The second coming: Rudd's new agenda

THERE was a faint echo of 1972 at Government House yesterday morning. It was not so much an echo of the joy of victory after bitter years of war and setback. Kevin Rudd's smile said all that needed to be said on that front; that the natural order of things had been restored. Instead, it was the echo of the sharpening of the pencils as the first Whitlam ministry got down to work. On December 5, 1972, just two ministers were sworn in. Gough Whitlam and his deputy, Lance Barnard, took all the cabinet portfolios between them. Together, they spent the next two weeks doing everything they were able to do under the Constitution to remake the nation that did not need legislation. It was only...