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Corset Sale Biography
Among the contents was a letter from artist Clifton Pugh, written in June 1972, while he was working on his famous portrait of Whitlam that won the 1972 Archibald Prize and now hangs in Parliament House, Canberra.
“Would the real Gough stand up and be recognised?” Pugh asked. “He keeps a cover on himself and seldom relaxes. I’m having a hard job to decide just how to paint him, to decide what sort of man he really is.”
Pugh speculated in the letter that, if he became prime minister, Whitlam would be “a man to make things work”. But he added: “I will know more when I finish the portrait. I have now started my fifth ‘go’ and am still trying to find the man inside.”
In the end, after a dozen false starts, he decided Whitlam was strong and confident, though with an eye more on a place in history than on the present, and painted him that way.
Whitlam died last Tuesday. That evening I had been invited to speak about another politician of a bygone era, legendary Country (now National) Party leader Sir John McEwen, at the launch of a new edition of McEwen’s autobiography.
Pugh had painted him, too, and won the Archibald with that portrait in 1971. Pugh saw McEwen as “straightforward, strong spoken and completely honest in his own lights”.
All of which got me thinking about the similarities between these two larger-than-life political figures from opposite sides of the political fence, and about the state of politics today.
Both Whitlam and McEwen thought big, tried to do big things and were prepared to take big risks.
In the Whitlam obituaries, his historic visit to China as Opposition leader in 1971 — which led to normalisation of relations between the two countries when Labor won office the following year — loomed large.
It was fraught with political peril at the time. The Cold War dominated international politics, Australian troops were fighting in Vietnam, there was considerable community fear of China and scare campaigns over what was described as “the downward thrust of communism” had hurt Labor in previous elections.
Whitlam, who had been arguing for recognition of China since 1954, went ahead anyway and the gamble paid off. China is now vital to Australia’s economic wellbeing.
The comparable event in the McEwen story was his negotiation, as trade minister, of a trade treaty with Japan in 1957.
At Tuesday’s launch of John McEwen — His Story, current National Party leader Warren Truss spoke of the courage that took, given that anti-Japanese feeling was still running high in Australia only a dozen years after the end of World War II.
I met McEwen when I covered his campaign in the 1966 federal election, a few years before his retirement. My acquaintanceship with Whitlam began in 1967.
What struck me about both of them was their passion, their determination and their willingness to fight for what they believed.
Whitlam’s credo was “crash through or crash”. Over a cup of tea in his office in 1970, just before he went into the Parliament to vote for the final time, McEwen told me: “I’ll fight for a thing for five years, seven years, till I damn well get it.”
Whitlam fought Labor’s factions and faceless men for years, putting his career on the line several times, to reform the party and make it electable.
McEwen was expelled from the Country Party a week after becoming a minister for the first time, because he defied the Victorian branch’s ban on joining Coalition governments.
The easy thing would have been to change parties, he said as we sipped our tea that day. “But I didn’t — I started another Country Party.”
PASSION, like conviction, is rare in today’s politicians. Tony Abbott once dubbed himself a weather vane. Bill Shorten seems too often an energy-free and commitment-free zone. Caution fuelled by opinion polls and focus groups has replaced courage. Big ideas have been dumped in favour of a small target strategy.
Bland poli-speak and slogans have replaced straight-talking. Communication is out and spin is in.
Proud of the Country Party tail wagging the Liberal dog when he was leader, McEwen boasted: “I really think we’ve got a greater sense of knowing what we want.”
“I put things on the agenda and argued them and persuaded the public,” Whitlam would say when asked about his success as Opposition leader.
Before I left Parliament House on Tuesday night, one of today’s senior politicians stopped me to talk about the McEwen book and that day’s parliamentary speeches in praise of Whitlam.
“I suppose some of us might be regarded as great, too, in 30 or 40 years’ time”, he said.
I wonder.
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Corset Sale Corset Piercing tops Dress Wedding Dresses Training Before and After Prom Dresses Tattoo Photos
Corset Sale Corset Piercing tops Dress Wedding Dresses Training Before and After Prom Dresses Tattoo Photos
Corset Sale Corset Piercing tops Dress Wedding Dresses Training Before and After Prom Dresses Tattoo Photos
Corset Sale Corset Piercing tops Dress Wedding Dresses Training Before and After Prom Dresses Tattoo Photos
Corset Sale Corset Piercing tops Dress Wedding Dresses Training Before and After Prom Dresses Tattoo Photos
Corset Sale Corset Piercing tops Dress Wedding Dresses Training Before and After Prom Dresses Tattoo Photos
Corset Sale Corset Piercing tops Dress Wedding Dresses Training Before and After Prom Dresses Tattoo Photos
Corset Sale Corset Piercing tops Dress Wedding Dresses Training Before and After Prom Dresses Tattoo Photos
Corset Sale Corset Piercing tops Dress Wedding Dresses Training Before and After Prom Dresses Tattoo Photos
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