Thanks, Amatou, for mentioning Gough Whitlam. I love old Gough right up to little bits.
He was a big man so his faults were bigger than life-sized but so were his accomplishments!
Unless you lived though every stutifying year of the 23 dull and dreary years of Liberal rule, you have no idea how libeating it was - just to hear Gough speak.
Pre-Gough public address:
"Mr Chairman and Lady Gilfrogen, Sir Archibald Moneybags and Lady Moneybags, Archbishop Tweedhead and Mrs Tweedhead, Lord Mayor Dunder, distnguished guests, ladies and gentlemen..."
Post-Gough public address:
"Men and women of Australia..."
I can still see Gough as if it was yesterday, striding across the stage (as the crowd went wild) and placing his speech notes on the podium.
He'd stand perfectly still looking at the last seat in the last row of a packed auditorium and wait for perfert quiet to descend.
Then he'd look from one side of the last row to the other and boom out:
"Men and women of Australia."
And the crowd would go beserk by clapping and yelling and stamping their feet for the sheer JOY of (at long last) not being the invisible grunts that the toffy-nosed Liberals thought ordinary Aussies were!
After those five liberating words "Men and women of Australia" it would not have mattered if Gough said he'd raise taxes by 50% - we'd still vote for him cos we loved Gough Whitlam right up to little bits because of how he made us feel:
