'Palace letters' between Sir John Kerr, Queen released, revealing information about Gough Whitlam and 1975 constitutional crisis (destroys left wing conspiracy theory)

The newly released 'Palace letters' have revealed then governor-general Sir John Kerr sacked the Whitlam government in 1975 without giving advance notice to the Queen, because "it was better for Her Majesty not to know".

The 211 letters exchanged between Sir John and the palace at the time of the dismissal have this morning been released online by the National Archives of Australia, in Canberra.

The letters, penned between 1974 and 1977, had been locked up and labelled as private documents, but a High Court decision in May deemed them to be the property of the Commonwealth and thus able to be released.

Many hoped the correspondence would answer some of the long-standing questions surrounding Australia's biggest constitutional crisis.

National Archives of Australia director-general David Fricker gave a brief overview of the correspondence ahead of the release.

He revealed that, in one letter, Sir John wrote that he had to act without giving prime minister Gough Whitlam a chance to call an election, because he feared he would be sacked himself, which would have put the Queen in a difficult position.

On November 20, 1975 — more than a week after the dismissal — Sir John wrote:

"History will doubtless provide an answer to this question, but I was in a position where, in my opinion, I simply could not risk the outcome for the sake of the monarchy.

"If, in the period of 24 hours in which he [Whitlam] was considering his position he advised the Queen that I should be immediately dismissed, the position would then have been that either I would be, in fact, trying to dismiss him while he was trying to dismiss me — an impossible position for the Queen."

A bit of an explanation for those who do not know Australian history.

On the 11th November 1975, the Governor-General (the Queen's representative in Australia) Sir John Kerr, exercised his reserve powers under the Constitution to dismiss from office Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his entire government and appoint Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister.

Whitlam was the most socialist Prime Minister in Australian history, and his dismissal came largely because of scandals in his government, caused by a lack of respect and oversight for Australian law and constitutional practice. To be fair, the conservative Liberal-Country coalition opposition (headed by Malcolm Fraser) pushed some aspects of constitutional convention pretty hard themselves to help engineer the situation, but it all came to a head because Whitlam refused to do his constitutional duty as Prime Minister, and when it became clear he could not govern effectively, would not advise the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament for a new election. This is because Whitlam knew he would lose that election.

It was Australia's greatest ever constitutional crisis and it was the most dramatic day in Australian political history.

Once appointed Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser's first action as Prime Minister was to resolve the supply crisis that would have meant the government ran out of money in a few weeks. His second was to advise the Governor-General of the need for an immediate election. This election took place on the 13th December 1975, when the conservative coalition defeated Labor in the greatest landslide in Australian history - the people's verdict on the Whitlam government.

Ever since 1975, much of the left wing in Australia have complained bitterly about these events - claiming them to be illegitimate, sometimes to the extent of calling the a coup d'etat. This is a nonsense - the Governor-General did exactly what the constitution required him to do - he gave Whitlam ample opportunity to resolve the crisis, and only stepped in when a situation developed that was critical and the only solution Whitlam could offer was absolutely illegal (he intended to order the Commonwealth Bank to release money to the government to cover its bills). He commissioned a new caretaker Prime Minister on express condition that this caretaker would advise an election so the matter could be put to the people - and that is what happened.

One key claim by these left wing conspiracists is that the Queen may have intervened in the matter - understand that in Australia, the monarchy is seen as the core of the constitution by most, though not all, conservatives, while the left tends to regard it as outmoded and part of a racist colonial past. This is not the monarchy, the United States rebelled against - in the time after that revolution (and in large part because of it) the monarchy evolved into a guarantor of the constitution and a brake on governments riding roughshot over the rights of the citizens). But the left were hoping the release of these letters (which they have pushed for, for years) would show that the Queen had been involved in the decision. Instead, they show that the Governor-General deliberately did not involve her.

Personally, I don't think it would have been as big a deal if the Queen had been involved as these left wing people do - but the evidence is now that she was not. It will be interesting to see what they make of it.

I’m surprised Australians take that view, as our issue with gun ownership arose in 1776 while Australia faced a crisis much more recently - when the Japanese were headed their way and they were poorly armed to resist them.

Well, Australians were very free to own guns back then. So if civilians were poorly armed, it was largely by choice.

But speaking as an Australian military historian, I've never really heard the idea that Australians weren't equipped to deal with the Japanese because of a lack of guns - it was a lack of people that was the problem. A small population to start with, and most of our military aged men were already fighting in Africa and Europe at the time. The UK had a weapon shortage that is recognised - but I've never really seen an argument that that applied in Australia.

I studied Australia’s mobilization during WW2 as part of my work on our current mobilization planning.

Rifles were sufficient for the fielded force (with supplementation from the UK/US) but if we needed to stand up extra divisions in, say, 1942 to meet a Japanese invasion, we would have been needed to equip them from either US or UK stocks.

Heavier weapons (sub machine guns, machine guns, mortars, and artillery) were in very short supply in the first 3 years and our production rates never really got us to real self sufficiency.

Ammunition, fuel, and most other logistical supplies were largely to nearly totally dependent on overseas supplies.

the only solution Whitlam could offer was absolutely illegal (he intended to order the Commonwealth Bank to release money to the government to cover its bills).>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

As Thatcher opined to the effect,” Socialism works until they run out of everyone elses money.”

Whitlam proved the truth of that statement.

Sacked by the Crown, Whitlam was an exemplary socialist, properly shown the dust bin of history.

In these times the Governor Generals of Canada are appointed by the party in power, making that previous solution unavailable as remedy against modern socialist PM’s like Justin Trudeau of Canada, who deserves every bit to be treated just as Whitlam was.The Crown now is nothing more than a convenient fiction used to justify the most outrageous socialist policies.

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