Whitlam is a suburb in the

Molonglo Valley Molonglo Valley is a district in the Australian Capital Territory in Australia. The district is subdivided into divisions (suburbs), sections and blocks and is the newest district of the ACT. The district is planned to consist of thirteen suburb ...

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory until 1938, is an internal States and territories of Australia, territory of Australia. Canberra, the capital city of Australia, is situated within the territory, an ...

. The suburb is named after former prime minister

Gough Whitlam Edward Gough Whitlam (11 July 191621 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from December 1972 to November 1975. To date the longest-serving federal leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), he was notable for being ...

. Many Canberra suburbs are named after prime ministers or other politicians, but only at least a year post death. The ACT government waited a year before announcing a suburb named Whitlam. Whitlam is the northernmost suburb in the Molonglo Valley district, positioned to the north of Denman Prospect. The ACT government plans to release 500 residential dwelling lots in 2018–19, 600 in 2019–20 and another 500 in 2020–21. Whitlam is a cat containment area, meaning that pet cats are not permitted to roam freely outside householder's yards.

Geography

The Molonglo River forms the southern border of Whitlam. The eastern edge is marked by the Coppins Crossing Road. The lowest point at the western corner is about 500 meters above sea level. The higher parts are to the north, which is the southern slopes of The Pinnacle. Whitlam is cut in half by the inactive Winslade Fault. The fault runs in a southwest-northeast direction and is marked by

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

outcrops. Southeast of the fault the surface rock is

tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock co ...

from the Mount Painter Volcanics of late Wenlock age. Northwest of the fault, the rocks are

rhyodacite Rhyodacite is a volcanic rock intermediate in composition between dacite and rhyolite. It is the extrusive equivalent of those plutonic rocks that are intermediate in composition between monzogranite and granodiorite. Rhyodacites form from rapid ...

from the Walker Volcanics. Deep Creek flowing to the southwest roughly in line with the Winslade Fault drains most of the suburb.Henderson G A M and Matveev G, Geology of Canberra, Queanbeyan and Environs 1:50000 1980.

References

{{Molonglo Valley Suburbs Suburbs of Canberra 2017 establishments in Australia