SIR JOHN KERR AND THE DISMISSAL – THE TRUTH OF THE PALACE LETTERS  

In July 2020, the National Archives of Australia released the correspondence between Australia’s Governor General Sir John Kerr and Buckingham Palace during the constitutional crisis of 1975. This came about as the result of a High Court decision brought on by legal action from historian Jenny Hocking. In the wake of the Palace letters release, Australian columnists and commentators Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston published an analysis of these letters – The Truth of the Palace Letters: Deceit, Ambush and Dismissal in 1975. On Monday 2 November, days before the 45^th anniversary of the Dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston addressed The Sydney Institute – via Youtube – to discuss the unfolding issues thrown up by the Palace letters. Their papers were followed by a discussion with Gerard Henderson, executive director of The Sydney Institute.

SIR JOHN KERR AND THE DISMISSAL – THE TRUTH OF THE PALACE LETTERS

 PAUL KELLY

It is wonderful to be back at The Sydney Institute to discuss the book The Truth of the Palace Letters: Deceit, Ambush and Dismissal in 1975 that I have co-authored with Troy Bramston. I thank both Gerard and Anne Henderson for their contribution to our national debate and recognise the role they have maintained during the COVID-19 challenge. I also thank Troy Bramston for his invaluable role in our collaboration that has been very important to me.

This book, published by MUP, is the second book Troy and I have written on the 1975 crisis and is actually fourth book I have written covering the event. The history keeps unfolding along with the documents. In July 2020, the National Archives of Australia released the long-suppressed letters between Sir John Kerr and Buckingham Palace on behalf of Queen Elizabeth covering the entire period of Sir John as Governor-General.

There are 212 letters. They provide an insight not just into the crisis but how Australia’s constitutional monarchy worked in the 1970s – something essentially unknown to the Australian people. Troy and I decided the letters demanded a new book and we have also obtained significant new documents from the Archives requested some time ago as well as conducting more interviews including with former Governors-General, Peter Cosgrove and Quentin Bryce. Paul Keating has written the foreword to our book. It will be launched in Canberra on 11 November, the 45^th anniversary, by senior Labor figure, Tanya Plibersek.

We are indebted to academic, Jenny Hocking for her efforts through the courts and her success in obtaining the release of the letters. This is in the public interest; the nation owes her a debt of gratitude. We have argued for many years that the letters should be released – this was Sir John Kerr’s wish – and we pursued this course of action with former Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull and former Attorney-General, George Brandis.

There are three aspects to our approach in this book – we are critics of the dismissal; we write as republicans; and our commitment is to historical truth, not to use the dismissal for political ends. This story is fundamental to our history; we deserve to understand what happened as best we can.

In my remarks I will highlight three conclusions from our research.

First, the letters show the Queen and the Palace had no prior knowledge of Kerr’s dismissal plan; they did not authorise or approve the dismissal beforehand; there was no green light from the Palace.

The Palace is removed in space, time and ethos from Australia. The Queen is constitutionally hostage to the Governor-General. The Queen cannot select or remove the Governor-General. The Palace must live with the Governor-General the Prime Minister selects – good, bad or indifferent. It has no choice. It must make the relationship work.

There are two underlying assumptions in the pre-dismissal letters from the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris to Sir John – that the Queen had no constitutional role or basis for involvement in any crisis and that the responsibility for any intervention or involvement by the Crown rested entirely with the Governor-General.

Charteris is explicit on this point. He makes it repeatedly. There is no ambiguity. On 24 September, three weeks before supply is blocked, Charteris tells Kerr that the office of Governor-General “does not seem to lie on a bed of roses and it is clear that you may be faced with some difficult constitutional decisions during the next month or so”. That is, Kerr is the person facing the difficult decisions.

On 2 October, a fortnight before the deadlock is triggered, Charteris tells Kerr: “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.” That is, Kerr is the actor.

On 23 October, a week after the budget was blocked, Charteris told Kerr: “We must, of course, still hope that the crisis will somehow become de-fused and I am sure you are doing all that you can, properly, to see that this happens….Your friends in this house [Buckingham Palace] can take comfort that your long training in the law equips you singularly well to cope with it.” That is, we at the Palace are relying on your judgment.

As the crisis intensified, Charteris on 5 November wrote to Kerr: “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. The crisis, as you say, has to be worked out in Australia.”

This was the last letter from Charteris before the dismissal. He could not have been more direct: “The crisis…has to be worked out in Australia.” They both agreed on this pivotal point. The previously secret letters confirm the official versions and public statements made by both Sir John and the Palace ever since the dismissal.

In short, they confirm the published letter of 17 November 1975 that Sir Martin wrote to the Speaker of the House, Gordon Scholes, after the dismissal replying to the earlier Scholes letter seeking the intervention of the Palace to restore Whitlam as prime minister. Sir Martin wrote that “the Queen has no part in the decisions which the Governor-General must take in accordance with the constitution.” He said, “… it would not be proper for her to intervene in person on matters which are so clearly placed within the jurisdiction of the Governor-General by the Constitution Act.”

If this letter was disguising a cover-up concerning involvement by the Palace in the dismissal that would leave the Monarchy exposed as deceiving the Australian parliament and people. The Palace letters, however, merely verify this published statement made to the Speaker a week after the Whitlam dismissal.

I spoke to Gough Whitlam during the crisis, after the crisis and on many occasions in subsequent years. Gough had a firm view that the Palace was not party to his dismissal. The Palace letters affirm emphatically Whitlam’s understanding.

Those who deny the evidence must address a further problem. The Queen has been on the throne for 68 years. She has behaved impeccably. She has no record of interfering in those nations where she is head of state by seeking the political liquidation of prime ministers she doesn’t like. Why, on earth, would she seek Mr Whitlam’s removal? There is no evidence the Queen had other than cordial and proper relations with the prime minister. The notion that she abandoned established practice, violated the interests of the monarchy, acted completely out of character and, for some unknown reason, moved against Mr Whitlam, defies any rational explanation. There is, as I say, no evidence of any such action.

The second conclusion I highlight from our book is that the dismissal in its planning and execution was an Australian project – it was engineered by the Governor-General and the documents verify Sir John Kerr’s account in his memoirs that he deliberately kept the Queen in the dark. If the dismissal amounts to a conspiracy – and we believe it does – the plot was devised and given effect at Yarralumla not 17,000 kilometres away in London. This interpretation is hardly a surprise: under the Constitution the Governor-General exercises the power of the Crown. Kerr, of course, knew and understood this.

There is no doubt that Kerr cultivated the Palace writing five or six times as many words as Charteris. Many people will find his correspondence fawning and cringeworthy. But it had a purpose – he wanted the confidence of the Palace to buttress his own autonomy for decision-making. Kerr was a proud man and a proud Australian; he did not become Governor-General to outsource his authority or influence to the Palace.

The letters show Kerr wanted to keep the Palace informed. He canvassed at length his options – and one of them was dismissal, an option he had canvassed in his talks with both Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser and an option advocated by the Opposition and being canvassed in the Australian media. It is true that Kerr was more frank in his letters to the Palace than he was in his talks with Whitlam – and that was a grievous mistake for a Governor-General.

The Palace letters, however, are unequivocal: Kerr never told the Palace he had decided to dismiss Whitlam. Indeed, in the 15 days before the dismissal Kerr wrote only one letter to the Palace – on 6 November. And he played his cards close to his chest. His most forthcoming remark in that letter was to say that “an important decision one way or the other may have to be made by me this month.” That’s it – the final communication. Kerr might have to decide “one way or the other.” In short, I’ll let you know when something happens, if it happens.

On the evening of 11 November after the dismissal, Kerr went into his study and wrote to the Palace, explaining that he had dismissed Whitlam. The dismissal, in fact, was an elaborate, secret and complex event. Kerr had told the Palace nothing of his crucial steps in the dismissal – that he had decided on an 11 November dismissal, that it would be a constitutional ambush at Yarralumla with Whitlam given no genuine opportunity to go the election as PM, that Whitlam wanted a half-Senate election that Kerr would deny him since there was no guarantee of supply, that Kerr had consulted Chief Justice Barwick and got written advice, that Barwick told him dismissal was consistent with his constitutional authority and duty, that he had consulted another High Court judge, Anthony Mason, that his plan involved commissioning Malcolm Fraser as a caretaker and minority PM subject to critical conditions and that acting on Fraser’s advice after supply had been obtained he had dissolved the parliament for an election under Fraser as prime minister.

Kerr told the Palace none of these steps – absolutely nothing. Neither the dismissal decision nor any of the steps along the way that made this decision so contentious and inflammatory was cleared with the Palace beforehand. The Queen knew nothing. The Palace letters are important for what they don’t say. The Governor-General controlled this operation from start to finish. Claims that the Palace gave the “green light” have no basis. Kerr wanted the entire resolution to be an Australian event – and it was.

The third conclusion I highlight from our book is that there was no deal or understanding reached between the Palace and the Governor-General on the issue of Kerr’s recall by Whitlam. Recall was at the heart of the dismissal. As we know and as Kerr has revealed, he feared that if Whitlam got any inkling of his intention, then the prime minister would act first and approach the Queen to remove Kerr as Governor-General. This is the main reason Kerr deceived Whitlam and designed the dismissal as an ambush.

We now have available Sir Martin’s decisive letter of 2 October. He addressed this question and was explicit. Referring to any such advice by Whitlam, he said: “You may be sure that the Queen would take most unkindly to it. There would be considerable comings and goings, but I think it is right that I should make the point that at the end of the road the Queen, as a Constitutional Sovereign, would have no opinion but to follow the advice of her Prime Minister.”

There are two points to make here. Of course, the Queen would be displeased. She would not appreciate being dragged into the crisis by Whitlam. Can you imagine the upheaval once it became known that the Prime Minister was advising the Palace in the middle of a crisis to sack the Governor-General because he didn’t trust him? We previously established that a phone call wouldn’t be enough. The prime minister would need to follow normal practice, that is, provide written advice to remove the Governor-General. That is no surprise; it is standard practice.

The bigger point, however, was the confirmation by Charteris that the Queen would act on the Prime Minister’s advice: the Governor-General would be removed. Claims that there was a secret arrangement between Kerr and the Queen to deliberately delay and thwart Whitlam in order to sustain Kerr’s position have no foundation.

Sir John Kerr knew the procedure. This news was no big deal for him. Kerr said in his papers he already knew the Queen would act on Whitlam’s advice. He wasn’t chasing any “secret arrangement” with the Palace. Kerr intended to solve this problem by concealing his intention from Whitlam.

My final point concerns the Reserve Powers. In his letter of 4 November Charteris confirms that the Reserve Powers exist. It is no revelation the Palace thought this; it is the constitutional equivalent of saying the earth revolves around the sun. Kerr knew the Reserve Powers existed. Indeed, he had lived with them since his student days and was fascinated, even obsessed, by them. He didn’t need the Palace to tell him what he knew.

Charteris, however, in his letter of 4 November did give Kerr some advice. Perhaps the Palace was getting nervous about what Kerr might do. In this letter Charteris warned Kerr against any unwise or premature intervention. He alluded to the classic role of the Reserve Powers, that is, their real value lies in being invoked but not used – part of the warning system by a sovereign to procure a political settlement.

Having made this vital point, Sir Martin reminded Kerr that to use them “is a heavy responsibility”. Then he went further. Charteris said “it is only at the very end when there is demonstrably no other course that they should be used.” This was a clear warning. Only use these powers when there is “demonstrably no other course”. Yet there is invariably another course. If the Governor-General warns the Prime Minister the latter will choose, in most cases, another option rather than sitting pat and being dismissed.

In short, not only did the Palace not encourage Kerr to dismiss Whitlam, it actively encouraged him against dismissal. No other interpretation is possible from a reading of the Charteris letter of 4 November.

In conclusion I stress that we have no ideological interest in defending the Queen or the Palace. We are committed republicans. Our book offers a sustained critique of Sir John Kerr’s dismissal. But as Paul Keating said in his foreword to our book we need to get the history right – and an argument that the Queen encouraged or conspired in arrangements to remove Mr Whitlam is “no more than tilting at shadows.” Mr Keating has warned republicans that trying to mobilise an argument about the Queen’s involvement in the 1975 crisis – a false argument – is entirely the wrong approach to advancing the cause of the republic. We endorse this Keating proposition completely.

The Australian people are entitled to a discussion that reveals “the truth of the Palace letters” – hence the title of our book.

FOLLOWING THE PAPERS GIVEN BY PAUL KELLY AND TROY BRAMSTON ON THE PALACE LETTERS ON 3 NOVEMBER 2020 AT THE SYDNEY ISNTITUTE, A DISCUSSION FOLLOWED WITH INSTITUTE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR GERARD HENDERSON.

Gerard Henderson: Thanks, Troy, thanks Paul. It is a fine book, and an important foreword by Paul Keating, which I think is one of the better things he’s written – it’s very well put together. You know my position on this, so let’s go back to 5 pm on the 11 November 1975 on the assumption that Fraser hasn’t backed down and Whitlam hasn’t backed down. And Whitlam has advised the Governor-General, that supply will run out well before the 13 December, which would be the earliest time an election might have been held. What would you have done? Both of you, what would you do if you were John Kerr in such a situation?

Troy Bramston: I think it’s important to remember that this crisis was all about supply, and that’s often been forgotten. And it is incumbent upon governments to make sure that they can guarantee and secure supply. Where John Kerr went wrong was in the deception of the prime minister. There’s a number of elements to that along the way, where he wasn’t as fully frank and as open as he probably should have been. Kerr was more frank with the Palace about what he thought about the crisis and how it was unfolding and how it might be resolved. But the key thing John Kerr should have done is give Whitlam a clear warning; he should have said to him that, “Unless you can guarantee supply, I will have to call on another as Prime Minister who can.” And then recommend an election for both Houses of Parliament.

So that was where he went wrong. I understand that John Kerr was in a difficult position. But the idea that you ambush the Prime Minister without giving him options, I think was mistaken. It was interesting, just in the last week, that in Peter Cosgrove’s memoir, which Paul Kelly launched, he said the same thing – Kerr should have given Whitlam an opportunity to go to an election for both houses as prime minister. But he didn’t do that.

Gerard Henderson: Very briefly, Whitlam had an opportunity. He could have called an election, as he had done in 1974.

Troy Bramston: Well, he could have. But he had called an election eighteen months earlier. And, of course, any election for the House, he was going to lose. So that’s clearly the political reason why he wouldn’t do that. But if he was presented with the option, this is the only way supply can be passed. That is when the opposition gets the election for both houses, that would have been more fairly treating him by giving him that warning. It goes back to constitutional principles. The governor-general’s role is to advise and to warn and to counsel, and Kerr was not as upfront with Whitlam as he should have been.

Gerard Henderson: So Paul, what would you’ve done at 5 pm on 11 November if supply hadn’t been passed – and Fraser wasn’t going to pass it – and Whitlam was going to govern without it?

Paul Kelly: What I think should have happened is the Governor-General should have spoken frankly to the Prime Minister the day supply was blocked in mid-October, or the next day. And given that he knew then that Whitlam intended to remain in office and defy the Senate and try and secure a loss of nerve by the Senate, the Governor-General should have just said to the Prime Minister: “I understand what you’re doing. But if we get to a stage in this crisis, where the supply is going to run out, you will need to provide me with advice that resolves the crisis.” And so, Whitlam would have been then on notice right from the start, that there were limits to how long the Governor-General would tolerate his tactic of defying the Senate. So, the answer to your question is, that the Governor-General should have given the Prime Minister a warning. And when the Governor-General eventually decided that intervention was necessary, he should have told the Prime Minister that intervention was necessary. And that unless the Prime Minister recommended an election then, there would have to be resort to the reserve powers.

Gerard Henderson: So you have no problem with the dismissal itself? It’s just that it shouldn’t happened that way. But the actual dismissal of the government, if there had been prior warning, and Whitlam hadn’t acted, you don’t have a problem with that, or do you?

Paul Kelly: That’s essentially correct. Clearly, if supply is blocked, and you’ve got a prime minister who thinks that he can remain indefinitely in office, even if supply is exhausted, that is an untenable position. And no governor-general can acquiesce in a prime minister employing those tactics.

Troy Bramston: I think it’s worth unpacking that a little bit further, which is, I don’t think that the opposition should have blocked supply to force an election.

Gerard Henderson: Nor do I, but they did.

Troy Bramston: Of course, they did. There’s just one other brief point to make on this about what Whitlam’s options were, and what Kerr’s options were. One of the things that’s often been forgotten, which we write about in the book, is that Malcolm Fraser had offered a number of resolutions to the crisis, which essentially would have seen supply passed provided the government agreed to go to an election before mid 1976. This was a missed opportunity for Whitlam. He could have had at least another six months in office; he could have claimed victory with supply having been passed. Malcolm Fraser would have been seen to back down, and there wouldn’t have been a divisive dismissal. This has often been forgotten. We don’t exempt Gough Whitlam from his mistakes and blunders. That was one of them. He should have seized what was again presented to him on the morning of 11 November by the opposition. But he rejected it outright.

Gerard Henderson: At page 41, quoting Sir Martin Charteris, you make it clear that you regard this as the vital point: “If proper warning is given, there will almost always be another course, short of dismissal.” But you weren’t dealing with two reasonable people, as you say yourself, you’re dealing with two wilful and reckless men. The idea that Whitlam was going to give into Fraser because Kerr sort of warned him is not tenable. He would have sacked Kerr. Which Kerr was always worried about, partly for his own self-interest. He was always worried about his finances. But partly also, as he said to me, he didn’t want to get the Palace involved. And that would have happened if Whitlam had sacked Kerr. That would have become a huge controversy, which would have involved the Palace because people would have thought, well, the Queen did it.

Paul Kelly: We don’t know for certain what would have happened. This is essentially why I’ve argued that Kerr should have had a frank discussion with Whitlam when supply was blocked in mid-October, or the next day. I don’t think Whitlam would have moved against Kerr at that point in time. We can’t be certain, but I don’t think he would have. Whitlam would then have been put on notice that he didn’t have a blank cheque from the Governor-General. That would have influenced what Whitlam subsequently did.

But let’s take your argument. And it may well be right. If, at the end of the day, the governor-general had given a warning to the Prime Minister. One possibility is that the Prime Minister would have sought to remove the Governor-General and approach the Palace. That would have been an extremely unwise, divisive and counterproductive decision. There would have been upheaval in the country of course. And the Palace wouldn’t have appreciated that because they would have been involved. But I guess my point of view about that is that Kerr’s fear that that would have happened is not sufficient justification for not warning Whitlam.

Troy Bramston: In the book, we interviewed Kim Beazley, who of course is the governor of Western Australia and he made the very valid point that fear about your own position is not a sufficient reason to not warn the prime minister. And the worst thing that could have happened to Kerr was that he was recalled, and he would have gone back to his former life. It’s not the end of the world. Instead, he took a very cowardly approach to the crisis.

Gerard Henderson: But it wasn’t his only concern. He has written, and he’s said to others, that his concern, which is in your book, was not to get the Palace involved. Both of you in your speeches have made that clear. Kerr didn’t want to get the Palace involved in the Dismissal, and he certainly didn’t want to get the Palace involved in his own sacking. It was the same principle. He said to me on many occasions: “I wanted to keep the Palace out of this.” But if Whitlam had sacked Kerr, the Palace was right into it.

Troy Bramston: But the other side of that Gerard is that he deceived the Prime Minister. He wasn’t fully open with him. He didn’t give him a warning. And that’s not the way a governor general should behave.

Gerard Henderson: Well, if you’re Sir Peter Cosgrove dealing with John Howard, it probably isn’t. But if you’re Sir John Kerr dealing with Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam, maybe different criteria apply. You’ve got two sources in your book. You’ve got Maurice Byers and you’ve got John Menadue, both saying that they thought that Whitlam would have dismissed Kerr, that is in your own book. And Menadue and Byers knew Whitlam very well. You’ve also got sources in your book saying that might not have happened.

Troy Bramston: We have a better source, which is Gough Whitlam, because he wrote a letter to Harold Wilson, the British Prime Minister, just weeks after the Dismissal, saying if he had of got wind of what Kerr was up to he would have had him recalled. Now it’s a hypothetical, we don’t really know because it didn’t happen. But back to the fundamental point, which is – it’s not the way for a governor-general to behave. To be totally absorbed and concerned about your own position, rather than doing the right thing by…

Gerard Henderson: But you’re ignoring the point. He wasn’t just concerned about his own position. He wanted to keep the Palace out of it. He may have been concerned about his own position. But that wasn’t his only concern. He wanted to keep the Palace out of it, you both said it.

Troy Bramston: That’s true. And Gough Whitlam was his own worst enemy. Of course, he had said, famously at a dinner for the Malaysian Prime Minister on the day supply was blocked, that “we may end up with a race to the Palace, via the telephone”. That was an unwise and silly joke to make. So, I agree with you.

Gerard Henderson: The point is, was it a joke? At the time, people didn’t think it was a joke. You make this clear in the book. The sacking of Kerr by Whitlam was being discussed, and Kerr did not regard that as a joke. So, what you’ve got are three sources. You’ve got Whitlam saying he would have done it, you’ve got John Menadue saying he would have done it, you’ve got Maurice Byers saying he would have done it. If you’re Kerr and that’s what people are saying later on, it wasn’t a crazy decision to think it would have happened. It was reasonable to be conscious that he was likely to be sacked. And that would, as Paul said, have caused a crisis in the country. And the monarchy would have been blamed well, to some extent, because people don’t quite understand it.

Troy Bramston: But it does get back to the central point. And this is a point made by Sir Paul Hasluck in an oral history interview that he made which we include in the book. Sir Paul says, “In the end, you’ve got to have a frank and open dialogue.” And if you have the frank and open dialogue, then Kerr would not have had the fear of recall because Whitlam would have been able to trust him, and he would have been able to trust Whitlam. I understand what you’re saying, but it does all get back to there being a better relationship on both sides between the Prime Minister and the Governor-General.

Gerard Henderson: The relationship is a two-way thing.

Troy Bramston: It is.

Gerard Henderson: Whitlam was very difficult to get on with. Kerr wasn’t difficult to get on with.

Troy Bramston: Paul Hasluck didn’t have any difficulty getting on with Whitlam, they got on famously.

Gerard Henderson: He didn’t have a crisis either.

Troy Bramston: Well he had a tumultuous government to deal with. In many ways unorthodox.

Gerard Henderson: He didn’t have. As you know, in 1974, when Bill Snedden lead the opposition and threatened to block supply, Whitlam just said, okay, let’s have a double dissolution. And Hasluck ticked it. It wasn’t a very tough decision to make. He took the advice of the government. And he gave a double dissolution, which was the right thing to do. But a year and a half later it had changed because Whitlam thought he would lose the election. In 1974, he thought he would win, and he was right. In 1975, he thought he would lose, and he was almost certainly right.

Paul Kelly: One of the really critical points here is that we can’t second guess what Whitlam would have done. You’re right, we’ve spoken to a lot of people. And some people surmise, or believe, that Whitlam would have moved against Kerr. Other people think that he wouldn’t have moved against Kerr. Such as Bob Ellicott, for example. The point is, we simply don’t know. And Gough changed his own version of this. Gough wrote to Harold Wilson straight afterwards implying that he would have moved against Kerr. But, later on, when I interviewed Gough, years later, Gough insisted that he would not have done it. So, essentially, you’re getting different accounts coming from Whitlam himself. So, this is a conundrum. We can’t be certain about what would have happened. All I’d say is that even if one assumes that Kerr had very lofty motives, and I think he was genuine in wanting to keep the Palace out of it, I still don’t think at the end of the day, deliberately deceiving the Prime Minister was justification, in that situation, for trying to keep the Palace out of it.

Gerard Henderson: Well he didn’t really deceive him. He didn’t warn him. But he didn’t say anything false to him.

Troy Bramston: Well, I think he did. As we describe in the book, John Kerr’s disgruntlement with Gough Whitlam goes back to the beginning of his time as Governor General. He was writing to the Palace about things not concerning the supply process. Of his concern about the change to the order of precedent, about the Australian honour system, about the relationship between ministers and public servants, about the general style of the Whitlam Government, the scandals and so on. There’s actually a litany of letters where Kerr is indicting Whitlam, even before the crisis begins. What this shows is that this was a dysfunctional relationship. Even Martin Charteris, to his credit, wrote to Kerr, at the end of 1974 or early 1975, advising him that he needed to have a better relationship with his prime minister.

Gerard Henderson: It’s got to be a two-way process. Kerr has written, and he said it to me, that his principal concern was being excluded from an important meeting of the Loans Council. And he was wrongly excluded. He regarded it as unconstitutional. He had very high regard for himself and his own legal abilities. But he thought that was a very improper action by his prime minister. So if the Prime Minister is not going to inform you of one of the most important meetings of the Executive Council taking place, you’ll get a bit pissed off.

Paul Kelly: But what did he do? This is the problem. Kerr was treated improperly by Whitlam over the loans affair. No question about that. Okay. And so, one can completely understand what Kerr felt about that. But what did he do? What he should have done was have a frank discussion with Whitlam and said, “Listen, I think that you’ve mishandled things, and your relationship with me as the Queen’s representative and the conduct of the Executive Council meeting was improper. And I think we’ve got to discuss this and address this.” That’s what he should have done. But he didn’t do it. What he did was to harbour resentments. And many of the resentments were justified. But you have a pent-up sense of resentment building in Kerr, this massive distrust towards Whitlam. Of course, when the crisis came, there was no framework for them as prime minister and governor-general, to have frank and honest discussions.

Gerard Henderson: You make the point in your book that Whitlam made no attempt to talk to Kerr.

Paul Kelly: That’s correct. I feel very, very strongly about this, that both individuals are culpable here. I’ve been criticising Kerr for not speaking frankly to Whitlam, but Whitlam’s behaviour was extraordinary. These public lectures he was giving the governor-general, that “you have no option but to take my advice” and so on. He did not open the door to frank discussions with the Governor-General. There’s no doubt about that.

Gerard Henderson: To be fair, the one behaving badly was Malcolm Fraser. Kerr said to me, and it’s in your book, that when Fraser made that statement in early November as to how Kerr should act, Kerr deeply resented it. So, you had both Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam behaving poorly towards the Governor General, who has then got caught in this position. Your book’s terrific except for one aspect – you’ve been a bit soft on Whitlam.

As you will recall well Paul, and, Troy, you probably would have read about in your local library – after 1967, Lionel Murphy came in as head of the Senate and the Labor Party decided to go very hard against the Coalition government. There are a number of people who have confirmed that – many mentioned and quoted in Sir David Smith’s book Head of State. These include Gough Whitlam who said, in August 1970, “Labor’s purpose was to destroy the Budget [that is supply effectively] and destroy the government which had sponsored the Budget”. So, Whitlam was saying five years before the Dismissal that blocking supply was a perfectly reasonable thing to do if an opposition had control of the Senate. The reason why Labor failed to do it was because the Democratic Labor Party senators wouldn’t support Labor on blocking supply. But Whitlam thought this was alright, until he thought it wasn’t alright.

Troy Bramston: That is a legitimate criticism to make. Gough Whitlam and Lionel Murphy did have that view in the 1960s. There’s no doubt about that. And they obviously took a different view when they were in government. It’s important to note the legacy of this issue which is that no opposition since has ever contemplated doing it, let alone done it. Blocking of supply is kind of dead letter issue in Australian political conventions, and it’s unlikely to ever be repeated.

Gerard Henderson: I’ve got a couple of quick questions in from our members. In the context of constitutional crisis what was the latest date on which Kerr could have deferred acting, if he did? Are you saying it would have to be resolved by 11 November, one way or the other?

Paul Kelly: That’s right.

Gerard Henderson: Because if you had to call an election for 13 December, you had to resolve it by 11 November.

Troy Bramston: You could have had an election on the 20 December, but there was a judgement made that this was too close to Christmas. And of course, Whitlam and Fraser himself had been in touch with the electoral commissioner, and that was deemed to be the right date.

Gerard Henderson: What’s quite devastating, and you’ve covered both of them in your talk today and in your book, is the is the comprehensive demolition of the two conspiracy theories. The early one with John Pilger and extending up in recent times to Guy Rundle about the CIA involvement, you’ve effectively demolished that. And the latter one that came up later about the Palace, which is still being propagated by Jenny Hocking. And you’ve got some very strong detail about that. One of our members has asked, “Do Troy or Paul feel any guilt for publicising what are conspiracy theories?”

Paul Kelly: I think we feel no guilt. Let’s establish that to begin with. In relation to the CIA, it is a sign of enormous national immaturity that we still have people, 45 years after the event, wishing and hoping that it was all about the CIA, when there has never been any evidence linking the CIA and the Dismissal. We all know that there was a crisis at the time in security intelligence relations between Australia and the United States. We all know there was a constitutional crisis. Well, events running in parallel is not causation. We ought to grow up and get out of the CIA argument. But it’s sort of comforting. There’s something comforting about trying to pretend that this wasn’t our mistake. This was all done by the Americans. Well, it’s so juvenile. It’s just extraordinary.

In relation to the claims about the Palace, all I’d say about that is, in our book, we’re focusing on argument. We congratulate Jenny Hocking for her efforts in getting the Buckingham Palace letters released. That’s in the public interest, that’s in the public court and we’ve recognised that. We’ve just drawn upon the letters to reach what seemed to us to be the obvious and unqualified conclusions.

Troy Bramston: To add to that briefly, I think it’s very, very clear – anyone can now read these letters, there’s 212 of them – that the Palace didn’t have any prior knowledge of this specific planned dismissal, or approved it. The key thing, as I mentioned in my talk, is that there’s no reason given. You can look for hidden language, you can look for hints and clues in different paragraphs and sentences and words. But there’s no reason given as to why the Queen would want to do this. For those who purport to support Whitlam and idolise him, you dishonour him by running this kind of conspiracy involving the Palace. It’s not something that he ever believed or ever subscribed to. Nor did, obviously, John Kerr. Nor did Malcolm Fraser.

Gerard Henderson: Many thanks. All the best for the success of the book. It’s a great book and I’m glad you’ve come along here and discussed it today.