Dismissal of the Whitlam government

On 11 November 1975 Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed Gough Whitlam, the Labor prime minister of Australia, and appointed the opposition leader Malcolm Fraser as caretaker prime minister. It is the only time that the Governor-General has removed a government in the country's history. Whitlam was told at Kerr's residence in Canberra, and learned only then that his time was up. Fraser called a general election for 13 December and the Coalition won by a large margin.¹²

Whitlam had won office in 1972 after 23 years of conservative rule and moved quickly: he ended conscription, withdrew from Vietnam, recognized China, brought in free university education and set up a national health scheme. His government was also hurt by inflation, ministerial scandals and the Loans Affair, a failed plan to borrow billions from Middle Eastern sources through an unorthodox broker. In October 1975 the Coalition-controlled Senate refused to pass the budget bills, leaving the government without money to run. Whitlam refused to call an election, and Kerr, after consulting the High Court's chief justice, used the Crown's reserve powers.¹

Whitlam's followers were furious. On the steps of Parliament House, Whitlam said that nothing would save the Governor-General, and his supporters shouted 'Shame, Fraser, shame'. The crisis led to long debate about the proper role of the Governor-General and Senate. In 2020, after a court case, the National Archives released the Palace Letters, correspondence between Kerr and the Queen's staff. They showed that Kerr did not tell the Queen of the dismissal in advance, though how much the Palace knew of his thinking is still debated. Australia never changed the arrangement, and a 1999 referendum on becoming a republic failed.¹²