The truth of the Palace letters is that they confirm there was no conspiracy involving Buckingham Palace in the dismissal of Gough Whitlam. Neither the Queen nor the Palace authorised the dismissal or advised Kerr how to conduct the dismissal. There was no ‘royal green light’ from the Palace.
Indeed, the only firm advice given by Sir Martin Charteris, the Queen’s private secretary, was that the Governor-General should only exercise the reserve powers when there was ‘demonstrably no other course’. In reality, there was always another course—warning Whitlam, the conventional response of the sovereign.
The letters show that Kerr never told the Palace he had decided to dismiss Whitlam. He never informed the Palace of any of the critical aspects of the dismissal: getting advice from the Chief Justice, being counselled by High Court judge Anthony Mason, denying Whitlam any meaningful opportunity to go to the election as Prime Minister and commissioning Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister to advise a double dissolution election. Every critical step in Kerr’s dismissal plan was kept from the Palace.
The letters, however, show the style of the Palace in its role as hostage to the Governor-General. Charteris is neither Kerr’s legal nor political adviser. The Palace must deal with the Governor-General the Australian Prime Minister selects. Praise, flattery and charm are the techniques of influence used by Charteris as the Queen’s private secretary writing a generation and a half ago. His style is jarring in 2020, a throwback to a different age. Charteris is deferential, chummy, occasionally indiscreet and on the rare occasion offers firm guidance. He dealt with an Australian Governor-General who loved this style and was indulged too much. This indulgence became excessive after the dismissal when Charteris realised the personal trauma and political pressure that Kerr faced and sought to offer sustenance and reassurance in a way that was understandable but ill-advised.
The manner of Kerr’s dismissal of Whitlam was improper and unwise. It was the wrong solution to the crisis, but it was not wrong for Kerr to conceal his plans from the Palace. Given he had decided to dismiss Whitlam, keeping the Palace in the dark and protecting the Queen was the correct decision. The significance of the release of the letters is that they now confirm—from both the Palace and the Governor-General—that the Queen was not informed of the dismissal in advance. The letters also confirm the Queen and the Palace did not advise Kerr on how to dismiss Whitlam.
The conventional critique of Kerr is that he should have followed the orthodoxy and warned Whitlam of the need to provide credible advice to resolve the deadlock over supply. This is a persuasive case. It is the course Charteris recommended to Kerr in his letter of 4 November 1975. The essential point is that the reserve powers are more effective when they are not exercised but used by a wise sovereign or Governor-General to procure a political solution.
If Kerr had indicated to Whitlam that by 11 November a general election was needed, Whitlam would have been warned. In that situation, Kerr would have flagged that if Whitlam did not give this advice, he would have to find somebody who would. This is the ‘warning’ principle outlined by Walter Bagehot, governing the Crown’s behaviour. There is one certainty in this situation: Whitlam would not have sat still and been dismissed. Sir Paul Hasluck was correct in arguing that from the onset of the crisis, the Governor-General and the Prime Minister should have spoken honestly to each other. But that never happened.
Warning would have been a far superior resolution to the crisis than dismissal. There would have been no deception, no ambush and no division in the country over the Governor-General’s behaviour. The warning from the Governor-General would have come only after Whitlam had had several weeks to try to procure the Coalition’s retreat. Whitlam had every right to embrace the ‘tough it out’ strategy, but this had a fixed time limit set by the expiry of supply.
One of the forgotten aspects of the crisis is the Fraser compromise agreed upon by the Opposition parties and put to Kerr on 3 November. Fraser said the Opposition would pass supply immediately if Whitlam agreed to a general election before mid- 1976—in effect a May or June election. This meant an immediate solution to the crisis, the passage of the budget, Whitlam remaining in office and Fraser securing an election six months down the track. If there had been a rational approach to compromise, this could have been accepted. But Whitlam rejected it because he had the more ambitious goal of breaking the Senate’s power over supply.
In his notes, Kerr said he had to ‘act by stealth’ in his dismissal of Whitlam.1 He admitted he concealed his thinking and his intentions from the Prime Minister. This is an untenable way for a Governor-General to behave. Kerr’s excuse was his fear of recall and that Whitlam in seeking to remove the Governor-General would involve the Queen in the crisis. The problem with Kerr’s decision is the damage done in dismissing Whitlam by ambush was always going to exceed the damage done in the event that Whitlam tried to remove Kerr. By enshrining recall as the principal motive that drove the dismissal by ambush, Kerr raised doubts about his own integrity: was he protecting the Queen or protecting himself, or both?
Kerr approached the crisis as a judge. But a judge arbitrates between equal parties, like a sporting umpire. Kerr said a decade after the dismissal: ‘I was the umpire in the roughest political match in Australian history and understandably, if inexcusably, the losing side cried “shoot the umpire”.’2 But the Governor-General is neither a judge nor an umpire. He is part of the executive government and, by constitutional practice, acts on the advice of the Prime Minister. Even when exercising the reserve powers, his responsibility to counsel and warn the Prime Minister comes into play. But Kerr’s description of himself as an umpire, making winning and losing decisions, misconceives his responsibility to the Prime Minister and his constitutional role in a crisis.
Kerr’s project of dismissal was a risky enterprise. A feature of the crisis is that the Governor-General was extraordinarily lucky in the implementation of his dismissal strategy on the afternoon of 11 November. The entire enterprise depended upon caretaker Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser obtaining supply in the Senate, one of the conditions of his commission. If the deposed Whitlam Government had prepared a contingency plan it is highly likely that Kerr could have been thwarted and Fraser stranded in the afternoon with a no-confidence motion passed against him in the House and a failure to secure supply in the Senate.
Whitlam went meekly to his political death. He went to The Lodge after the dismissal, not Parliament House. He did not inform Labor’s Senate leadership the government had been dismissed. That meant Labor had no chance to use delaying tactics in the Senate against Fraser’s effort to obtain supply. Whitlam’s entire focus was on the House of Representatives, but it was the Senate that really mattered. Whitlam’s critical mistake was to ignore earlier advice from senior public servants to attach a provision to the supply bills that they must be returned and passed by the House again after Senate approval. In the end, supply was passed on a motion from Labor Senate leader Ken Wriedt at 2.20 p.m. amid confusion in Labor ranks. Wriedt had helped to secure supply for the Fraser Government.
The Palace letters provide fresh information and context on how Whitlam was dismissed and how Kerr manoeuvred with the Palace. They provide a new vantage point from which to understand the crisis. But they do not change the essential elements of the 1975 crisis nor can they tell the full story. The history of the crisis is illuminated by many sources: Kerr’s archival notes; files kept by Whitlam, Fraser and Barwick; interviews with the principals, along with their memoirs; departmental and parliamentary papers; and contemporary media accounts. The letters are also important for what is not said, since Kerr concealed his critical decisions from the Palace.
The totality of evidence confirms that the dismissal was a homegrown project in its prelude, execution and consequences. Its dynamics are located in Canberra, not London. The crisis was driven first by Fraser’s ambition, second by Whitlam’s determination to break the Opposition’s nerve, and, most of all, by Kerr’s deception of the Prime Minister and dismissal by ambush.