Gough Whitlam

In cartooning terms it doesn’t get much better than Gough Whitlam and during his brief period as Prime Minister (1972-1975) no one captured him quite like Larry Pickering. Gough was arguably Pickering’s masterpiece, with his exaggerated upper lip, bold cleft chin and white coiffured hair. Pickering often drew Whitlam as the Head Chook, but whether he attached feathers or not, he always gave Whitlam a chook-like appearance. Yet Pickering was no fan of Whitlam, his cartoons were highly critical of the Labor Party at this time. Pickering also ran for Parliament as a Liberal in the 1974 election, missing out on winning the new federal seat of Canberra.

Although Whitlam retired from Parliament in 1978, his legacy lingered. He remained in the public eye, allowing later cartoonists an opportunity to create their own caricatures. Geoff Pryor’s cartoons featuring Gough reveal the ongoing influence he had on the Labor Party. While Pryor portrays Whitlam as a martyr and a modern-day Julius Caesar, his cartoons suggest that such portrayals emerge more from Gough’s own imagination than Pryor’s personal assessment!

Top: Pickering suggests that in the election campaign that followed his dismissal in 1975, Whitlam tried to keep the public focussed on Constitutional issues, rather than on his governmental record.