Colleagues, in the more than 25 years that I've been a member of this caucus, as many of you know I've said and done some hard things. But nothing, nothing harder than this. This is the most difficult speech I have made and will ever make in this caucus.

Friends, Gough Whitlam was a towering figure in our party and in our lives for as long as I can remember.

When I first joined the party he was leader of the opposition. My first election campaign as a very active young party member was in 1972, when 23 years of conservative government was swept away, and of course, "It's Time" became part of our language.

And I will never forget the excitement and the enthusiasm of that election and neither will so many others who support our party, who knew that the surging tide of Labor support was not only about a change of government but about changing the country - for the better.

Those of us within the party know that Gough's agenda of modernisation included the modernisation of the Australian Labor Party. And throughout that extraordinarily long career as a distinguished parliamentarian, he spent all that time, and before and after, as a party activist as well.

He set about reforming and modernising and making our Party electable. He worked tirelessly to make the Labor Party a viable alternative government. His policy reforms to Labor's platform really did meet the needs of modern Australia. And I think his campaign speech in 1972 really summed up his vision for Australia: 

• to promote equality 
• to involve the people of Australia in the decision making processes of our land 
• and to liberate the talents and uplift the horizons of the Australian people. 

And to those ends Gough devoted nearly seven decades of his long life.

And today we should also acknowledge his commitment to political reform to better the lives of Australians was a shared value with Margaret. Margaret Whitlam was also an extraordinary woman, a towering figure in her own right.

Gough and I were close for more years than I care to remember. Each week I was in Sydney I would go and have a cuppa, or a glass of Passiona with Gough in his office in Sydney. He came into his office four days a week until the last week or two of his life.

Quite a few years ago now we were talking about the possibility of making a film, and he said to me that he thought this was a good idea, let's do it. And then, back in 2002, on the 50th anniversary of Gough's public life, we made a documentary, "Gough Whitlam: In his own words".

In that filming, as he so often did, Gough talked for many, many hours about his life, his career, his goals, his hopes for Australia, but I think something that's very important for me to say to the caucus this morning is one thing he always kept returning to, time and again, and we should never forget this in this the Federal parliamentary Labor Party, was his belief that politics was an honourable profession.

But of course that film got nominated for a Logie award, and I said this to Gough, he seemed very pleased, very pleased. But I had to give him the bad news because when you get nominated for a Logie award, none of us realised this, but then a month or two before the ceremony, they tell you you're not going to win it. Gough was crestfallen for at least 5 seconds and said to me, "Comrade, I suppose an Academy Award is out of the question?"

But friends, today we should remember that Gough Whitlam modernised our party, he made our party electable. He was so ambitious for our party, but he was so ambitious for Australia to be a confident and progressive nation. He was an inspiration to a generation of Australians. I'm one of them and I know, of course, I'm here with others, who feel this way in this Caucus today.

He was a courageous, resilient, determined leader of our party. He was a visionary and of course in this Caucus we will remember with very great gratitude his service. He was a great parliamentarian, he was a great leader, he was a great Australian and for so many of us, and it's what makes it so hard today, he was a great friend and mentor.

John Faulkner has been a Labor member of the Senate since 1989. 

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