Two of Australia's crash or crash-through prime ministers, Paul Keating and Gough Whitlam, featured on page one on this day in 1992. Keating was doing the very Keating thing of proposing a new Australian flag, which in his strong view shouldn't include the Union Jack.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
"We are not British, we are Australians,'' he said, then, adding some of his trademark colour to his attack on the opposition, calling them "lickspittles" and "snivellers" to overseas interests. John Hewson's Liberal opposition, whose desks were festooned with miniature flags, accused Keating of using the issue as a diversion from the recession... yes, that one we had to have was about 18 months in.
Whitlam's front page return was at the scene of his most famous speech at the top of the Old Parliament House steps. Sixteen years on from the fury of "Well may we say'', Whitlam was in a jovial mood, remarking "things change". The purpose of his return was the launch of the Fred Daly Political Discovery Tour, a Murrays bus tour of the places where big political moments had happened in Canberra.
Beyond the obvious, highlights of the tour included the former homes of Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Soviet defector Vladimir Petrov and the restaurants and pubs where dastardly political plots were hatched.
