#Auspol #Calwell #Vietnam #BlindAllegianceToUSPolicy

“While we were developing domestic social programs, Australia was becoming engulfed in the Vietnam War. The greatest speech I heard in the Parliament was Calwell’s opposition in May 1965 to the commitment of Australian troops to Vietnam. The moral passion was electrifying. Graham Freudenberg asked Jim Cairns and me for comments on the draft. Whitlam was deliberately not consulted. His relationship with Calwell was increasingly difficult. The division between the two was popular knowledge, for which an electoral price would be paid.
In announcing the ALP position to ‘firmly and completely’ oppose the sending of 800 men to fight in Vietnam, Freudenberg had drafted that the decision was made after ‘earnest and prayerful’ consideration. I suggested that calling on God with such a rhetorical flourish be deleted. It was my only suggested change. He agreed. Addressing ALP supporters in the country, Calwell said:
I offer you the probability that you will be traduced, that your motives will be misrepresented, that your patriotism will be impugned, that your courage will be called into question. But I also offer you the sure and certain knowledge that we will be vindicated: that generations to come will record with gratitude that when a reckless Government wilfully endangered the security of this nation, the voice of the Australian Labor Party was heard, strong and clear, on the side of sanity and in the cause of humanity and in the interests of Australia’s security.”

#Reading
Things You Learn Along the Way
#JohnMenadue

We're finally starting to get a preference count in #Calwell, three weeks after election night.

It's been unclear who the final two would be in this seat, as the two main parties finished with under 50% of the primary vote, and five independents get more than 30% of the vote between them.

Labor's Basem Abdo has taken an early lead over the independent Carly Moore, but with only 2% of the 2CP vote in, it's still too early to call.

#auspoli #AusVotes