In Aboriginal communities across the nation there are people named Whitlam, in tribute to the man who might be regarded as Australia's first prime minister for indigenous affairs.
"All of us as Australians are diminished while the Aborigines are denied their rightful place in ths nation," Gough Whitlam argued in his 1972 election campaign speech.
On taking office, Mr Whitlam created a department of Aboriginal affairs and appointed the first full-time federal minister for indigenous affairs, who was advised by the National Aboriginal Consultative Council, an elected body set up to give indigenous people a say in the policies affecting them.
"He was a man who sat down with our people and treated them with respect," said Kirstie Parker, a co-chairwoman of the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, the latest of a number of Aboriginal representative bodies that followed the council set up by Mr Whitlam.
His government funded legal services for Aboriginal people, overrode racist state laws and prohibited racial discrimination by legislating the Racial Discrimination Act.
But he is perhaps best remembered for his visit to the Northern Territory community of Daguragu, which was immortalised in the Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody song, From Little Things Big Things Grow.
On August 16, 1975, Mr Whitlam, the "tall stranger" of the song, poured sand into the hand of Gurindji leader Vincent Lingiari, to signify the return of part of the Gurindji's traditional lands, marking the end of a nine-year struggle, which began when Aboriginal stockmen and their families walked off the Wave Hill cattle station. "We are all mates now," Mr Lingiari replied simply.
Elders in the community of Kalkarindji, near the site of the old cattle station, met on Tuesday and resolved to hold their own memorial to Whitlam as well as sending representatives to his state memorial service.
Reflecting on Whitlam's legacy on Tuesday, Marcia Langton, the foundation chair in Australian indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne said: "He ushered in a new era and people of my generation will be forever grateful to him for his courage and vision."
