WI: Arthur Calwell Assassinated in 1966

On June 21, 1966, shortly after addressing an anti-conscription rally at Mosman Town Hall in Sydney, Arthur Calwell, leader of the Federal Opposition was shot at from point blank range by 19-year-old Peter Kocan. Fortunately for Calwell, as his car window was closed he suffered only minor facial injuries.

Let’s assume that Calwell’s car window was open and Kocan’s attempt on the aging party stalwart was successful. The question I pose to you all is what effect does Calwell’s death have on the consequent election held in November 1966. Does the ALP, now led by Gough Whitlam receive sympathy from the electorate, and thus fail to be humiliated as badly in RL 1966? And if so, how would an ALP victory in 1969 change the Australian political landscape?

Note: The possibilities of such a timeline seem rather interesting. Perhaps I should endeavour on such a project.
 
Peter Kocan, the would-be assassin, was almost certainly a disaffected Rightwinger, angered in part by Calwell's opposition to the Vietnam War*. After his release from custody he developed a literary career as a poet, and is today an enthusiastic contributor to the Right-of-centre magazine Quadrant--I've read him refer to himself as a paleoconservative.

Anyway, let's take it for granted that most Australians in 1966 see this man as an erratic war supporter, albeit an extreme and unstable one who'd also considered killing Vice President Hubert Humphrey when the American visited Sydney earlier in the year.**

This shouldn't hurt the Holt government, at least not at first. He is a lone nut, after all. But Gough Whitlam as the sudden Labor leader has an amazing opportunity to both gain control of the media narrative and develop his own more centrist/less anti-war Vietnam policy (he was to the Right of Calwell on this issue). In substance what Gough does is what he would do OTL when he became leader in '67, but he does it while Labor has greater parliamentary representation.

I just don't see how Holt wins the landslide he won in our timeline. The Coalition will be returned, but the result will be much more like the 1963 federal election.

This is probably the easiest mid-sixties POD to allow Whitlam to win an election in '68 or '69.


*This isn't mentioned in online sources, but Kocan's beliefs were discussed in Calwell's memoirs. For instance, this is from the discussion page on wiki's entry for Kocan: "Most assassination attempts have some kind of premeditated motivation behind them. Hence the use of the word 'assassination' and not 'murder'. I'm surprised to find not even a hint of what Kocan's motivation might have been in this (or any other) article. It's what I came for."

**This is true, at least according to A.A. Calwell.
 
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