WHEN Gough Whitlam visited Wagga in January 1974, former Wagga deputy mayor Mary Kidson recalls being struck by a "very tall and articulate man" who made a captivating speech.
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Mr Whitlam touched down in Wagga for a whirlwind visit on January 15, 1974, where he opened the Schnelle Harmon grandstand at the now-disused Eric Weissel Oval and a major extension of the Wagga Leagues Club.
In his five hours in Wagga, Mr Whitlam attended an official reception at the Civic Theatre, where nearly 500 residents turned out to greet him, before later meeting with party supporters at the Leagues Club.
Mrs Kidson, a stalwart of the Labor Party in Wagga who served on council for 22 years, thought the former prime minster was "remarkable in every aspect" when she had the chance to see him in the flesh during that visit.
"I remember the excitement in the room as he walked down to the stage - it was quite inspiring," she said.
Despite her admiration for the man, Mrs Kidson admits the former prime minister was "very foolish" in how he handled the events leading up to his infamous dismissal in November of the following year.
"He could have gone to the Governor-General first and told him he had the confidence of the house," she said.
"But he didn't, he went to lunch instead - he didn't do well in that respect."
Former Nationals member for Riverina John Sullivan, who was in parliament for the latter part of the Whitlam years, had an excellent relationship with the former prime minister, despite the two sitting on opposite sides of the chamber.
"We've lost one of the great characters of the Australian parliament and a prime minister that will be remembered for a long, long time," he said.
Mr Sullivan, these days a Narrandera Shire councillor, recalls an "outstanding character", even if he didn't see eye-to-eye with Mr Whitlam's policies.
"We had a great rapport and I thought very highly of him," Mr Sullivan said.
"I didn't appreciate some of his actions as leader of the Labor Party but as a man, he was very good."
When the plan was being hatched by then-opposition leader Malcolm Fraser to unseat Whitlam in late 1975, Mr Sullivan was in the thick of the drama as a member of the Coalition party room.
He remembers those few months being "quite hectic" with no one quite sure as to what was happening in Canberra.
"We weren't quite sure what was happening because supply had been blocked," Mr Sullivan said.
"There was quite a lot of discussion about where this would end and who would give in first."
Mr Sullivan said the Coalition's actions were subsequently vindicated by the election that followed Mr Whitlam's dismissal, which saw the former prime minister suffer a landslide defeat.
GOUGH Whitlam has been remembered as one of Australia's "foremost political figures" and full of passion and vision by member for Riverina Michael McCormack.
Paying tribute to the former prime minister, who died aged 98 on Tuesday, Mr McCormack said Mr Whitlam may have been a polarising figure, but his legend would live on.
"Whether you agreed with Gough or not, and he certainly did polarise opinion, people remember him," he said.
"One thing about politics is you need to have a vision and a passion and he certainly had those attributes."
While Mr Whitlam was only in office for three years, he still achieved many things that Mr McCormack said would define his legacy, including pulling our troops out of Vietnam, pursuing an agenda of decentralisation and recognising the need for the local government sector to receive more funding.
Above all however, according to Mr McCormack, he managed to get people actively involved in politics like few have managed both before him, and after.
"The 'It's Time' campaign was a new way of campaigning and certainly got people on board like no other campaign before and probably since," Mr McCormack said.
"He also motivated a lot of people opposed to his ideas to get involved in politics - to get people interested in politics was a good thing."
For Dan Hayes, the president of Country Labor's Wagga branch, the death of Mr Whitlam marked a "sad day" for the party.
Mr Whitlam had one of the biggest impacts of any of Australia's prime ministers, Mr Hayes said, and was influential in changing the nation's culture after the Menzies years.
"After 23 years of opposition, Labor came in and brought its reform agenda about and a number of those changes are with us today in a positive way," he said.
THE city of Griffith's diverse community owes a lot to the revolutionary multicultural direction the Whitlam government took.
After years of Australia being defined by the White Australia Policy, Gough Whitlam pursued an agenda of encouraging immigration and multiculturalism when he entered office in 1972.
Today, Griffith is made up more than 40 nationalities, according to the city's mayor John Dal Broi.
"The single biggest name in the Griffith telephone directory is now 'Singh'," Councillor Dal Broi said.
"Years ago it would've been an Italian name or 'Smith'."
Following the paradigm shift by the Whitlam government, Griffith embraced the new era of multiculturalism head-on, Cr Dal Broi said.
"We do embrace people who come over here in the right way and through the right channels and we're the better for it," he said.
"We did need and still need people to do some more of the manual-type work around this irrigation area."
Mr Whitlam wasn't a universally liked figure in Griffith however, with sections of the community concerned about his fervent backing of his immigration minister, then-member for Riverina Al Grassby.
Mr Grassby was at times a polarising figure in the Griffith community with ties to the city's Italian population.
Anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay ran against Mr Grassby in the 1974 federal election as a Liberal Party candidate, with Mr Mackay's preferences helping Nationals contender John Sullivan topple the immigration minister.
Cr Dal Broi hopes that time has helped to mend the wounds between sections of the Griffith community and Mr Whitlam.
"There will be some people who still carry some feelings of concern," he said.
"My motto is, I like to get on with the job, not to look back but to look forward."
AUSTRALIA's current ties with China had their origins in efforts by Gough Whitlam to establish relations between the two nations at the height of the Cold War.
Mr Whitlam established official relations between Australia and China during his tenure as prime minister and became the first leader of an Australian government to visit the communist state.
Those moves laid the foundations for Australian businesses to establish a presence, such as Wagga-based Bee Dee Bags did in 2001, in what is now the world's fastest-growing economy.
"China's going to be the economic powerhouse of the world in the future," Bee Dee Bags founder Bruce Dicker said.
"At this stage America's leading the way, but China's growth is unparalleled in modern history."
While much of the work to open up economic ties was done by former Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping, who opened up the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, Mr Dicker acknowledged the work Mr Whitlam did in establishing diplomatic ties in the 1970s.
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