Whitlam To Resign As Party Leader

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31659, 20 April 1968, Page 13

Whitlam To Resign As Party Leader

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, April 19. The Leader of the Australian Labour Party, Mr E. G. Whitlam, confirmed today that he would resign from the position of leader and “recontest my position.”

Mr Whitlam sent a telegram to all members of the Federal party telling them of his decision and the reasons for his act. In his telegram, Mr Whitlam said: “I must have a vote of confidence from you to carry on.

“I cannot face the public or the Parliament with any confidence unless you, members of caucus, show your confidence in me.” Mr Whitlam said he would resign then seek re-election “on my terms”. Mr Whitlam’s move is seen as a challenge to the Leftwing dominated federal executive, which has split in the last two days over the credentials of a Tasmanian delegate, Mr R. W. B. Harradine. Mr Harradine walked out of an executive meeting yester day after he had refused to comply with a resolution demanding his complete and unreserved withdrawal and apology for charges he had made. The charges were made in a document in which Mr Harradine defended himself against anonymous allegations that he had been a member of the Right-wing Democratic Labour Party. In his letter, Mr Harradine alleged that the Australian Labour Party in Victoria was under “substantial Communist control”. Mr Harradine’s refusal to apologise has led to the present split in the executive—the supreme governing body of the Australian Labour Party between Federal conferences. The executive has recently been enlarged to permit Mr Whitlam and the other three Parliamentary leaders to sit on it.

Hitherto it has comprised two delegates from each of Australia’s six States. Now it also includes the Parliamentary leader and his deputy and the Senate leader and his deputy, as well as a delegate from Australia’s Northern Territory. When he succeeded Mr Arthur Calwell as Parliamentary leader in February, 1967, Mr Whitlam had an easy victory. He won 32 of the 62 primary votes polled. When preferences were distributed in the exhaustive ballot he polled 39 votes against his nearest opponent, the Victorian Left-winger, Dr James Cairns, who polled 15, and who was followed by another Victorian, Mr Frank Crean, with 14.