[11] Whitlam and Barnard eliminated sales tax on contraceptive pills, announced major grants for the arts, and appointed an interim schools commission.

The duumvirate barred racially discriminatory sport teams from Australia, and instructed the Australian delegation at the United Nations to vote in favour of sanctions on apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia.

The Aboriginal Loans Commission was initiated to assist Indigenous Australians with the purchase of property with a view to home ownership, as well as to help establish Indigenous-owned businesses and pay for health and education expenses,.

[24] In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal, and was said to symbolise either Whitlam's foresight and vision, or his profligate spending.

[19] He was criticised for this travel, especially after Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin; he interrupted an extensive tour of Europe for 48 hours (deemed too brief a period by many) to view the devastation.

[25] In February 1973, the Attorney-General, Senator Lionel Murphy, led a police raid on the Melbourne office of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which was under his ministerial responsibility.

[27] According to journalist and author Wallace Brown, the controversy over the raid continued to dog the Whitlam government throughout its term because the incident was "so silly".

[31] Whitlam and his majority in the House of Representatives proposed a constitutional referendum in December 1973, transferring control of wages and prices from the states to the Federal government.

[32] Labor had come to office during a period of improvement for Australia's economic outlook, with rural industries performing well, unemployment falling, production increasing and a boom in foreign investment and exports.

Nevertheless, signs of increasing inflation and slow private business investment portended looming economic troubles, leading to the 1973–75 recession and the 1973 oil crisis.

Possible control of the Senate was therefore at stake; Whitlam agreed to Gair's request and had the Governor-General Sir Paul Hasluck appoint him Ambassador to Ireland.

[35] After a campaign featuring the Labor slogan "Give Gough a fair go", the Whitlam government was returned, with its majority in the House of Representatives cut from seven to five.

[37] The deadlock over the twice-rejected bills was broken, uniquely in Australian history, with a special joint sitting of the two houses of Parliament under Section 57 of the Constitution.

[39] Part of the inflation was due to Whitlam's desire to increase wages and conditions of the Commonwealth Public Service as a pacesetter for the private sector.

Primary producers of commodities such as beef were caught in a credit squeeze as short-term rates rose to extremely high levels.

Cairns's reputation took an early blow with media coverage of the appointment of Junie Morosi as his private secretary, a woman with no prior treasury or public service experience, and with whom he engaged in an extramarital affair.

The New South Wales premier, Tom Lewis felt that this convention only applied to vacancies caused by deaths or ill-health, and arranged for the legislature to elect Cleaver Bunton, former mayor of Albury and an independent.

[46] By March 1975, many Liberal parliamentarians felt that Snedden was doing an inadequate job as Leader of the Opposition, and that Whitlam was dominating him in the House of Representatives.

Australians had long taken an interest in the colony; the nation had sent troops to the region during World War II, and many East Timorese had fought the Japanese as guerrillas.

[54] At the height of the Cold War and with American retreat from Indo-China, he felt that if incorporated into Indonesia, the region would be more stable, and Australia would not risk having the East Timorese FRETILIN movement, which many feared was communist, come to power.

[53] Whitlam says that he forcefully told Indonesian President Suharto that the East Timorese were entitled to decide the colony's fate through self-determination.

[55] The next week, Whitlam fired Barnard's successor as deputy prime minister, Cairns, who had misled Parliament regarding the Loans Affair amid innuendo about his relationship with his office manager, Junie Morosi.

Bjelke-Petersen finally convinced the legislature to elect a low-level union official, Albert Field, who had contacted his office and expressed a willingness to serve.

[57] Whitlam argued that, because of the manner of filling vacancies, the Senate was "corrupted" and "tainted", with the Opposition enjoying a majority they did not win at the ballot box.

On 4 June 1975, the Treasurer and deputy prime minister, Jim Cairns, misled Parliament by claiming that he had not given a letter to an intermediary offering a 2.5% commission on a loan.

"[60] The Affair ultimately gave new Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser the perceived justification he needed to block supply of budget Bills in the Senate, with the aim of forcing Whitlam to an election.

[65] Whitlam on the other hand, convinced that he would win the battle, was glad of the distraction from the Loans Affair, and believed that he would "smash" not only the Senate, but Fraser's leadership as well.

[68] As the crisis dragged into November, Whitlam attempted to make arrangements for public servants and suppliers to be able to cash cheques at banks.

He promptly suffered a series of defeats in the House, which instructed the Speaker, Gordon Scholes, to advise Kerr to reinstate Whitlam.

The Proclamation which you have just heard read by the Governor-General's Official Secretary was countersigned Malcolm Fraser, who will undoubtedly go down in Australian history from Remembrance Day 1975 as Kerr's cur.