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VC’ S CORNER ability were enough to enable you to succeed. It was no longer your background nor your postcode alone that determined your educational opportunities. It is common to hear amongst my contemporaries – politicians, senior university members and other prominent citizens – appreciative recognition of the role Whitlam played in opening access to university for them.
He transformed Australia. There’ s no need for me to recite the list of substantial reforms – from non-fault divorce through to universal healthcare – that brought direct and enduring benefits to our lives. I do, though, want to reflect a little on his legacy when it comes to higher education.
HIS VISION He saw education as the key to equality, as the foundation for an informed and engaged citizenry, as the catalyst for liberating the talents and uplifting the horizons of the Australian people.
Historian Dr Mark Hutchinson makes the point that he may be best remembered for the abolition of university tuition fees, but this policy was the result, rather than the centre, of his approach to education.
His approach, as with so much of his policy, was deeply grounded in human rights. As early as 1953, he declared in parliament:“ Everybody in Australia is entitled, without cost to the individual, to the same educational facilities, whether it be in respect of education at the kindergarten or tertiary stage or postgraduate stage”. His ambition was for universal access to publicly funded education from early childhood to tertiary education. It is barely remembered that the Whitlam government’ s abolition of tuition applied to vocational and university education.
Just as firmly held in the Whitlam view of the world was a conviction that primary responsibility for higher-education belonged to the Commonwealth. He recounted in The Whitlam Government his own declamation on the last sitting day of the 1953 Parliamentary calendar:
“ The universities are costing more and more, and in the future will be catering for more and more Australians. We should not limit university education by leaving it to the states, but we should make it a Commonwealth responsibility. With our primacy of financial opportunity we should undertake the primacy of responsibility for university education.”
In realising his ambitions, Whitlam stood on Robert Menzies’ shoulders, or at least put Menzies’ political canniness to good use. It is true Menzies and he shared some common ground, including a desire to expand university access. However, much more importantly, it was Menzies who ploughed the constitutional road that allowed him to drive his platform of direct Commonwealth program activity that proved critical to giving effect to his vision. For it was Menzies, as Graham Freudenberg points out, who in 1958 pioneered use of section 96 of the constitution to direct Commonwealth funds to the states. This made it all possible:
“ The increased funds for tertiary education produced an expansion of student numbers and construction of several new institutions. From 1973 to 1975 the number of full-time university students in Australia increased from 109,600 to 127,300 while the number of full-time college students increased from 69,800 to 109,700,” Hutchinson quotes Freudenberg as saying.
HIS LEGACY It is difficult to isolate Whitlam’ s legacy for higher education from the broader social transformation he unleashed. It is the case that there was no rapid change in the proportion of those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds at university, although, as my own experience attests, many of us did benefit. Yet the expansion of university places did directly lead to greater numbers of young women taking advantage of a university education. This was a consequence not simply of education policies but of the ascendency of the women’ s movement supported by a raft of Whitlam government reforms.
The university sector has weathered many changes. Free education gave way under the pressure of growing numbers and was replaced by income-contingent loans( HECS) in 1989. The years since have brought continued expansion in numbers( boosted again by the uncapping of university places in 2012). Even more noteworthy has been the substantial shift in the backgrounds of those taking advantage of a university education.
Gough and Margaret Whitlam lived and raised their family in the Western Sydney suburb of Cabramatta from 1957, within his electorate of Werriwa. Their experience shaped his appreciation of the challenges facing the growing numbers of Australians living in the outer suburbs of our major cities.
By 1974, his commitment to meeting the educational needs of the people of Western Sydney was being pursued, with announcement of funding for the establishment of a university in the area. The dismissal of the Whitlam government, in 1975, denied him the opportunity to give effect to the commitment. A new university in the west would not be realised until the establishment of the University of Western Sydney in 1989.
The story of this university of the people is in many respects emblematic of the Whitlam legacy:
• More than 40,000 students
• Ranked within the top 2 per cent of world universities
• Recognised as having world-class research in such fields as plant biology, forestry sciences, and complementary and alternative medicines
• More than 60 per cent of its students are first in their family to attend university
• More of its students( over 20 percent) from low-SES communities than any other Australian university
• More than 70 per cent of it students come from Western Sydney.
Access and excellence were central tenets of the Whitlam educational agenda. I like to think we bring them together.
In 2000, his relationship with UWS was strengthened further with the signing of an agreement to establish the Whitlam Institute.
Through the Whitlam Institute, the university is the proud custodian of the Whitlam Prime Ministerial Collection – Whitlam’ s personal papers, letters, books and memorabilia. He, himself, saw the Whitlam Institute not simply as the custodian of his prime ministerial library but as a source of inspiration and encouragement to those who shared his ambitions for an equal, open, tolerant and independent Australia.
The university may be custodian of the Whitlam Institute and the historic Female Orphan School, which is its permanent home, but we are conscious that both belong to the men and women of Australia.
He would want nothing less and nor would we. ■
Professor Barney Glover is vice-chancellor at the University of Western Sydney.
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