The Hon Edward Gough Whitlam AC QC (1916–2014) was prime minister of Australia from 1972 to 1975. As prime minister he famously returned traditional lands in the Northern Territory to the Gurindji people and his government drafted the first Commonwealth legislation to grant land rights to Aboriginal people. Ossie Cruse AM MBE (b. 1933), Aboriginal elder, pastor and former National Aboriginal Conference chairman, is a prominent campaigner for reconciliation and social justice for Australia’s indigenous peoples. Ghillar Michael Anderson was one of four Aboriginal activists who set up the original tent embassy opposite Old Parliament House on Australia Day 1972.
In 1981, Whitlam joined Cruse and Anderson on a tour of Africa, to advise Commonwealth Heads of Government of the discrimination against Aboriginal people in Australia. Juno Gemes, who has spent much of her career documenting the leading figures and moments in the struggle for Indigenous rights, photographed the three men at a press conference at Sydney Airport before their departure. Many of Gemes' portraits of Indigenous activists were exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Proof: Portraits from the Movement 1978–2003.
Gift of the artist 2005. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Juno Gemes/Copyright Agency, 2024
Juno Gemes (age 37 in 1981)
Hon. Gough Whitlam AC QC (age 65 in 1981)
Ossie Cruse AM MBE (age 48 in 1981)
Juno Gemes (22 portraits)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
1 November 2014
On the day before the Hon. E. G. Whitlam, AC, QC, died last month, at the great age of 98, there were seven former prime ministers of Australia still living, plus the incumbent Mr. Abbott – eight in all.
Ellen Kent examines the portrait of Vincent Lingiari and Prime Minister Gough Whitlam taken by photographer Mervyn Bishop.
