A Down to Earth Leader of United Kingdom
Imagine this in India, security will clear the shop and the street first.
Catch an Indian PM doing this or even a IndianCricketer or Indian Movie Star.
One Sunday morning I drove to the Sydney Fish Markets in Glebe as we had invited friends for lunch. The whole market sells seafood. I chose one of the Popular ones and joined the queue to be served.
Heard some people talking at the back of the row behind me so I turned back and looked. Right behind me in the queue was Australian PM Paul Keating.
I said Hello Paul and shook his hands. I asked him if he wanted to go before me and he said you got here before me so you should be served first. I can wait.
Another time took the family to a movie at Hoyts Cinemas in Bankstown and a few spots behind me was my favourite cricketer & hero Steve Waugh.
Same story, I said "Hi Steve" and he said "Hi Mate".
Makes me feel proud I chose Australia as my home where most people are down to earth.
Here is the Aussie I admire Most
Edward Gough Whitlam AC QC ( 11 July 1916 – 21 October 2014) was the 21st Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. He led the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to power for the first time in 23 years at the 1972 election. He won the 1974 election before being controversially dismissed by the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, at the climax of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis. Whitlam remains the only Australian prime minister to have been removed from office in this manner.
Whitlam served as an air navigator in the Royal Australian Air Force for four years during World War II, and worked as a barrister following the war. He was first elected to Parliament in 1952, representing Werriwa in the House of Representatives. Whitlam became Deputy Leader of the Labor Party in 1960, and in 1967, after the retirement of Arthur Calwell, was elected Leader and became the Leader of the Opposition. After narrowly losing the 1969 election, Whitlam led Labor to victory at the 1972 election after 23 years of continuous Liberal-Country Coalition Government.
The Whitlam Government implemented a large number of new programmes and policy changes, including the termination of military conscription, institution of universal health care and free university education, and the implementation of legal aid programmes. With the opposition-controlled Senate delaying passage of bills,
Whitlam called a double dissolution election in 1974 in which he won a slightly reduced majority in the House of Representatives, and picked up three Senate seats. The Whitlam government then instituted the first and only joint sitting enabled under s. 57 of the Constitution as part of the double dissolution process.
Despite the government's second election victory, the opposition, reacting to government scandals and a flagging economy suffering from the 1973 oil crisis and the 1973–75 recession, continued to obstruct the government's programme in the Senate. In late 1975, the Opposition Senators refused to allow a vote on the government's appropriation bills, returning them to the House of Representatives with a demand that the government go to an election, thus denying the government supply.
Whitlam refused to back down, arguing that his government, which held a clear majority in the House of Representatives, was being held to ransom by the Senate. The crisis ended on 11 November, when Whitlam arrived at a pre-arranged meeting with the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, at Government House to call a half-Senate election. Kerr dismissed him from office and commissioned the opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser, as caretaker prime minister.
Whitlam stepped down after losing again at the 1977 election, and retired from parliament in 1978.
Upon the election of the Hawke Government in 1983, he was appointed as Ambassador to UNESCO, a position he filled with distinction, and was elected a member of the UNESCO Executive Board. He remained active into his nineties. The propriety and circumstances of his dismissal and the legacy of his government have been frequently debated in the decades after he left office.
