While John Kerr was insinuating himself with the palace, Gough Whitlam was making it clear to me and others that he would not be involving the palace.
In my book Things You Learn Along the Way, published in 1999, I mentioned how we had canvassed with Whitlam the possibility of the Australian government making contact with the palace in view of the possible political difficulties that might lie ahead. I was secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet at the time.
I said in the book:
I suggested early, after the opposition had moved to refuse supply, that perhaps Sir John Bunting (the Australian high commissioner in London) should be briefed on the subject and if necessary I could go to London for this purpose. He [Whitlam] thought that this would be quite unnecessary. His view was that it was inappropriate to involve the palace in an Australian dispute. ‘It will be resolved politically in Australia,’ he said.
Gough Whitlam was very proper about not involving the palace in Australian affairs. Given what we know now about the palace and Kerr, he was far too proper.
Whitlam was an Australian democrat. He passionately believed in our institutions: the supremacy of parliament, the independence and integrity of the judiciary and the separation of powers to curb possible abuses by the executive government.
In the dismissal these institutions failed us. Those with responsibility deceived us. Tradition and conventions built over centuries were trashed. The damage to our public life goes far beyond the injustice done to Whitlam. How naïve we were in our trust! That is the most wounding thing of all.
Out trust was betrayed and abused.
I usually avoid using language about social and economic class. But this was a disgraceful example of a ruling class — the Queen, Charles, Mountbatten and Charteris — abusing their power to protect privilege. They deliberately deceived an elected prime minister.
This article was first published in John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations.
I wore the badge “Shame Fraser Shame ” The Kerr letters show him grovelling to the Queen. Charteris the Queen’s secretary certainly did not answer off his own bat –he would certainly have asked the Queen how he should reply to Kerr.
This could happen again. We are in a benign dictatorship where the GG has complete power to use if he wishes AND he is in charge of the armed services.
We should ditch the monarchy and take charge of our country The sooner we become a Republic the better.
Good luck with those Republican aspirations Kerry. The same powerful class elements will always see that off – the status quo suits them very nicely in keeping privilege well entrenched.
Looking back, the consternation at the election of the ALP in 1972 was palpable and the media/political cacophony started from day one. Ultimately, messing with the American bases brought the great man down and convened the Conservative conspiracy that we now know about but which is never discussed or made an issue of. So much for the Democratic values that are so freely and ironically touted by our media.
Kerr is an interesting case study – on the face of things one sees breathtaking ego and our media sticks with that – a sort of alcoholic hubris, an errant one off – but his Intelligence background is more to the point. We’re seeing that deep state intelligence influence more and more and, as always, it seems deeply infected with idealogical paranoia. Lionel Murphy knew how to deal with that lot for all the good it did him.
I am very keen to find out if some simple law could be passed that forbids the GG dealing secretly with the palace in the future, without needing any constitutional changes.
It was the secrecy that allowed this nasty piece of anarchy to unfold.
I am sure there is a lot more secrecy to the story that we will never find out about, around Fraser and his inner circle of conspirators, and the spy agency networks of Aus, UK, and USA…
Agreed Fairmind!
I would like some Australian legal oversight to the GG powers.
The absolute deception and treasonous behavior that was played out behind an elected Prime Minister facing political problems created by Joh Bejelke Petersen and whipped along by the Murdoch rags still brings my anger to the fore.
I personally do not want a Republic, I quite like Betty and the offspring being the final post in our government, but, not at the behest of a Governor General soaked in gin.
As I understood the situation at the time, our PM had lost political control of parliament and instead of going to a double dissolution, tried to get the GG to sign off on supply that did not have approval of the parliament. When that was failing, he, secretly, tried to borrow money from private overseas dealers to keep his power. The whole story is a sorry one for both sides of the debate. I respect Whitlam, but at the time it seemed that he was trying to ‘do a Putin’ to further his agenda without the backing of the electorate.
“We’re seeing that deep state intelligence influence more and more and, as always, it seems deeply infected with idealogical paranoia.”
It’s always been there. The intelligence community works tirelessly behind the scenes. They even take journalist positions at the Daily mail, NYT, W/Post, CNN CBS and the plethora of MSM and social media to mould and manipulate opinion and policy from top down. The ave person, mums and dads and the innocent don’t stand a snowball chance in hell. Thus is the artificially created reality in which we live.
PS, you left out one of o’s in ideologue.
“”The sooner we become a republic the better”
Absolutely. It would be hard to invent so ludicrous and anachronistic an arrangement. The only good it does is to counter American cultural domination – a little.
Now, with Brexit and the UK declaring it wants to be independent, how about a bit of that sort of independence for Australia.
And thank you, John Menadue, for setting this out so clearly.
Beautifully summarised, thank you so much John.
This succinct analysis should be plastered across every news outlet in the country and shared widely on social media. Sadly, it will not be.
You are so right about the damage this treachery has done to our society – so much of the bastardry we regularly see from the LNP sheets directly home to this turning point.
You’re right, Fairmind, and that is why today the LNP knows it can get away with anything, any amount of skulduggery, that Labor can’t.
There is a problem with that. The ALP of today is not the same ALP of the Gough period. Today, virtually no difference in foreign policy and only selective difference on internal policy. It’s a charade.
Who today has the Australianist vision of Gorton or Whitlam?
Maybe I’m a bit young to understand all this, but I’m surprised this move didn’t result in Australia becoming a republic. I’m also suprised that a republican movement looks dead on arrival now. Australian politics is and ought only to be a matter for Australians.
The same fools that stuffed up the referendum in ’99 are still the face of Australian Republicanism, they wheeled out Turnbull the ‘elizabethan’ to comment on these letters just the other day.
As for the 70s, they didn’t have all the details back then. There was plenty of fingers pointed at the US, Hocking has done a lot recently to find out precisely what happened.
“Australian politics is and ought only to be a matter for Australians.”
You’d think so Kel. But it seems people from the UK (the Crown) and the US (Murdoch) have been doing their utmost to ensure that doesn’t happen.
Worse is how conservative and if not pro-monarchy, but anti-republican, the electorate has become through political messaging e.g. analysis through (reinforced) sound bites and polls.
I am surprised nowadays to find many older Australians of Irish Catholic heritage whom are anti-republican, like other WASP and southern European heritage oldies, not through love of the monarchy but being spooked by scare stories about a republic and the blind obstruction of the Liberal Party.
At best too many Australians have been encouraged to demand or complacently accept the status quo….. which also contradicts our self image of independent and against authority…..
For now, if middle and younger generations had a voice in media, then started demanding strongly for change, policy would need to follow….. but for now still mostly conservative on social issues.
Absolutely, Kel. But Australian politics is ‘owned’ by the Liberal and National Parties and their vested-interest friends in big business, big media, and the born-to-ruling class. Australia as a nation has a lot of growing up to do; while we’re waiting for that, sticking to the British monarchy is a cypher for unchanging conformity and ‘us and them’ thoughts, whether ‘them’ is indigenous people, immigrants, refugees, other nations, the poor in general, and it attracts all types of conservatives and reactionaries, no matter which party they vote for.
A lot of growing up indeed….and look how badly we reacted when Whitlam tried to show us how to do it..!
But far from growing up, the privileged ruling classes are successfully dumbing us down instead..
I think that most Australians now, and in the 70s, favour a republic. The rejection in the 70s was the detailed form in which it was presented. We need firstly a confirmation of the principal, then discussion and voting on a range of details.
I should have written ‘principle’
Merely electing the GG will break the nexus between the deep state and the head of state. The reserve and other formal powers held by the GG are so extensive the deep state would never allow them to pass to an elected and potentially radical democrat. There is a political agenda here…
“an elected and potentially radical democrat”
But that could easily be an elected populist narcissist whose promises dissolve and who delivers nothing more than buyer’s remorse to the people who voted for him/her.