Men and Women of Australia: Administering Whitlam's Re-Imagined Subject

Abstract

This contribution examines and reflects on a less-studied area of life during the Whitlam era: the machinery through which the government's expansion of legislated social security entitlements was administered. The government's record in this area warrants attention not only to gain insight into the everyday mechanics of social security administration in the Whitlam era, but also for what we might learn today from how those who administered that programme were pushed to comprehend the significance of the administrative realm as a site of politics, political action, and political relationships in its own right.