Dismissal: 50th anniversary
now also in non-sweary, safe-for-work version!
On 11 November it'll be 50 years since Gough was betrayed. He stood on the on the steps on (Old) Parliament House and asked the nation to MAINTAIN THE RAGE. Today, we remember the incredible social reforms initiated by the Whitlam Government.
These include:
- creating the first universal health insurance system
- abolishing university fees and expanding access
- boosting funding to state schools
- establishing the Office for Women
- implementing equal pay in the public sector
- recognising Indigenous land rights, including handing the area know as Wave Hill back to Traditional Owners, the Gurindji people
- ending the White Australia Policy
- promoting multiculturalism
- creating the first Department of Environment and Conservation
- lowering the voting age from 21 to 18
- introducing the Racial Discrimination Act and
- granting independence to Papua New Guinea.
But here at f*this we're nothing if not old school feminists. Therefore we're celebrating the amazing reforms that made significant changes to women's lives.
The most significant of these, in our view, were the introduction of the single mothers' benefit and no-fault divorce.
This duo of reforms allowed women to make choices and decisions about their own futures. To choose to leave abusive relationships and still be able to feed their children and to leave their husband knowing that he could no longer use agreeing to a divorce as method of control.
In honour of these life-changing reforms, donations from our 50th anniversary Gough tee will go to the Women's Legal Service Victoria. Read about it here.
Get your piece of history here.
