Whitlam, culminating in the elemental editorial "Go now, go decently" in which he called for the government to step down. It began with the words 'We will say it straight, and clear, and at once. The Whitlam Government has run its course.' Perkin died of a heart attack on 16 October 1975 at his Sandringham home at the age of 45. The Age became a more substantial, wider ranging, better written and significantly more influential newspaper. Perkin's reforms and his willingness to speak out strongly in defence of the paper's policies boosted circulation from a stagnant 180,000 in 1965 to a solid 222,000 ten years later. The company's revenues rose correspondingly. Perkin was also director (from 1966) of Australian Associated Press, its chairman in 1970-72, and a director of Reuters Ltd, London, in 1971-74. Personal life His wife, their son Steve, and their daughter Corrie – both journalists – survived him. Peggy later remarried, and died in 2012, aged 81. Graham Perkin Journalism Award The Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award, an annual prize, was established in 1976. Bibliography Hills, Ben, Breaking News: The Golden Age of Graham Perkin, Scribe, 2010. References External links Perkin interview at Whitlam.org Creighton Burns, 'Perkin, Edwin Graham (1929-1975)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 15, Melbourne University Press, 2000, pp 592–593. 1929 births 1975 deaths People from Victoria (Australia) 20th-century Australian journalists