Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Today, our parliament has some very sad news and, I think, regardless of political affiliation, it is very sad news for all Australians. Prime Minister Edward Gough Whitlam has passed away. Today, our parliament and our nation pause to mourn the loss of one of Australia's greatest sons. This morning, I offered my condolences to Gough's son Nick. He was able to tell me that the great man had passed in peace and comfort. He kept that certain grandeur to the very end.

The Hon. Edward Gough Whitlam AC, QC means a lot to the story of our country and the story of modern Australia, our home. Gough's was a truly Australian life and a life lived truly for Australia. In uniform or in parliament, in the prime ministership or around the world, Gough Whitlam was a man for the ages and a giant of his time. No-one who lived through the Whitlam era will ever forget it and perhaps nobody born after it can ever imagine it. Gough's ambition went beyond his desire to serve our nation. He wanted to transform it completely, permanently, and he did.

Today, I submit that like no other Prime Minister before or since, Gough Whitlam redefined our country and, in doing so, he changed the lives of a generation and generations to come. Think of Australia in, say, 1966: Ulysses was banned, Lolita was banned. It was the Australia of the six o'clock swill, with no film industry and only one television drama, Homicide. Political movements to the left of the DLP were under routine surveillance. Many Australians of talent—Clive, Barry, Germaine, Rupert, Sidney, Geoffrey—as a matter of course, left their home, their native country, to try their luck in England. Yet Gough reimagined Australia, our home, as a confident, prosperous, modern and multicultural nation where opportunity belonged to everyone.

The Whitlam government should not be measured in years but in achievements. Whitlam defined patriotism as seeing things that were wrong about Australia and trying to change them. In 1970, he was referring to our unacceptably high infant mortality rate amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, our immigration policy based on race, our support for the Vietnam War. Whitlam said that a true patriot does not try to justify unfairness or prolong unfairness but to change it, and change it he did. Our country is most certainly different because of him. By any test, our country is better because of him.

Gough Whitlam spent his political life reaching for higher ground. Think of all that he changed, forever and for the better. Health care changed because of him. Education changed because of him. Land rights for Aboriginal Australians because of him. Our place in Asia changed, particularly our relationship with China changed because of him; our troops home from Vietnam. The birthday ballot ended because of him. The death penalty abolished and discrimination banished from our laws because of him. No-fault divorce in the family court because of him. Our suburbs for the first time at the centre of our national debate because of him. Everywhere we look in our remarkable modern country, we see the hand and work of Whitlam. The program lives on.

Gough Whitlam opened the doors to our universities. He lifted up our schools and training centres. He said that every Australian should have a choice in education. But Whitlam said that this must be a choice between systems and courses not between standards, not between a good education and a bad one, an expensive education or a poor one, a socially esteemed education or one that is socially downgraded. He, indeed, believed that the health of any one of us matters to all of us.

With Medibank he brought the peace of mind that is Medicare to every Australian. He was determined to end what he called the 'inequality of luck' for Australians with a disability and his vision is writ large in the National Disability Insurance Scheme now. He understood that the main sufferers in Australian society, the main victims of social deprivation and restricted opportunity have been the oldest Australians on the one hand and the newest Australians on the other. And he sought land rights for Aboriginal Australians, the end of the White Australia policy and the passage of the Racial Discrimination Act.

He tried always to do good. He strove, like the conscientious Fabian he mostly was, to leave behind a better world. His speech writer and confidant, Graham Freudenberg, reminded me this morning, 'There are some who say he did too much too soon but few can say that what he did could have waited longer.' Gough never lacked the courage for a good fight. It was this courage and determination that made him the great reformer of the Labor Party, the greatest in Labor's history.

Gough Whitlam loved the Labor Party and the Labor Party loved Gough Whitlam, and Gough Whitlam changed the Labor Party. He shook Labor up. He made our party relevant to the modern, multicultural fair and reconcile country of his grand vision. There is a story that in 1964 Gough entered the Trades Hall in Melbourne. He had a speech prepared for the Labor Party but he said he could not deliver it because we were in fact to Labor Parties— there with the men, the delegates and the candidates and then there were the women making the tea and preparing the meals out the back. Gough declared then that we did not deserve to be called the Labor Party until we were one Labor Party. Gough declared that until we were one Labor Party we did not deserve to govern. The result was that the women stopped making the tea but they were no longer consigned to the back of the room. And so began the making of modern Labor.

Gough refashioned our party. He drew it out of its narrow, quarrelsome and partisan divisions into an inclusive social democracy and he stirred with his wit and his capability many brilliant citizens into public service. Gough presented to the nation and largely delivered a hearty, refreshing, merciful, forgiving, exhilarating new order. He was an unusual figure to be doing such things. He was large and regal, with an accent both broad and aristocratic and cadence so emphatic it seemed you dared not oppose him. He could appear both pre-and episcopal and usually conservative, while changing society for ever.

Francis James knew him as a schoolboy when his aim was to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. The truanted from Canberra Grammar to watch the young RG Menzies dominating Parliament House. Francis said, 'Gough admired Menzies lucidity but found him insincere.' He was judged by his acquaintances and political contestants in very different ways. The former Victorian trade union defence committee swore blind he was a closet Liberal and more frankly a spy. The Melbourne establishment believed was a class traitor, one who had sullied his boots and his family name by seeking an easier rise in the stupider party. The DLP saw him as their bridge over troubled waters back to the anti-Communist Chifleyism. To his friend Jim Killen he was as an obnoxious a by-product of the upper middle classes as was ever grafted itself leech-like on the egalitarian movement. To Sir John Kerr, he was a dangerous megalomaniac. To Sir Laurence Olivier he was a hero of the age. To Gore Vidal he was the nation's most intelligent man. Above all, Gough was an agent for democracy and an agent for tolerance.

Democracy and tolerance are indeed defining features of our nation and great leaders can make national character and can make national values. These are very important qualities—democracy and tolerance—which depend upon our nation's leaders. Of all leaders, arguably none had more cause to carry and anvil of political hatred, but he did not. In defending democracy and defending tolerance, Whitlam defined his values and his character and indeed our nation's.

There will be more to say about the loss of this great man. I know that so many of you will have personal stories and memories of inspiration to share. In remembering Gough, we remember his wife Margaret, a great Australian in her own right, and remember their life together. It is a great Australian love story. Our thoughts are with his family, a family which has given so much to our nation. Their long line of public service did not begin with Gough and it has not ended with him. I believe that perhaps there will be more tears shed for Gough Whitlam today than for any other leader in Australia's political history. And his beloved men and women of Australia will long remember where they were this day.

'It's time,' Gough once told us, a phrase which captured the imagination of a nation, a rallying cry for change, for a confident, progressive, fair and modern Australia. 'It's time,' he said and, because of Gough, because if his life and legacy, it is always time. It is always time for a more generous, inclusive, progressive and confident Australia. It is always time to help our fellow Australians rise higher than their current circumstances. It is always time for courage in leadership and to create and seize opportunity. It is always time.

On his 80th birthday, Gough Whitlam said, 'With all my reservations, I do admit I seem eternal.' He warned, however, 'Dying will happen some time. As you know, I have a plan for the ages, not just for this life,' and he said of a possible meeting with his maker, 'You can be sure of one thing—I shall treat him as an equal.' The men and women of Australia will mourn Gough Whitlam as a legend and we shall always treasure his legacy. Gough's light shines before him and the memory of his good works will live long in the heart of our nation.

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