"it was better for Her Majesty not to know in advance"

July 13, 2020 10:46 PM

"On Tuesday November 11th, 1975, the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, dismissed Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister and appointed Malcolm Fraser as a caretaker Prime Minister." Now, "A new row over the republic is set to ignite as secret letters reveal the role of Buckingham Palace in the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975, with a key historian expecting the papers to expose decades of false claims."

The 'palace letters': read the full documents from the national archives here

Here is what we know so far:

On 11 November, 1975, after he dismissed Whitlam, the governor general, Sir John Kerr, wrote to the Queen’s private secretary that he had done so “without informing the palace in advance”.
He wrote: “I decided to take the step I took without informing the palace in advance ... I was of the opinion it was better for Her Majesty not to know in advance.”
But other letters from as early as July showed that Kerr had discussed, with the palace, the legal validity of his dismissing Whitlam for months before the decision.
In a letter sent to the palace on 3 July, Kerr enclosed a clipping from the Canberra Times that raised the possibility of his dismissing Whitlam.
The article said: “The governor general has certain clear powers to check an elected government... He could, for good and sufficient reasons, revoke the commissions of a prime minister or other ministers…The good government of Australia, especially at a time of grave economic disruption, is the only thing that counts and the most extreme steps to ensure this must be taken if there is no other way.
Kerr wrote that he had “no intention of acting in the way suggested,” but said the newspaper was “a responsible, high quality paper”. “The editorial may be of general interest as background,” he wrote.
The Queen’s private secretary, Martin Charteris, wrote to Kerr on 4 November that: “It is often argued that such [reserve] powers no longer exist. I do not believe this to be true. I think those powers do exist … 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.”
In a letter after the dismissal, Charteris also wrote: “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 also joked that if Whitlam won the resulting election, then Whitlam “ought to be extremely grateful” to Kerr.

The Guardian has a liveblog

posted by the man of twists and turns (18 comments total)

Previously:
It's time, Gough Whitlam's obituary thread, 2014
Still maintaining the rage, 2012
Fair-Weather Friends , 2003
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:48 PM on July 13, 2020

I am glad these have been released because they're clearly documents that belong to the public (rather than private correspondence). BUT I can't see anything particularly revelatory—we've all known all along that Kerr was a shady creep, that he probably told the Palace what he was up to but they wanted nothing to do with him, Whitlam or Australia—it's all a bit anticlimactic.

From a republican point of view this just confirms everyone's prior beliefs about sovereignty: for republicans, it's that the monarchy is customary, ambiguous, beyond recall or appeal, a mystical throwback, and a constantly rubbing-on-a-wound reminder of colonialism; for monarchists, it's 'yeah, all of those things, but in a good way'.

Ten points for archival openness, no points for relitigating the dismissal. The whole martyr Gough myth annoys me—it's the self-pity of people shocked, shocked that Fraser would have been so ungentlemanly to see the establishment and State as a friend of power, rather than as a fair and generous referee of politics-as-game.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 11:29 PM on July 13, 2020 [6 favorites]

I expect Kerr would have distinguished between briefings regarding the hypothetical extent of his powers, and the concrete steps he had resolved to carry out. He didn't ring up Her Maj. and say that he was going to sack Whitlam, but they knew he might, and that by that point there was no other course which could have delivered Supply.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:48 PM on July 13, 2020

I recall a man I used to know telling me about a political science class he taught in the UK, where he explained the Dismissal and the constitutional proprieties, the British students being shocked that the vice-regent had those reserve powers, in a constitutional monarchy run as an electoral democracy, but one exchange student from Nigeria setting it out as ‘yeah she can do that, that’s what politics is, what’s not to understand here’
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 12:01 AM on July 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

I agree with Fiasco da Gama - nothing particularly earth-shattering. Kerr was an arsehole, the Palace did nothing to discourage him, they just didn't want to look bad. In 1975 Australia was an irrelevance to the rest of the world.

The only thing to be learned/re-learned is that there is one rule for Conservatives/Monarchs/Authoritarians and another rule for everyone else. Never ever make the mistake of thinking they have principles that don't benefit anyone other than themselves.
posted by awfurby at 12:20 AM on July 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

Meanwhile back in 1975 London, the establishment security services were bugging the offices of Harold Wilson's Labour government, leaking selected intelligence to the conservative press, spreading stories that Wilson was a KGB agent and generally fueling a lot of pearl-clutching in the leafy suburbs. See Clockwork Orange. If they wanted spies, they needed look no further than the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures [access all areas Buck House] Anthony Blunt [Marlborough] or other members of the Cambridge Five: Burgess [Eton] ; Maclean [Greshams]; Philby [Westminster]; Cairncross [Hamilton Academy]. Operation Marmion, the military take-over of Heathrow Airport, fueled military coup anxiety in unleafy parts of the city. No, not that, even seepier, more recent Operation Marmion.
Sorry that's all a bit of an aside . . . back to Oz.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:58 AM on July 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have done this so far, but I imported the documents into Voyant Tools for fun exploration times. You can play along here. Note if you haven't used Voyant before that there are dozens of different tools you can add to your workspace depending on how you want to explore the document. This view is just set up with five common ones. Replace any one of them by hovering over the question mark in the top right of each tool's space, and then clicking on the window icon that appears to the left of it to get a dropdown menu with all the different tools.

You can also view a description of all the different tools and how they work here.
posted by lollusc at 3:52 AM on July 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

lollusc: so cool!
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:24 AM on July 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

If you like your stories in the high-paranoid style, about proto-coups and true deepstate shenanigans in Australia, read Peter Carey's Amnesia, which gets into Gough/Whitlam.
posted by lalochezia at 4:36 AM on July 14, 2020

Incidentally, I disagree with the people who think they're not revelatory. Maybe it's different if you've studied the dismissal properly, but I wasn't aware that Whitlam had seriously considered presenting a Supply bill to the GG for Assent even though it had been rejected by the Senate, or that he feared one or more of the State Premiers might have refused to issue writs for a half-Senate election.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:44 AM on July 14, 2020

If you are trying to run a reasonably effective democracy it is critically important that you not let the English Establishment the slightest foothold in the mechanisms you use.
Even on the rare occasions that the stars align and they are vaguely competent, that competence will not be used in a way that is favorable to you.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:02 AM on July 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

Well may we say "God save the Queen", because nothing will save the Governor-General! The Proclamation which you have just heard read by the Governor-General's Official Secretary was countersigned "Malcolm Fraser," who will undoubtedly go down in Australian history from Remembrance Day 1975 as Kerr's cur.

posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:28 AM on July 14, 2020

They're also relevant to the rest of the Commonwealth, and to countries like Canada that have struggled with and debated about the powers of the Governor-General to curtail parliamentary activities.
posted by sardonyx at 10:36 AM on July 14, 2020

So... honest question, what benefit does being in the UK Commonwealth provide? I can't imagine it's worth having a theoretically unchecked and unimpeachable override on the established functioning of the state's own government, but I do come from a U.S. perspective where such checks are (or were, at least *sigh*) viewed as important.
posted by Aleyn at 4:24 PM on July 14, 2020

Benefits of being in the Commonwealth....

I guess during a humanitarian crisis in a Commonwealth country it might be easier to get humanitarian aid going from the other countries in the group? I dunno though.

What you do get is the occasional visit from a minor Royal every few years, and once every 25 years the Monarch makes her way to your outpost of Her Empire.
posted by awfurby at 4:45 PM on July 14, 2020

I suspect many of the people of Montserrat were happy to have the help of the home countries when the volcano blew in the 90s and they were provided assistance and eventually allowed to relocate when it became clear that the island could no longer support everyone living there.

That's a far cry from the situation Australia or Canada are in or even have been in at any point in the past century. Any conceivable scenario in which the UK were still in a position to provide assistance would not require outside help.

Of course, the US is perfectly capable of caring for its own people yet oftentimes refuses, so it isn't like capacity is as important as political will in that kind of situation anyway.
posted by wierdo at 8:44 PM on July 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

I guess I always assumed Supply would be located in one dominant assembly (assuming a bicameral system). The UK Commons stripped Supply from the Lords over a century ago because of the instability dual Supply caused in practice. Is it common in Westminster-style parliaments to have co-equal Supply requirements?
posted by meehawl at 6:37 AM on July 15, 2020

I guess I always assumed Supply would be located in one dominant assembly (assuming a bicameral system). The UK Commons stripped Supply from the Lords over a century ago because of the instability dual Supply caused in practice. Is it common in Westminster-style parliaments to have co-equal Supply requirements?

Prior to 1911 in the UK after the passing of the Parliament Act, the House of Lords was able to withhold supply from the Commons. Australia was constituted in 1900 and was modeled very heavily on British parliament at the time although the Senate in the Australia was specifically a house of review and not an unelected set of nobles to make sure the rabble don't get too rowdy like Canada (who became a dominion in the earlier 1867 when nobles were still slightly in vogue). The commoners being in control of the upper house is probably why Australia never revoked the power to withhold supply from the upper chamber. Meanwhile New Zealand abolished their upper house entirely in '51 so they don't really apply here at all.

Canadian Senators I believe still hold the reserve power to withhold supply but I understand they've never actually pulled the trigger, withholding supply probably being a strong motivation for the abolishment of the upper house.

Incidentally, only four states in Australia have upper houses able to block supply: Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia. I'm also pretty sure the Australia Senate is the only upper house to have caused a downfall of a sitting government over the past half a century or so by blocking supply (1975). I'm pretty sure Australia is also the only country to have double dissolution elections which are complicated af to run.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:30 PM on July 15, 2020 [1 favorite]