One of Australia's most celebrated political speechwriters, Graham Freudenberg, has died.
Mr Freudenberg worked for a number of Labor leaders including former prime minister Gough Whitlam, for whom he helped to write the famous "It's Time" speech in 1972.
Former head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet John Menadue said Mr Freudenberg died in hospital after a long illness.
"He was admired and will be mourned by many people who knew him personally and a great number of people who knew him in public recognition of his work," he said.
"Throughout his long illness, he remained courageous and concerned for people around him, and particularly for the Labor Party that he loved."
Former Prime Minister Paul Keating said he was a "literary prince as he was prince of the Labor movement."
Veteran political journalist Laurie Oakes described Mr Freudenberg as the best speechwriter Australia had ever produced.
"Vale Graham Freudenberg. Labor historian, our greatest political speechwriter, a good friend, and a good, good man," he said on Twitter.
Mr Freudenberg was the subject of a documentary The Scribe, in which he discussed some of his most famous speeches.
"It's a mistake to think that great speeches are just a series of great one liners, just as it would be a mistake to think of Hamlet as a series of famous quotations," he said.
"A real gutsy speech has an argument, makes a case."
He said the It's Time speech, in which Mr Whitlam outlined his policy agenda ahead of the 1972 election, was years in the making.
"We'd developed a little ritual between us that on any important speech he would touch me on the shoulder for luck. It was a quaint little superstition," Mr Freudenberg said in the documentary.
"And he (Mr Whitlam) said, "Comrade, it's been a long road but I think we're there.
"It was five years in the writing.
"Whitlam was always the driving force but perhaps on this occasion I was the midwife."
