Gough Whitlam: Bathurst remembers his Light on the Hill address

As the 629 strong crowd were drawn to their feet, the former Prime Minister of Australia moved slowly through the room soaking in the applause. He was in his element. 

Mr Whitlam had been invited to give the Light on The Hill address in honour of another former Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley. 

Former Deputy President of the Senate Sue West said it was a fantastic occasion. The audience was totally enthralled. 

"Gough Whitlam was a large man, but he was also a large personality," Ms West said.

"He had a brilliant mind.

"People either loved him or hated him.

"He certainly was one of the most colourful politicians this country has seen," she said.

Ms West said in just three years Gough Whitlam forged an incredible legacy.

She said this included opening up the market to China for agriculture and raw materials, the creation of Medibank, the forerunner of Medicare, and human rights reforms.

"After 23 years of conservative government, he led the Labor Party out of the wilderness," Ms West said.

"He modernised Labor and gave it a new face."

Ms West said she met Mr Whitlam a number of times in the years following his Light on the Hill address.

"He really was a statesman and one of the great orators," she said.

"I remember him appearing before various committees in 1999-2000 and he was still a great speaker.

"He was very active minded and retained an active interest in politics. 

"He was still nurturing the young politicians coming behind him right up until recent times.

"This is a loss."

She said sends her condolences to his family, saying Gough and Margaret Whitlam's three sons and their daughter will now be missing both their parents.

"He was a public figure but he was also a husband and father to those who hold him dear," Ms West said. 

The following extracts were published in the Western Advocate on Monday, September 9, 1991.

The need for Australians to remember the ideals of the late Joseph Benedict Chifley and continue working to achieve them was stressed by Gough Whitlam in an annual Light on the Hill dinner at Bathurst Leagues Club. 

The former Prime Minister said that Chifley was a great innovator in his political generation.

"We should regularly recall his achievements and consistently build on them," he said.

"In so far as members of the Australian Labor Party do that, they will enhance the standing an standards of their party and country."

***

In a wide ranging address, Mr Whitlam outlined the achievements of My Chifley and subsequent efforts by Federal ALP governments to promote social justice on a national and international level.

He put emphasis on the need for continuing constitutional reform.

Mr Whitlam said in December of 1949, at the end of the longest period of Labor government in the Federal Parliament at that time, Australia still felt and saw itself as the most remote entity in an empire or commonwealth centred in Europe.

"The most bitter political disputes in and about the ALP concerned the attraction which the extreme elements in the party felt for the ideologies which in Moscow and Madrid had survived the war in Europe," he said.

"Today, with elected governments and pluralist democracies installed right across Europe from Madrid to Moscow, Australians should be proud and grateful that at a crucial period in its history the Australian party of democratic socialism was led by Chifley.

"His union and Catholic background gave him the inner resources to resist and reject both ideologies.

"As Prime he led a successful campaign in the party against one ideology.

"When he died, in June of 1951 at the age of 65, he was Leader of the Opposition and leading a campaign to the extent that the Federal Executive permitted, against the other ideology." 

Mr Whitlam said that on both counts, Chifley's integrity was beyond challenge or reproach by bother supporters and opponents of the ALP.

***

During his address Mr Whitlam referred to the frustrations ALP governments had often encountered in implementing reforms.

"The great vice of Australian politics since Chifley's day has been the frequency of Federal and State elections," he said.

"The objective should be to have elections for all Federal and State House of Parliament on the same day."