Edward Gough Whitlam was the 21st prime minister of Australia,serving from 1972 to 1975. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP),of which he was the longest-serving. He was notable for being the head of a reformist and socially progressive administration that ended with his removal as prime minister after controversially being dismissed by the governor-general of Australia,Sir John Kerr,at the climax of the 1975 constitutional crisis. Whitlam is the only Australian prime minister ever to have been removed from office against his will.
Republicanism in Australia is a movement to change Australia's system of government from a constitutional parliamentary monarchy to a republic,typically a parliamentary republic that would replace the monarch of Australia with an Australian head of State. Republicanism was first espoused in Australia before Federation in 1901. After a period of decline after Federation,the movement again became prominent at the end of the 20th century after successive legal and socio-cultural changes loosened Australia's ties with the United Kingdom.
Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen,known as Joh Bjelke-Petersen or simply Sir Joh,was a conservative Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived premier of Queensland,holding office from 1968 to 1987,during which time the state underwent considerable economic development. He has become one of the most well-known and controversial figures of 20th-century Australian politics because of his uncompromising conservatism,political longevity,and the institutional corruption of his government.
Each Australian state has a governor to represent Australia's monarch within it. The governors are the nominal chief executives of the states,performing the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level as does the Governor-General of Australia at the national or federal level. In practice,with notable exceptions the governors are generally required by convention to act on the advice of the state premiers or the other members of a state's cabinet.
The Joh for Canberra campaign,initially known as the Joh for PM campaign,was an attempt by Queensland National Party premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen to become Prime Minister of Australia. The campaign was announced in January 1987 and drew substantial support from Queensland businessmen and some conservative politicians. The campaign caused a split in the federal Coalition. It did not attract widespread support and collapsed in June 1987. The Australian Labor Party,led by Bob Hawke,went on to win the 1987 federal election with by an increased majority,gaining its highest-ever number of seats. Bjelke-Petersen came under increasing scrutiny as the Fitzgerald Inquiry gained traction,and was forced out of politics altogether in December 1987.
In the Parliament of Australia,a casual vacancy arises when a member of either the Senate or the House of Representatives:
The Federal Executive Council is a statutory body established by section 62 of the Australian Constitution to advise the Governor-General of Australia,on the matters of the federal government. The council comprises,at least notionally,all current and former Commonwealth ministers and assistant ministers. As the Governor-General is bound by convention to follow the advice of the Executive Council on almost all occasions,the Executive Council has de jure executive power. In practice,this power is used to legally enact the decisions already made by Federal Cabinet,due to the practices of the Westminster system making the cabinet a de jure authority in its own right.
The Australian republic referendum held on 6 November 1999 was a two-question referendum to amend the Constitution of Australia. The first question asked whether Australia should become a republic,with a president appointed by Parliament following a bi-partisan appointment model which had been approved by a half-elected,half-appointed Constitutional Convention held in Canberra in February 1998. The second question,generally deemed to be far less important politically,asked whether Australia should alter the Constitution to insert a preamble. Since the early 1990s opinion polls had suggested that a majority of the electorate favoured a republic. Nonetheless,the republic referendum was defeated.
Florence Isabel Bjelke-Petersen was an Australian politician. She was a member of the Australian Senate from 1981 to 1993,and was the wife of the longest-serving Premier of Queensland,Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. She was styled as Lady Bjelke-Petersen upon her husband's knighthood,and was also known informally as Lady Flo.
Malcolm Arthur Colston was an Australian politician who served as a Senator for Queensland from 1975 to 1999. He was a member of the Labor Party until 1996,when he resigned to sit as an independent following a dispute over his candidacy for Deputy President of the Senate. Colston was a schoolteacher before entering politics,and held a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Queensland.
Sir Walter "Wally" Benjamin Campbell,was an Australian judge,administrator and governor. He was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland,Chancellor of the University of Queensland and the 21st Governor of Queensland from 1985 to 1992.
The following lists events that happened during 1980 in Australia.
The Whitlam government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party. The government commenced when Labor defeated the McMahon government at the 1972 federal election,ending a record 23 years of continuous Coalition government. It was terminated by Governor-General Sir John Kerr following the 1975 constitutional crisis and was succeeded by the Fraser government—the sole occasion in Australian history when an elected federal government was dismissed by the head of state.
The following lists events that happened during 1976 in Australia.
John Owen Stone is a former Australian public servant and politician. He was Secretary to the Treasury between 1979 and 1984,and a senator for Queensland,representing the National Party,from 1987 to 1990.
The 1989 Queensland state election was held in the Australian state of Queensland on 2 December 1989 to elect the 89 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. This was the first election following the downfall of seven-term premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen at the end of 1987.
The 1987 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 11 July 1987,following the granting of a double dissolution on 5 June by the Governor-General Sir Ninian Stephen. Consequently,all 148 seats in the House of Representatives as well as all 76 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Australian Labor Party,led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke,defeated the opposition Liberal Party of Australia,led by John Howard and the National Party of Australia led by Ian Sinclair. This was the first,and to date only,time the Labor Party won a third consecutive election.
The following lists events that happened during 1975 in Australia.
David Edward Byrne is an Australian activist and politician. A former Augustinian friar and Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland,he later moved to Cape York,became an advocate for Aboriginal land rights and co-founded the Cape York Land Council with Noel Pearson.
Sir Sydney Schubert was an Australian public servant best known for the work he did in Queensland during the 1970s and 1980s as Co-ordinator General of the Premier's Department,and for his positions as chancellor of Bond University and chief executive of Daikyo Australia.
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