If many Labor supporters regard the Curtin and Chifley governments as a period of great achievements and greater ambitions frustrated by conservative forces, their illusions in the Whitlam government are even more heroic. After nearly a quarter of a century of stagnant conservative rule during which Australia seemed to be a backward looking outpost of the British empire run by monarchists and reactionaries, Gough Whitlam, the Mighty Gough, broke through and during his first 12 months in office remade Australia forever. Then, as in a Victorian melodrama, the forces of evil began to organise and eventually brought down the Whitlam government through a dastardly anti-constitutional conspiracy that involved the Liberals, the High Court, the governor-general and the Melbourne Club, all backed by, if not working at the behest of, the CIA. After just three years of Labor in power, Australia was once again thrown back into the dark days of Liberal government, now led by Malcolm Fraser, grazier from the Western Districts and prime exemplar of the born to rule set.

There is of course a germ of truth in this heroic myth. The December 1972 election was a watershed in Australian electoral history, and the Whitlam government did represent a break from the past in important respects. No matter the demonisation of the Whitlam government by the conservatives and many ALP leaders since its defeat, it left behind a legacy of reforms that its more conservative successors have never tried to eliminate completely.