Andrew Leigh | Fifty years on, Whitlam's government is still worth celebrating

Whitlam was a reformer, but he valued tradition, and knew his history. Visiting Australia in 1974, Gore Vidal was struck to meet a prime minister who took issue with the historical accuracy of Vidal's novel about the Roman emperor Julian.

It was, Vidal later noted, "an unusual experiment for Australia to choose as its prime minister its most intelligent man". As Julia Gillard noted in her 2011 Whitlam oration, Whitlam - like his near namesake Whitman - could well have said "I am large, I contain multitudes."

Gough Whitlam sought to change Australia, but to do so from the standpoint of a deep understanding of the past. As he put it, "Rather than discard our authentic traditions, we want to restore and invigorate them. ... Rather than overturn the true values of Australian society, we want to resurrect and foster those values."

Whitlam saw Australia not as a fearful fortress, but as a proud nation with much to offer the world.

He secured independence for Papua New Guinea. He cut Australia's tariffs by 25 per cent - the beginning of the end for the old McEwenist policy of "protection all round". John Button said that Whitlam would often remark "When I opened China to the world...".

Gough Whitlam was no pacifist. The day after Pearl Harbour, he signed up for the Air Force, and flew hundreds of reconnaissance, escort and bombing missions. But he knew the limits of our military action, and one of his first acts as prime minister was to withdraw our remaining troops from Vietnam, a conflict that he described as "disastrous and deluded."

Whitlam was proud of his nation, but he embodied the distinction that George Orwell draws between nationalism and patriotism. You can love your country, Orwell averred, without needing to claim it as being better than to all others.

If there was a central value that drove the Whitlam government, it was egalitarianism. Speaking at Ballarat in 1973, he said "Egalitarianism - by whatever name we call it - is at the heart of the Australian tradition." Whitlam agreed with Doc Evatt's view that "Australian democracy was born at Eureka', and noted the "auspicious coincidence" that the Whitlam government was elected the day before the 118th anniversary of Eureka.

He put egalitarianism into action through universal health care, the schools commission, the World Heritage Conventions, the Trade Practices Act, the Racial Discrimination Act, a land rights deal that led Vincent Lingiari to say "we are all mates now", and sewering Western Sydney (which he said made us the world's "most effluent nation").

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Paul Keating called the Whitlam government "the re-sparkling of Australian social experimentation, which was snuffed out prematurely with Gallipoli and Flanders".

Whitlam's term in government was too short. If he had won in 1969 - if Don's Party had a happy ending - then Whitlam would have had three easy years to implement his social agenda. But his government had to face a major global crisis. This seems to happen to Labor governments. James Scullin was sworn in two days before the stock market crash. John Curtin was elected two months before Pearl Harbour. Kevin Rudd was elected the year before the Global Financial Crisis.

Gough Whitlam faced the oil shocks, and the challenge of stagflation. Any analysis of that government's economic record must take the world economy into account.

In Manning Clark's words, Whitlam was an enlarger, not a straitener. Keating once called him Fabius Maximus. Hawke called him Prima Donna Assoluta. He is the only former prime minister with a prominent rock band named after him. But he was always looking to do more. The to-do list he left us includes a republic. A human rights bill. Fixed four-year terms. More work on the reconciliation journey.

For me, the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam government is personal. I was born in August 1972. When my mother's pregnancy reached the nine-month mark she pinned an "It's time" badge onto the part of her shirt that covered her belly. Gough's vision and optimism helped shape my political life.

Canberrans have always treasured Whitlam. He ensured that ACT residents got Senate representation. Given that he spent 10 years living in Canberra full time (as a child at Telopea High and Canberra Grammar, and then as a resident of the Lodge), plus two more decades traveling here as an MP, Canberrans are rightly proud to claim Gough Whitlam as one of our own. It is a proud anniversary for all of us.