The period of the Whitlam Government (1972-1975) was the era in which I cut my political teeth, so to speak. By any measure, there has never been a time of governance like it. And there has never been one since then either. The immutable facts of this Governments legislative achievements are documented elsewhere. Suffice it to say that it changed the face of Australia in a way that it unlikely to ever be reversed, never mind the perversity of conservative governments to try. To paraphrase PJK, it took us from a period of "Menzian torpor"into the modern era.

There would never have been such a government without Edward Gough Whitlam, who passed away today, aged 98. Whitlam's intelligence, vigour and vision, not to mention his charisma, was both the headquarters and engine-room of the Labour Administration. Today we can thank this government for medicare, legal reform of marriage and indigenous rights, equality for women, the welfare system, the recognition of the PRC and many other progressive policies. More than that, it created through it's sheer energy and optimism a sense of a new Australia, freed from decades of tepid conservative governance.

One day, some two decades after the fall of the Whitlam Government, I was on playground duty at Penrith High School. A Year 10 student whom I knew quite well rushed up to me, almost breathless. She had just come from a history class on the Whitlam Government and she had news that she couldn't contain a moment longer.

"Gough Whitlam. What a wonderful man! What a great government!" she gushed.

It took me by surprise. Maybe it shouldn't have, because that is how I felt when I was her age too.

Vale E.G. Whitlam