Australia mourns its former PM

Social reformer Whitlam hailed for establishing relations with China

Gough Whitlam, a flamboyant Australian prime minister and controversial social reformer whose grip on power was cut short by a bitter constitutional crisis, died on Tuesday at the age of 98.

Although national leader for only three turbulent years until 1975, the legacy of Whitlam's Labor Party government remains to this day. Many of its legislative and social innovations, once regarded as radical, are now accepted as part of daily life.

Whitlam's four children said their father died in a Sydney nursing home. They described him as "a loving and generous father".

"He was a source of inspiration to us and our families and for millions of Australians," they said in a statement.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Whitlam "seemed, in so many ways, larger than life".

"Gough Whitlam was a giant of his time," Abbott said in a statement.

Abbott noted that Whitlam established diplomatic relations with China and became the first Australian prime minister to visit the country, which is now Australia's largest trading partner.

Current Labor leader, Bill Shorten, credited Whitlam with abolishing capital punishment and outlawing racial and sex discrimination.

Whitlam won the 1972 general election with the campaign slogan "It's time".

Labor's victory ended 23 years of rule by the conservative Liberal-National party coalition.

The government redefined Australian foreign policy when it recognized China, before the United States and many other Western nations.

More dramatically, it ended military conscription and withdrew all Australian troops from the Vietnam War, and then established diplomatic relations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The "White Australia" policy, which had restricted immigration by non-Europeans for about a century, was finally abolished.

On the home front, the government boosted expenditure on education, the plight of Aborigines, health, the arts and welfare.

Whitlam called and won a snap election in 1974 after the conservative opposition tried to block many of his reforms.

Governor-General Sir John Kerr broke the deadlock when he dismissed the government, and Whitlam as prime minister.

Despite a public outcry, Labor lost new elections and stayed in opposition until 1983. Whitlam retired from Parliament in 1978.

He was born Edward Gough Whitlam in Melbourne on July 11, 1916. He was brought up in the Australian capital of Canberra, where his father, Fred, was a government lawyer.

Whitlam studied law at Sydney University and served as an Australian air force bomber navigator during World War II before entering Parliament in 1952.

His wife, Margaret, whom he married in 1942, died in 2012.