The Queen DIDN’T order the Governor-General to dismiss Gough Whitlam

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The Queen was not told Gough Whitlam was about to be dismissed as Australian Prime Minister to protect her from a constitutional crisis.

Governor-General Sir John Kerr sacked the Labor PM on November 11, 1975, after a protracted fight to pass the budget between him and Malcolm Fraser.

In the leadup to his decision, Sir John exchanged dozens of letters with Buckingham Palace advising Queen Elizabeth of his deliberations.

A key letter to the Queen’s private secretary Sir Martin Charteris after the sacking, released today for the first time, makes it clear there was no forewarning. 

‘I should say I decided to take the step I took without informing the palace in advance because, under the Constitution, the responsibility is mine, and I was of the opinion it was better for Her Majesty not to know in advance, though it is of course my duty to tell her immediately,’ he wrote. 

This letter is one of 211 released between Sir John and the Palace by the National Archives that finally shed light on The Queen’s role in the dismissal.

It has long been speculated whether Her Majesty tried to influence Sir John’s decision, and thus undermined Australia’s independence.

The letters appear to indicate that the Queen and Sir John did not communicate, at least not directly, and correspondence was only with Sir Martin.

Though Sir Martin gives Sir John advice over what he can and can’t do with his reserve powers, he does not appear to advocate for Mr Whitlam’s dismissal. 

Sir Martin replied with his own letter later that day, praising Sir John’s decision not to inform The Queen and agreeing with his reasoning.

‘I believe that in NOT informing the Queen what you intended to do before doing it, you acted not only with perfect constitutional propriety but also with admirable consideration for Her Majesty’s position,’ he wrote.

Sir Martin also joked that if Mr Whitlam ended up winning the ensuing election he ‘ought to be extremely grateful to you’. 

Sir John in his November 11 letter appeared fully prepared to be sacked in retribution should Mr Whitlam win the election – which he did not – and was at peace with that.

‘I realise of course, that if he wins the election and he may well do so, he will have advice to tender to Her Majesty. I accept all consequences,’ he wrote.

The Queen, in fact, refused to get involved

In the last letter sent to Sir John before the dismissal, on November 4, Sir Martin makes it clear The Queen is staying out of her former colony’s mess.

‘I think it is good that people should know that The Queen is being informed but, of course, this does not mean that she has any wish to intervene, even if she had the constitutional power to do so,’ he wrote.

‘The crisis, as you say, has to be worked out in Australia.’

Sir Martin went on to give Sir John a pep talk on his ability to deal with the ‘unenviable but certainly very honourable position’ he was in.

‘If you do, as you will, what the constitution dictates, you cannot possible (sic) do the Monarchy any avoidable harm. The chances are you will do it good,’ he wrote.

The two men appeared to have become good friends through their correspondence as Sir Martin insisted in the same letter that he visit England during his planned holiday to France.

He said the Queen would be happy to receive Sir John and his wife in Norfolk ‘at any time that suits your convenience’.

Sir Martin said he would find a guest house for them as Sandringham House was undergoing renovations at the time. 

Though she refused to he involved, Sir Martin on many occasions made clear that The Queen was interested in reading what he wrote.

‘Your letter has, of course, been seen by The Queen who is not at all disturbed by your “bombardment of paper”,’ he wrote in a June 25, 1975, letter.

‘Indeed, Her Majesty finds everything you write of the greatest interest.’ 

Governor-General worried Whitlam would sack him first

Sir John in another letter on November 20 explained that he didn’t warn Mr Whitlam in advance because he was concerned the PM would try to sack him first.

‘As you know from earlier letters, on occasions, sometimes jocularly, sometimes less so, but on all occasions with what I considered to be underlying seriousness, he (Mr Whitlam) said that the crisis could end in a race to the Palace,’ he wrote to Sir Martin.

‘I could act, if necessary, directly myself under the Constitution. I am sure that he would have known this and the talk about a race to the Palace really constituted another threat.’

Sir John said sparing The Queen from being in the awkward position of having to choose which one of them to sack was essential, so he launched a preemptive strike. 

‘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,’ he wrote.

‘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.

‘I simply could not risk the outcome for the sake of the monarchy.’

Mr Whitlam had in October joked about potentially sacking Sir John, but the Governor-General is believed to have taken it as a serious threat.

‘It could be a question of whether I get to the Queen first for your recall, or whether you get in first with my dismissal,’ Mr Whitlam said. 

Sir Martin discussed this possibility with Sir John as early as October 2 in another letter.

‘In all these difficult matters I am sure you are right to keep your options open and not to decide now what you will do in any given circumstances,’ he wrote.

‘I hope you are right in believing that the crisis will probably be avoided and that something will ‘give’.

‘Prince Charles told me a good deal of his conversation with you and in particular that you had spoken of the possibility of the prime minister advising the Queen to terminate your commission with the object, presumably, of replacing you with somebody more amendable to his wishes.’

Sir Martin admitted that though the Queen would not be pleased about Mr Whitlam demanding Sir John be sacked, she would have to go along with it.

‘If such an approach was made you may be sure that the Queen would take most unkindly to it,’ he wrote.

‘But I think it is right that I should make that point that at the end of the road, the Queen would have no option but to follow the advice of the prime minister.

‘Let us hope none of these unpleasant possibilities come to pass. I believe the more one thinks about them, the less likely they are to happen.’

Whitlam’s rage and fallout for Kerr

Sir John wrote on November 24 that he’d had a ‘difficult time’ in the two weeks since dismissing Mr Whitlam, who was waging war against him.

‘Mr Whitlam’s reaction after leaving Yarralumla turned out to be in fact, one of very great rage which came through in many of his public utterances, the earliest of which were made on the steps of (old) Parliament House at the time (of the proclamation of dismissal being read),’ he wrote.

Sir John recounted the immortal moment Mr Whitlam followed up the ‘God save the Queen’ ending to the proclamation with one most famous lines in Australian political history.

‘You may say God save the Queen, but nothing will save the Governor-General.’

Sir John also noted that Mr Whitlam referred to Mr Fraser as ‘Kerr’s Cur’ and that the ousted PM was whipping up anger for his election campaign.

‘The rage seems to be to some extent subsiding and could be, throughout the country, counter-productive,’ he wrote.

‘However, Mr Whitlam appears to believe the opposite and will, I think, try to keep the issue as the main one till the end.’

This was in direct contrast to the cordial way Sir John claims he treated Mr Whitlam at the moment he dismissed him.

‘When I dismissed Mr Whitlam, I said to him: “The polls are going well in your favour. I have held up my decision to the last possible moment,’ he wrote on November 17.

‘”You have campaigned well in the meantime. I think you could well win the election. Good luck.” I proffered him my hand and he took it.’

The November 24 letter also explained the personal fallout for Sir John as battle lines were drawn among his social circles over his decision.

‘Some people are asserting, including a very old friend of mine who has now, of course, broken off relations with me so far as I am concerned forever,’ he wrote. 

Sir John said he was referring to Senator James McClelland, whom he said believed ‘I have been in conspiracy with Mr Fraser from the beginning’.

He asserted this was ‘false’ because Senator McCellend was himself involved in failed attempts at a compromise Sir John made.

‘However, I knew there would be a certain amount of execration and had to warn my wife about this in advance,’ he admitted.

Six months after the dismissal, Sir John wrote that Mr Whitlam was still pushing a smear campaign against him, and he was often accosted in public.

‘I have not spoken to Mr Whitlam since 11 November. He has conducted quite a nasty campaign against me, both publicly and privately,’ he wrote.

‘This may be understandable from his point of view but I have been unable to reply.

‘The campaign, though I have not mentioned this to you, includes a serious smearing by gossip and innuendo and much of this gossip, which could only have come from him and those around him, is reflected, indeed stated as fact, in the “quickie” books so far written by Labor-oriented journalists.’

Sir John wrote that he was less of a target of abuse than at the height of the fallout from the dismissal, but still encountered ‘small and scruffy’ protests.

‘My tactic is to appear regularly, carry out my programme, put up with the demonstrations, which so far have been rather small and scruffy, as can be seen on television, and to wait. The next six months will tell,’ he wrote. 

Sir John in his November 24 letter explained he and his wife were bunkered down in Yarralumla as police were concerned about protesters.

‘The security people are not anxious for me to leave Yarralumla, which they feel able to protect, and certainly do not want us to go into residence at Admiralty House which is more difficult from the security point of view,’ he wrote.

‘I do not think violence is feared so much as demonstrations or indignities which would not be good for the Vice-Regal office or the monarchy.’

Whitlam: Back me or sack me

In his final letter to Buckingham Palace before the dismissal, Sir John wrote on November 6 that Mr Whitlam made it clear he wouldn’t go quietly.

Sir John described how Mr Fraser met with him on November 3 and told him he would happy to have an election as late as June 1976.

Mr Whitlam at the time was resolute in only having a half Senate with a full election waiting until his the three-year term was over.

Sir John mentioned Mr Fraser’s conversation to Mr Whitlam about half an hour later at a Melbourne Cup reception.

Mr Whitlam said he was aware of Mr Fraser’s demands and had no intention of calling an election for the House.

The PM in fact would not call one until he felt like it ‘and certainly woukld not do it at the behest of Mr Fraser or the Senate’.

‘He later said that the only way in which an election for the House could occur would be if I dismissed him.’

Sir John at this point, just five days before the dismissal, had not yet decided what to do, but was afraid the situation was salvageable.

‘The crisis is now a very serious one and if both parties and their leaders remain adamant, an important decision one way or the other may have to be made by me this month,’ he wrote.

Sir Martin had in the previous letter on October 27 noted that Whitlam was ‘tremendously formidable’ at political in-fighting.

Whitlam refuses to accept defeat, calls Queen

Sir Martin wrote that within hours of being dismissed, Mr Whitlam called him ‘as a private citizen’ and asked for the Queen to reinstate him as PM.

Mr Whitlam claimed that since Labor senators, who were unaware of the dismissal, had managed to finally pass supply bills that day (while the Coalition didn’t feel the need to oppose them as Mr Fraser had been appointed) he should be recalled.

‘Mr Whitlam telephoned to me at 4.15am (our time) on 11th November,’ he wrote. 

‘Mr Whitlam prefaced his remarks by saying that he was speaking as a “private citizen”… and said that now supply had been passed he should be re-commissioned as prime minister so that he could choose his own time to call an election.

‘He spoke calmly and did not ask me to make any approach to the Queen, or indeed to do anything other than the suggestion that I should speak to you to find out what was going on.’ 

This gambit obviously did not work.

Six months later in May 1976, Sir John wrote that Mr Whitlam was seeking an audience with the Queen.

Sir John told Sir Martin it ‘hardly seemed proper’ for him to offer an opinion on such a meeting, but went on to complain about Mr Whitlam’s smear campaign against him.

Mr Whitlam got his audience a month later and by then had grudgingly accepted that Sir John acted within his constitutional remit.

‘Mr Whitlam was in excellent form and the conversation at dinner range agreeably from Sir Harold Wilson’s resignation honours list to the characters of politicians in thie country and in yours!’ Sir Martin wrote.

‘I had about half-an-hour’s private talk with Mr Whitlam after dinner and he remained sweet and reasonable, spoke warmly of the Queen, and at least conceded that it could be argued that you had acted in accordance with the constitution!

‘I said that whatever we were asked we would say nothing of what passed between the Queen and him next day, at which he threw up his hands and said the very idea of anyone saying anything about that was totally unacceptable.

‘The actual audience with the Queen seems to have gone very well, and Her Majesty told me that she had spoken firmly about the use of violence. 

‘We must hope that some of this is reflected in the answers Mr Whitlam may give at this press conference today.’

Dismissal discussed as early as July 1975 

Sir John wrote to Buckingham Palace on July 3 raising the possibility of dismissing Whitlam after it was floated in an attached cutting from the Canberra Times.

‘I have no intention of course of acting in the way suggested. There is ample room for the democratic processes still to unfold,’ he wrote.

‘So far the Canberra Times is the only paper, to my knowledge, to raise this point. The editorial may be of general interest as background.’

Later on September 12 Sir John wrote to seek advice on the reserve powers available to him as Governor-General.

At this point he had not decided to use them, but had in the back of his mind the possibility of dismissing the Whitlam Government.

‘My role will need some careful thought, though, of course, the classic constitutional convention will presumably govern the matter,’ he acknowledged.

Sir Martin replied: ‘If supply is refused, it also makes it constitutionally proper to grant a dissolution.’

Sir Martin in various letters praised Sir John’s handling of the constitutional crisis, and gave him advice on how to proceed.

He said it was often argued that when reserve powers are not used for many years, they no longer exist – but he didn’t agree with that view.

‘But to use them is a heavy responsibility and it is only at the very end when there is demonstrably no other course that they should be used,’ he wrote on November 4.

Sir Martin agreed with Sir John’s view that the crisis had not reached that point yet – but Mr Fraser had a different view.

‘Mr Fraser wants to believe it is already a “constitutional” crisis because he wants you to bring about an election which he thinks he can win. 

‘If the tide of public opinion continues to flood against him he may well modify his view, and look for a way of retreat. 

‘Again, with great respect, I think you are playing the vice-regal hand with skill and wisdom.

‘Your interest in the situation has been demonstrated, and so has your impartiality.’

Sir Martin also noted: ‘The Queen has read [his previous letter] with much interest and also with much concern for the pressures to which you are being subjected by the crisis.’ 

Another letter from Sir Martin on November 25 was also full of praise for Sir John’s handling of the situation, and noted the historical significance of the correspondence. 

‘I have received two letters from you … both of these are individually of great historic interest and, when taken together, I think they provide a clear, full, and, if I may use the phrase with respect, most convincing account of the psychological and actual pressures to which you were subject when you took action on November 11, and of the reason why no other course was open to you,’ he wrote. 

‘I have still not found anyone here with knowledge prepared to say what else you could have done.’

Battle to release the letters

Palace allies have battled for decades to keep the documents – which also include correspondence from her then-private secretary, Martin Charteris – secret, with the National Archives of Australia refusing to release them to the public.

The letters had been deemed personal communication by both the National Archives of Australia and the Federal Court which meant the earliest they could be released was 2027, and only then with the Queen’s permission.  

But the High Court bench earlier this year ruled the letters were property of the Commonwealth and part of the public record, and so must be released.

Kerr sacked Labor Party prime minister Whitlam three years after his election in 1972 – causing a deep constitutional crisis that still scars Australian politics. 

One of Whitlam’s key goals when he came to office was to loosen the colonial ties between Australia and Britain. 

He replaced God Save the Queen with the Australian national anthem and dubbed certain ties to Britain ‘colonial relics’. 

Whitlam ended the British honours system and implemented Australia’s own version, and removed God Save the Queen from the official announcement dissolving parliament.  

Whitlam – who died in 2014 – is still hailed as a champion of Australia’s left.

He had opposed Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and sought to assert Australia’s sovereignty.

He ended conscription, established the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, tried to normalise relations with China, set up a free public health service, and made university free.

But his detractors accused him of destabilising the economy, and Kerr fired him without warning on 11 November 1975 after political fighting that weakened Whitlam’s government.

In October that year the country’s Liberal Party refused to pass the government’s bills in the senate until an election was called – meaning the government would soon run out of money to provide things like pensions and pay public servants. 

Whitlam refused to call an election and Kerr swiftly dismissed him as Prime Minister.  

Kerr then appointed opposition Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser as interim Prime Minister – without a confidence vote being held in parliament – and he went on to win a landslide election victory later that year.

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