Fred Whitlam - Public Servant

Public Servant

In 1918 Whitlam transferred to the Sydney office of the Crown Solicitor's office, and in 1920 he was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of Australia. He became deputy Crown Solicitor in 1921, assistant Crown Solicitor (based in Canberra) in 1927, and Crown Solicitor in December 1936. In this position he was senior legal adviser to the government for 12 years, and his views were respected and influential. Cameron Hazlehurst writes:

"On the Lyons government's controversial national insurance initiative, for example, he drafted legislation for the National Insurance Commission, recommended the appointment of J. B. Brigden as chairman, and drew up the agreement between the commission and the Australian branch of the British Medical Association. He also briefed W.R. Dovey, his son's future father-in-law, as counsel assisting the subsequent royal commission. Closer in political sentiment to John Curtin and J.B. Chifley than to their predecessors, Whitlam was largely responsible for preparing the documentation for the 1944 referendum on Commonwealth powers and, with the solicitor-general, for advising H.V. Evatt during the bank nationalization litigation (1947-49)."

As a public servant, Whitlam had no formal involvement in politics, but he was active in civic and community affairs in Canberra, then a small and isolated town, and was also active in the local Presbyterian Church. In 1933 he led a campaign against Canberra residents being required to pay a hospital tax when they had no elected local government and no parliamentary representation. He was known to have pro-Labor views. In a 1973 interview, Gough Whitlam said that had his parents been British, they would have been Liberals. "In the Australian context they would vote Labor as the party of change and public responsibility - things being done by elected persons rather than by self-perpetuating directorates." Whitlam was also was a friend of Evatt, Attorney-General in the 1941-49 Labor government and later Leader of the Opposition.