He may admit to being "embarrassingly immobile" and "pretty deaf" but Labor's elder statesman Gough Whitlam has proven he's as sharp as ever as he approaches his 90th birthday.
The former prime minister today toasted becoming a nonagenarian on Tuesday in fitting fashion - with a reunion of surviving members of his ministry.
The gathering of once-prominent Labor figures at Le Sands restaurant in Brighton Le Sands, south Sydney, was the first time they have been in the same room since 1975 when Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed their government.
In attendance were Les Johnson and Doug McClelland, who organised the much-anticipated bash, along with Lionel Bowen, Tom Uren, Paul Keating, Bill Hayden, Joe Riordan, Kep Enderby and Bill Morrison.
Mr Whitlam, a national living treasure, said it was "delightful" to be back in the same room as his former team.
"The great thing we've got to realise (is) what we achieved in `72 was we got a bigger vote than the Labor party has ever got since," he lamented to journalists before tucking into lunch with his old comrades.
Mr Whitlam, never renowned for his modesty, said Labor had won the election not only because they had a "good leader", but also because the party had already instituted the system of shadow ministers.
"The Labor party had never had shadow ministers before I became the leader and eight of those shadow ministers were well known to the public," he said.
But he said his greatest achievement was giving women the opportunity of tertiary education.
"That's the matter on which I get more correspondence than anything else," Mr Whitlam said.
This policy had paved the way for more women in federal parliament.
"There are some very good women in parliament on both sides."
He also had some advice for the current Labor party.
The way to win an election, Mr Whitlam insisted, was to run a campaign "conducted by the federal secretary, with well-known shadow ministers and conducted and financed as a federal campaign, not as a federation of state Labor parties."
When asked how he felt approaching his birthday, Mr Whitlam described himself as "embarrassingly immobile" and "pretty deaf."
"But I'm not in pain," he added.
The birthday boy also proved he still had his sense of humour intact, calling the press pack that hovered around him "vultures".
"They're so well behaved and you know, some of them seductive...," he went on.
He joked he wasn't making bookings more than three months ahead for his 100th, adding: "At my age you can go anytime."
Mr Whitlam's wife Margaret, whom he married in 1942, said her husband was so fit he was like "an ox".
"He loves a bit of attention and what better attention for a 90th birthday," the mother of his four children laughed.
Mr Keating, the youngest member of the Whitlam's government who went on to lead his own in the 1990s, said Mr Whitlam's greatest legacy was to "make the turn away from the Rip Van Winkle years of Menzies".
"The days when we were simply a cardboard cutout of Britain," he said.
Mr Johnson said Mr Whitlam's "organising capacity and public appeal "had changed the course of history.
"There's a great feeling of nostalgia today," he added.
Mr Enderby said there was no more inspiring figure in Australian history than Mr Whitlam.