FORMER prime minister John Howard has hit out at Australian actor Cate Blanchett, labelling her speech at Gough Whitlam’s funeral as “outrageous”.

Invited to speak at Mr Whitlam’s memorial service at Sydney Town Hall last month, the Melbourne-born Hollywood star credited Mr Whitlam with the introduction of free education and healthcare.

“I am the beneficiary of free, tertiary education,” Blanchett said. “When I went to university, I could explore different courses and engage with the student union in extra-curricular activity. It was through that that I discovered acting.”

Mr Howard said Blanchett was a fine actor, but was wrong.

“That speech of Cate Blanchett’s was outrageous,” he said. “Cate Blanchett is a talented actor, I admire her talent, but to suggest that Whitlam introduced free university education is wrong.

“I went to Sydney University between 1957 and 1961, I didn’t get a good enough leaving pass to win a Commonwealth scholarship, but I did well enough at the end of my first-year law exams to win a scholarship from somebody who lost theirs for not doing well enough.

“The last three years of my university education were completely free and that was 11 years before Whitlam came to power,” he added.

Mr Howard said 70 per cent of people in universities before 1972 had their fees covered by Commonwealth scholarships.

“This idea that it just arrived (with Whitlam) is complete nonsense and it ought to be called out more frequently,” he said. “In 1989, when it became obvious that we could no longer afford free universities, the Hawke government introduced the HECS system, and we supported that.”

In a further aside, Mr Howard described Mr Whitlam’s funeral as an “interesting ­experience”.

“The person you had to have sympathy for, apart from the deceased’s family, was the usher who was trying to arrange the seating of four former Labor prime ministers,” he said.