If it wasn't for Gough Whitlam I may well have been imprisoned or shot. Like so many of his legacies, people will argue about whether this was a good thing or not. But by ending conscription he saved me, and thousands of others, from making a choice between going to jail or going to Vietnam.

It is a common mistake where political debate resembles a Punch and Judy Show to characterise politicians as good or bad, evil or saintly, great or useless. But at the end of the day, what endures are good and bad policies. Gough Whitlam had plenty of both.

When Gough was sacked as Prime Minister, I was amember of the Labor Partyand was deeply shattered by the news. Australia would be a nastier place if not for Gough, and the policies he implemented that enhanced our personal freedoms were his most profound and enduring bequests.

He pulled our troops out of an unwinnable civil war in Vietnam, and lowered the voting age to 18 so that, in future, those who were old enough to die for our country could also have a say in how it was run.