GOUGH Whitlam was described as a man with a big vision for Australia.
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However, he visited Ballarat on almost a yearly basis with his wife Margaret and had a special connection to the city and the story of Eureka.
Ballarat MP Catherine King said she had met with him on several occasion in the city included having Mr Whitlam and Margaret at her home.
“They were great patrons of Eureka, they would come to Ballarat in the first week of December for many years,” she said.
“He had a long and abiding love of Ballarat – that was always evident when he and Margaret came – and they had a rich understanding of our history.”
These thoughts were echoed by former Ballarat South MP Frank Sheehan, who described him as a man of great vision.
“He was always a memorable person, he had a big presence,” he said.
“He was a big man in stature as you would know but also really big in his ideas.”
Mr Sheehan credited Mr Whitlam with giving the Labor Party a modern touch, which he believes created the changed party we have today.
He also said Mr Whitlam created a hunger among the party to get it into power when he was elected in 1972.
Many people spent Tuesday discussing the wide variety of reforms Mr Whitlam introduced, including the right to vote at the age of 18, setting up Medibank and the abolishment of university fees, just to name a few.
“I think that today there has been an outpouring of national grief and national joy ... the things that Gough stood for and wanted to change were the things that mattered,” Ms King said.
“I hope it gives people a bit of an understanding of what he did – the things we take for granted today.
“He was an incredibly generous, open-hearted and expansive man, who believed in the capacity of Australia to be great.”