GOUGH Whitlam appeared to relish the opportunity to return to Border in the years after he visited as prime minister in January 1973 to announce the Albury-Wodonga National Growth Centre project.
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His proposal for regional development incorporated a plan for a city of 300,000 people by 2000, with public servants transferring en masse from the big cities to live in a large inland city based on the model that built Canberra, the national capital.
With the dismissal of the Whitlam government in November 1975, the Fraser government halved the population target to 150,000 before the proposal was abandoned in 1990.
But the Border’s affection for Whitlam did not wane.
During that visit to Albury in 1973, he was also photographed at the city’s Travelodge hotel, which he had opened on October 15, 1971 when he was the federal opposition leader.
Thirty years later, he returned to celebrate the hotel’s anniversary — by this time it was known as the Country Comfort — where he was the guest of honour, feted by city leaders and dignitaries.
During the 1980s and 1990s, he had visited Albury-Wodonga several times to attend university ceremonies, Labor Party functions and arts events.
In 1992, Whitlam was presented an honorary doctorate by La Trobe University in recognition of his contribution to the development of Albury Wodonga, while in 1997 he was the guest speaker when his minister for urban and regional development, Tom Uren, received a similar honour from Charles Sturt University.
In 1989, he launched the Albury-Wodonga Regional Art Foundation, earning long-term admiration from former Albury Regional Art Gallery director, Audray Banfield.
He, in turn, described her as a “formidable woman”.
It was Whitlam’s capacity to turn political enemies into friends, or at least admirers, that came to the fore with news of his death yesterday.
He was described by former Border MP Lou Lieberman as having “a lot of vision and the guts to fight for things that he believed in”, and as a collaborator of ideas who brought premiers of opposite political persuasions together.
But perhaps the final word should go to Malcolm Fraser.
Whitlam and Fraser, the most bitter political rivals from the 1975 dismissal, later grew to become friends and met up regularly, most recently this year.
“The line’s broken,” he said. “In this world, anyway, it’s broken forever.”
An era has ended. Whitlam was a leader whose like we won’t see again soon.
