WODONGA-born politician Bob Whan, who helped make Eden-Monaro a bellwether federal seat, has been farewelled.
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Final respects for the one-term Labor MP were paid at a funeral at the Woronora Cemetery and Crematorium in southern Sydney on Tuesday afternoon.
It followed a minute's silence in the House of Representatives on Monday afternoon for Mr Whan who represented Eden-Monaro from 1972 to 1975.
Mr Whan, 82, died on October 4 after suffering a heart attack the previous week.
A Labor Party successor as member for Eden-Monaro, Mike Kelly, paid tribute to Mr Whan.
"A great Labor man and a tremendous role model for all who hope to be good local members," Mr Kelly wrote on Facebook.
Former Labor senator Ursula Stephens commented on the same thread about Mr Whan's contribution to prime minister Gough Whitlam's government.
"Bob was a wonderful man, great company, diligent local member and one of Whitlam's great assets," Ms Stephens wrote.
Mr Whan was born in Wodonga on January 5, 1933, the oldest of three brothers, with one of them, Ken, becoming a Benalla councillor and mayor of Delatite Shire.
He left Wodonga for Melbourne at the age of two, but regularly visited his family who ran a large general store in High Street.
"It was in the main street, just near the railway station and across the road from the main competitor, Ernie Mann, who was a cousin of the family," Mr Whan wrote in his autobiography Chops for Breakfast which was published in 2014.
"Wodonga had regular horse sales that attracted a lot of Indian and Afghan buyers.
"They created a special market, especially if one of them died during the sale.
"Butter sales boomed.
"It was used on the funeral pyre."
Mr Whan returned to the Border to study woolclassing in Albury and worked at Dalgety's woolstore in the 1950s.
He later moved to Sydney and studied in England before returning to Australia and joining the Labor Party.
After standing unsuccessfully in the seat of Macarthur in 1969, Mr Whan won Eden-Monaro by 503 votes in the 1972 election.
After Mr Whitlam's dismissal, he suffered an 11 per cent swing as the seat became held by the Liberal Party.
Since 1972, Eden-Monaro has changed MPs on each switch of government, leading to its bellwether status.
In later years Mr Whan watched his son Steve enter the NSW parliament.
He is survived his wife Gill, two children and four grandchildren.
