Palace intrigue

A thread for discussion of today’s release of correspondence between Sir John Kerr and Buckingham Palace before the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975.

At 11am today, the Australian public will finally be privy to a long-delayed footnote to the 1975 constitutional crisis when a reluctant National Archives releases material that will include correspondence between Sir John Kerr and Buckingham Palace from immediately before the dismissal of the Whitlam government on November 11. This follows a long campaign by Monash University historian Professor Jenny Hocking, whose efforts established the existence of the material and a stipulation by the Palace after Kerr’s death in 1991 that it should not be unveiled until 2027, and perhaps not even then. It had hitherto been the position of the National Archives that the material constituted personal communication, which Hocking succeeded in having the High Court overturn in a 6-1 ruling in May.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

191 comments on “Palace intrigue”

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  1. Historyintime @ #2 Tuesday, July 14th, 2020 – 6:19 am

    Well, I go for it being a fizzer. Or, if anything, reflecting well on Buckingham Palace.

    We already know the outcome, it played out, an elected Govt was overthrown by the Queens representative, you CANNOT come out of that looking good. The question is how bad she looks, when she starts in the position ‘of clearly involved in subverting democracy’.

  2. I’d like to agree with Histryintime, and to discover that the Palace had consistently said “You’re the GG Kerr; use your own discretion”. BUT when Anne Twomey researched the lead-up to the passage of the Australia Acts (for her book The Chameleon Crown) she found that the Palace and the FCO had consistently regarded the States as colonies long after we naive Aussies had thought they were parts of an independent nation – and that the Queen in particular was very reluctant to agree to the passage of the Acts. So nothing in today’s revelations either way will surprise me.

  3. Jack Aranda @ #5 Tuesday, July 14th, 2020 – 6:44 am

    I’d like to agree with Histryintime, and to discover that the Palace had consistently said “You’re the GG Kerr; use your own discretion”. BUT when Anne Twomey researched the lead-up to the passage of the Australia Acts (for her book The Chameleon Crown) she found that the Palace and the FCO had consistently regarded the States as colonies long after we naive Aussies had thought they were parts of an independent nation – and that the Queen in particular was very reluctant to agree to the passage of the Acts. So nothing in today’s revelations either way will surprise me.

    I don’t see how ‘you decide whether to subvert democracy I’ve got your back either way’ is a ‘clean’ outcome for the palace.

  4. The timing of the release is unfortunate – I think regardless of the content people are so distracted by the current situation that they will sink without a trace.
    I would have preferred reignited rage and pitchforks at Yarralumla.

  5. Well, WWP, it’s cleaner than saying “This terrible socialist is a threat to the established order. We encourage you to sack the blighter.” Saying “It’s entirely your decision” wouldn’t be an endorsement – in fact it would be a statement of the Constitutional position. Maybe you think Her Maj should have given him a short refresher course on the principles of responsible government? I suspect that everyone involved thought that Kerr was already familiar with them. Poor Gough certainly did!

  6. Torchbearer @ #7 Tuesday, July 14th, 2020 – 9:03 am

    The timing of the release is unfortunate – I think regardless of the content people are so distracted by the current situation that they will sink without a trace.
    I would have preferred reignited rage and pitchforks at Yarralumla.

    ‘I would have preferred reignited rage and pitchforks at Yarralumla.’
    Who’s going to light the match, Albo?

  7. A question for the experts – the HC decision was 6-1, and the reasons inarguable given the importance of the matter. But who was the dissenting judge? I haven’t seen their name reported.

  8. Admission of bias:

    I attended the Monday Conference pretape hosted by the estimable Robert Moore on the Sunday before the Tuesday coup. The totality of the discussion was as to how the crisis would be resolved, with a half senate election seemingly the only choice – but which threatened going over the abyss if Kerr’s cur was able to keep control of numbers in the Senate (which we now “know” was implausible). At no time was there any suggestion from anyone that a coup d’état led by the GG was even an option.

    I was on the bridge as the horses charged as part of the Leondis Restaurant blockade to prevent Kerr from attending (though very quickly got out of the way of any personal risk of injury – being a self-preserving coward). With my older sister I was part of the Alexandra theatre (Monash uni) fun when we broke through the back door (not by me) and stormed the stage on which Kerr’s cur was speaking. With my older brother having cheered on Carlton at princes park we went outside the ground to jeer and jostle Kerr’s cur who was the Carlton number 1 ticket holder at the time.

    As instructed I have maintained my rage.

    Matters of Interest
    What will interest me in the letter reveal is whether we will find out more about the length and breadth of the conspiracy to bring down a democratically elected government. We already know Barwick, a former lib AG, and Mason knew beforehand and outrageously lent their support. We know Fraser “knew” but we might learn more about the strength of his knowledge.

    It has been argued with some force that Kerr as GG had a constitutional obligation to do something to prevent governmental chaos and that his hand was forced by the political impasse.

    The only way the coup could have succeeded was by Fraser impressing the wavering senators that if they continued to reject supply the country would not become ungovernable. What Kerr told the palace, more than what the palace told Kerr, will hopefully give a stronger picture of the conspiracy to topple the government by unelected elites with apparently no sense of the history of struggle and revolution to take power from elites and create universal suffrage.

    And, by revealing the conspiracy in which Kerr was a [the] leading player, strip away the absurd argument that Kerr had a constitutional obligation to act. His active involvement in the conspiracy to create the circumstances by which he had a responsibility to act impugns every illegal step he took.

  9. What has become clear over the years is that Kerr, having made his decision to install Fraser as caretaker PM, then needed more than the usual amount of reassurance from a variety of sources, Not only his own advisers, but Barwick, Mason and, it would seem, Buck House on umpteen occasions: the truly extraordinary thing about this correspondence is how much of it we have been told there was. Not just a simple exchange of letters.

    If Kerr had ever been a contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, he would have complained that there weren’t enough opportunities to phone a friend.

    But I agree with the general expectation that it will be a bit of a fizzer, with the correspondence mostly being about clarifying what, if any role, The Queen would have in the event. I imagine that some of it will also go to Kerr’s nightmare scenario of the Senate continuing to block supply for the caretaker government while Whitlam approached Buck House to have Kerr sacked.

    The nightmare scenario would have happened if Whitlam could have put off his steak for a few minutes and taken the time to ring Ken Wriedt and tell him what Kerr had done.

  10. [“That’s what the High Court has overturned: royal secrecy, which was presumed and then applied without any question really, even in our own archives. I think it’s a wonderful thing that that’s now in the past.”]

    If defies all logic that archival material held in our own National Archive could not be accessed on the basis of so-called “royal secrecy”. It’s also anachronistic that the Queen is above the law. One poster (can’t recall his/her screen name) wrote (wwtte) that when the HC handed down its May decision, we should move on, that few would be interested in an event that occurred nearly 45 years. Jenny Hocking, to her credit, doesn’t think so, neither do I.

  11. meher baba says:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 9:59 am
    I imagine that some of it will also go to Kerr’s nightmare scenario of the Senate continuing to block supply for the caretaker government while Whitlam approached Buck House to have Kerr sacked.

    The nightmare scenario would have happened if Whitlam could have put off his steak for a few minutes and taken the time to ring Ken Wriedt and tell him what Kerr had done.
    ……………………….

    I doubt pickled Kerr even thought of this obvious gaming scenario.

    Indeed, although you claim a hungry Whitlam was distracted from so acting, the FACT is that Whitlam was outraged by the coup (and his outrage resonates to this day, god save the Queen) but knew enough from his deep learning of history that doubling down on the farce in the way you suggest would have doubled down on the damage to democracy.

    He took the only principled course open to him and face an election as LOO. He left his fate to the infant wisdom of the Australian people.

  12. In the days leading up to the coup, there’s speculation that some Opposition Senators were getting very nervous about blocking/deferring Supply and were “about to crack”. Whitlam was aware of this: ‘[he] was worried though confident that the Opposition would capitulate provided we sat tight’ (Daly, “From Curtin to Kerr”, p.227). Whitlam would’ve communicated this with Kerr, but the latter wanted to prove that he was a good servant of the establishment.

  13. Darryl Mason
    @DarrylMason
    ·
    4m
    Rupert Murdoch loyalists in Australian news media don’t want the public to be reminded that other journalists actually went on strike over Murdoch’s involvement in the coup against PM Gough Whitlam in 1975.

    Journalists once cared that much about our democracy. #PalaceLetters

  14. Kerr did not inform Palace ahead of Whitlam dismissal.
    In a letter Sir John Kerr wrote to Buckingham Palace notifying them of Gough Whitlam’s dismissal he said he had decided it was better for the Queen not to know in advance.

  15. phylactella says:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 8:29 am

    Historyintime:
    In that case, there was no reason to block public access for a lifetime!
    —————————–
    Phylactella
    The spider letters showed how the palace can be far too hesitant because when those letters were released they told us pretty much what we already knew about Prince Charles.

  16. The legal advice at the time was that Kerr was entitled to exercise his reserve powers and that basically, it was up to him to decide the deadlock. The evidence reveals, however, that he received at least tacit support from the Palace. Kerr thought that had he not sacked Whitlam, his own head would be on the chopping block, leading to a reasonable conclusion that his personal interests were uppermost in his mind. He obviously did not, however, turn his mind to the aftermath, where he was seen by many as Australia’s version of Sir John Falstaff, minus the depth. Another crucial point is that it was improper for the HC to provide advisory opinions, a convention breached by Barwick and Mason.

  17. Looks like it’s a big Nothing-Burger for all the conspiracy theorists. Not even a mention of the CIA either.

    If Whitlam didn’t believe that what occurred was legal then why didn’t he go to the High Court? (Unless he did but I haven’t heard about the case.)

  18. The prime beneficiaries of the Palace Letters is the Liberal party. 45 years of deflection and ambiguity allowed them to hide their duplicity to overthrow a government.
    All aided and abetted by the Murdoch press who have turned that experience to an operating procedure around the world to ensure they control the agenda.
    As for CIA involvement? The only people who would know that are likely dead or not going to say anything. Perhaps it might come out eventually but at this stage it won’t make any difference.

  19. Not much point going to the HC when a bloodless coup-d’etat is taking place.
    One of the most, if not the most, outrageous attacks on democracy in our history…
    A minority Opposition put in power while the government of the day had confidence…………………..
    I used to vote Liberal (apathetically so, as we had had the dead hand of 23 years of Menzies conservatism) but it was clear from 1975 that those who thought they had right of tenure in government come-what-may were prepared to do anything to stay in power.
    At the end of the day the two political protagonists came to some kind of understanding – though when Fraser shed a tear after this defeat by Hawke a cheer went up around the country…..
    Kerr died in disgrace……………………….

  20. Bucephalus:

    [‘If Whitlam didn’t believe that what occurred was legal then why didn’t he go to the High Court?’]

    The matter was not justiciable. And even if it had been, why would he have gone to the HC, where two of the judges provided encouraging advice to Kerr. Moreover, you’d have an idea of how the system works – nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Anyway, Kerr became the subject of ridicule, even Fraser wouldn’t be seen with him, whereas Whitlam became a Labor hero.

  21. Mavissays:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 11:58 am

    “The matter was not justiciable.”

    Really? Without them trying we don’t actually know that.

    ” And even if it had been, why would he have gone to the HC, where two of the judges provided encouraging advice to Kerr.”

    I’m pretty sure that no one was publicly aware of the advice at the time (happy to be corrected).

    “Moreover, you’d have an idea of how the system works – nudge, nudge, wink, wink.”

    Are you saying the HCoA is corrupt?

    “Anyway, Kerr became the subject of ridicule”

    Because he was a public drunk -would have happened whatever decision he had made.

    “Whitlam became a Labor hero.”

    Yay! – how’d the next two election results go for him?

  22. Tricotsays:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 11:54 am
    “As far as what “the Palace” did/thinks/responds, who gives a stuff…..”

    It seems a lot of people do – especially the person who brought on the HCoA action that led to the release of the letters.

  23. GoldenSmaugsays:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 11:48 am

    “All aided and abetted by the Murdoch press”

    That’d be the same Murdoch Press that gave Whitlam’s ALP free advertising in the 1973 campaign and supported his election?

  24. Mavis says:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 11:28 am

    “Another crucial point is that it was improper for the HC to provide advisory opinions, a convention breached by Barwick and Mason.”

    I’m not sure that the HCoA provided any opinions. Barwick and Mason acted as individuals.

  25. The letters seem to me to give more support to the contention, which I have always believed, that Kerr throughout was trying to do what he thought was the right thing (whether you agree with his solution or not). He was not part of a conspiracy and he was not the person responsible for the trouble. Fraser was the sole architect: in his breach of the convention about not blocking supply and his willingness to use the vote of Senator Field in pursuit of his goal.

    Whitlam subsequently muddied the waters on Fraser’s culpability by turning on Kerr – who he always thought should have known his place as Gough’s puppet – and later chumming up with Mal.

    Fraser showed nothing but contempt for the crucial conventions which hold our democracy together. Shame on him.

  26. PS: re the Murdoch journo strike. I could be wrong, but I thought the subject of it was editorial bias during the election campaign rather than some conspiracy theory about Rupert’s role in the coup.

  27. Professor Anne Twomey seemed a bit underwhelmed and mildly contemptuous of ALP given past resistance by it for publication

  28. meher baba says:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 12:31 pm

    “breach of the convention about not blocking supply” – utter rot – there’s no such convention. Never has been and never will be.

    Exactly why shouldn’t he have used an Senator’s vote available? The name Thomson springs to mind – ALP quite happy to use his vote.

    Exactly what should have Kerr done rather than dismiss Whitlam? Allow the Government to run out of money and the Federal Government default on its payments to suppliers and employees? How long should he have left the Government crippled for? A year?

  29. Bucephalus:

    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 12:05 pm

    In a letter to Kerr dated November 10 1975, Barwick said that:

    [‘A prime minister who could not guarantee supply should either hold an election or resign. If he refused to do either then the Governor-General had the right to dismiss him. (See Sir Garfield Barwick, “Sir John Did His Duty”, Serendip Publications, 1983, p.5.)

    The next day, Kerr dismissed Whitlam, on the basis of Barwick’s opinion, the convention being that it’s not within the remit of an HC judge to provide an advisory opinion.

    Mason’s involvement was revealed in 2012:

    [‘In 2012, statements in some of Kerr’s papers, released by the National Archives, following a request by Professor Jenny Hocking were given publicity in her biography, Gough Whitlam: His Time. Kerr confirms that in 1975 Mason had advised him on whether the Constitution allows a Governor-General to dismiss a Prime Minister who is unable to obtain supply. Kerr claims that Mason, as well as Chief Justice Sir Garfield Barwick, had advised him that there is such power and that he had followed that advice.] – though Mason disputes some of Kerr’s
    account.

    And as I’ve said, Whitlam could not have tested the reserve powers of Kerr in the High Court.
    The power to sack a prime minister is at the discretion of a governor-general, the Queen’s representative in Australia. There would be no way that the HC would’ve become involved in what was a vice-regal/political matter.

    My reference to ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink’ was directed at the possibility that not all communications at the time were conducted through formal channels. And as for the HC being corrupt, no it isn’t, but there was bias on the part of Barwick, a former Tory A-G, and, to a lesser degree, Mason, who went on to become quite an activist judge.

  30. Bucephalus says:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 12:11 pm
    Mavis says:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 11:28 am

    “Another crucial point is that it was improper for the HC to provide advisory opinions, a convention breached by Barwick and Mason.”

    I’m not sure that the HCoA provided any opinions. Barwick and Mason acted as individuals.

    _______________________________

    Incitatus

    In Barwick’s case, he allowed Kerr to quote his advice under the imprimatur of his role as CJ of the High Court. Barwick should have resigned but being the good little self-exculpatory right wing arsehole that he was, he didn’t. Mason arguably did act in his private capacity.

  31. Exactly why shouldn’t he have used an Senator’s vote available? The name Thomson springs to mind – ALP quite happy to use his vote.

    _____________________________________

    It says something about the kind of scum that exists on the right wing that Incitatus should see as equal the vote of a duly elected Labor member of the House of Representatives, regardless of the personal allegations against him, compared to the utterly corrupt action of a fellow right-wing corrupt criminal (or he would have been if another typically corrupt supporter of that corrupt criminal hadn’t inveigled himself into the position of foreman on the corrupt criminal’s trial for corruption) to fuck with the will of the voters of Queensland and appoint a stupid disposable catspaw to replace a Labor senator who had died.

    It is the fact that scummy stupid right-wingers think that any act of corruption is ok provided its done by their side that has destroyed the USA. Trump is a symptom of the sickness of much of the right wing. And Incitatus is a classic case study of that sickness.

  32. Buce: there is a convention, originating from Westminster, about not blocking supply in the upper house. There was also a convention about a retiring or deceased Senator bring replaced by the nominee of their party. Thomson is totally irrelevant to this argument.

    Both of these conventions were thrown away by the coalition in the lead up to the dismissal.

    As for the dismissal itself, I agree that Kerr did not have a lot of other options. Arguably he could have waited a few more days, but there were problems with that approach.

    Whitlam put Kerr in an incredibly difficult position and then ended up trying to put all the blame for this onto Kerr. And he went all the way to the brink and then walked away, probably inadvertently, because he felt like a steak.

    I’ve always thought Gough struggled with the pressure of that time. In some ways, Fraser won because he was a tougher guy.

  33. Buce………..the publishing of the material had little to do with what the Palace would or would not think.
    The fact that Murdoch supported Whitlam in his election is neither here nor there…………Murdoch always wants to be on the winning side then as now. – Even last year – when it was touted that Murdoch – so say in conversation with other plutocrats – thought a Labor win might be good for business.
    The Murdoch press has for so long been the torchbearer for the Liberal party that I thought the issue was beyond any reasonable debate.
    In any event, The Dismissal shook many of my generation out of the view of the so-called fairness of our system. ‘Conventions’ which Fraser and the Liberals so-say told us were important, were dumped without a qualm….
    The Liberal party is now just a shadow of its broad church of days gone by and is plodding to the right of politics such that it cosies up to the likes of Pauline Hanson and Palmer then talks out of the other side of its mouth about “working for all Australians”….
    I would guess you were not there at the time, or perhaps too young to comprehend the events of the day so I guess your views – based on the stuff you put here – will be your usual claim that you feel it your “duty” to come here (was that your word a few weeks ago?) and put the rest of us straight……
    I sense your time in the ADF has warped your sense of what is “duty”.
    Duntroon and being a serving officer does not make you (or me for that matter) any kind of expert in these matters and it is a touch arrogant of you to cloak in the name of “duty”…..
    Still, somebody has to speak for the reactionary right of politics on this blog and it might as well be you as anyone…..At least you seem consistent and predicable if nothing else…

  34. TPOF says:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 1:15 pm

    “In Barwick’s case, he allowed Kerr to quote his advice under the imprimatur of his role as CJ of the High Court.”

    Where did he “quote his advice”? Was it in the instrument dismissing Whitlam?

  35. Mavis,

    There’s a significant inconsistency in your position – how can the issue be not judiciable and yet the opinions of Judges of the High Court are being relied upon and seen as important? If the matter isn’t judiciable then getting the opinions of Judges of the High Court would be the same as getting an Engineer’s opinion on a medical diagnosis.

  36. Bucephalus:

    [‘Allow the Government to run out of money and the Federal Government default on its payments to suppliers and employees?’]

    As I alluded to earlier in this thread, there’s evidence that some Opposition Senators were on the cusp of breaking ranks. But it’s evident that Kerr failed to take this into account. Kerr, due to his working-class background, wished, in my opinion, to be accepted by the establishment; what better way to achieve that end than to sack a Labor prime minister.

    You are right about running out of funds, which is arguably the reason why some Tory senators were getting jittery. I was in the RAN at the time and remember receiving this signal:

    ‘The Minister for Defence wishes all service personnel to know that the present position is that there are sufficient funds only to meet pay and allowance until 30 November 75.’

    The public service would’ve been in the same boat. Kerr sacked Whitlam on November, 11. Thus there were 19 days in which the matter could’ve been settled other than sacking Gough.

  37. meher baba says:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 1:23 pm

    “there is a convention, originating from Westminster, about not blocking supply in the upper house.”

    No. That would only apply if the Senate only had the same powers as the House of Lords. They don’t. The Senate is far more powerful than the House of Lords having the power to block any and all legislation and thereby not allowing Governments to meet their election promises to the electorate and that is, in my opinion, by far the biggest problem in Australian Federal politics and why it should be gotten rid of.

  38. Tricot says:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 1:32 pm

    I’m old enough to remember seeing it on black and white telly (my other memory from that year is the Cyclone Tracy benefit concert from the Sydney Opera House) and my parents – in particular my Dad being so very happy that Gough was gone.

  39. Bucephalus says:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 1:37 pm
    TPOF says:
    Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 1:15 pm

    “In Barwick’s case, he allowed Kerr to quote his advice under the imprimatur of his role as CJ of the High Court.”

    Where did he “quote his advice”? Was it in the instrument dismissing Whitlam?

    __________________________________

    I just did a blindingly quick internet search and got the answer along with the facsimile letters.

    I’m not going to link them because scum like you Incitatus like playing the trick about demanding evidence of basic facts known widely while at the same time publishing bullshit detailed claims that don’t stand up to scrutiny.

    Your presence on this blog is just poisonous crap.

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