E. G. (Gough) WhitlamPrint Page

The plaque commemorates former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's connection to Blacktown and his visit to commemorate the International Year of the Tree in 1982.

At 8.30pm on November 13, 1972, Gough Whitlam stood on the stage of the Bowman Hall in Blacktown Civic Centre, looked out to an audience bursting with energy and expectation, and outlined the most sweeping election manifesto ever presented to the Australian people. The speech that Gough Whitlam delivered to the audience in the Blacktown Civic Centre was written for the Labor Party by Graham Freudenberg, the advisor and speech writer to several successive Labor governments.

Known as the It's Time campaign, according to Whitlam himself, Blacktown was chosen because it "represented – symbolised even" – the new outer suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane where a new constituency was being built. It typified all the urban policy failures of the time, through lack of planning and misallocation of resources at both Federal and State government level.

Gough Whitlam became Australia’s 21st Prime Minister on 5 December 1972. His Labor government, the first after more than two decades, set out to change Australia through a wide-ranging reform program. Amongst other reforms, it took over financial responsibility for tertiary education and abolished fees, the Schools Commission was established, welfare payments were introduced for single-parent families and homeless persons, the death penalty was abolished for Federal crimes and the voting age was reduced to eighteen years.

Whitlam’s term abruptly ended when his government was dismissed by the Governor-General on 11 November 1975.

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