was
singularly free from constructive proposals, was that wherein M\ 4r Whitlam appointed
himself as the only man with a conscience and as the sole custodian of the
national conscie-nce. The implication of course is that anyone who disagrees
with him on anything must be acting against the dictates of conscience. This
may be most consoling to this all-Australian Jimimy Cricket. But it isn't
necessarily true.
If it is thought that this i. not a particularly serious comment, it
is because Mr. Whitlam's contribution could not be regarded as a particularly
serious speech.
CANBERRA 29 October 1970