“I had no contemporary political heroes. I preferred Labor values to Liberal ones. I believed in a mixed economy. I disliked the people who’d got us into the Vietnam war. I was grateful to those who’d got us out. I admired Gough Whitlam, but not as much as he did.”

Senator John Button, As it happened.

The dismissal of Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam by Queen Elizabeth’s Vice-Regal representative, Sir John Kerr, in November 1975, was an extraordinary event. For almost 50 years a debate has raged about why the governor-general took the unprecedented action he did. This essay represents a further attempt to answer that question.

First and fundamentally, however, we should recognise the enormity of Kerr’s action. It was based on ”reserve powers” in the Westminster system that Australia’s senior law officers considered were obsolete. As proposed in a recent study by two Oxford University academics, Iain McLean and Scott Peterson, there was no relevant precedent, at least since the ratification of the Statute of Westminster, for the dismissal of a prime minister who enjoyed the confidence of the lower house in Parliament. In addition, the replacement of a prime minister before the end of their term by an Opposition leader who then went on to win the resulting election represents another unique outlier among democracies operating under the Westminster system.

Why then did the governor-general make the decision he did? Some attempts to explain the dismissal have focused on a search for a “smoking gun” in the context of a possible conspiracy. Did the governor-general collude with the Opposition to get rid of Kerr? Was the CIA involved in destabilising a democratically elected government in Australia as it was in Chile? If so, what role did the White House play? Or the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)? Or the Palace? Was the Queen a player in all this? Or did Kerr load and fire the gun on his own initiative?

The unfortunate fact was that after three tumultuous years in office, Whitlam had made a large number of enemies, some of them very heavy hitters indeed. Kerr would have been well aware there were powerful people at home and abroad who would have liked nothing better than to see the back of the Australian prime minister. A good starting point for any investigation of Whitlam’s defenestration, therefore, is to consider the question of cui bono. Who would benefit from his dismissal?

Whitlam had a commanding presence, a towering intellect, was full of creative ideas, could rise to great oratorical heights and was in many ways an inspirational leader. Yet, arguably, despite the government’s immense achievements that changed the nation, on a balanced view he was not a great prime minister. He was certainly immodest, probably arrogant, with a brimming self-confidence that fed a conviction that he had nothing at all to be modest about. He was not a reliable strategist and often unwilling to compromise. His judgment was uncertain, particularly in regard to people. He was a loner and not a team player.

In some ways, Whitlam was his own worst enemy. This was reflected in his style. Whitlam could rarely resist the temptation of the clever quip or the wounding barb, however ill-judged, while routinely neglecting to consider the potential impact on his target. Although it might be tolerated in Australia’s more rumbunctious political arenas to call the Queensland premier a “Bible bashing bastard”, such invective was inappropriate overseas. In taking on the foreign affairs portfolio in addition to his own, the prime minister displayed an almost risible lack of self-awareness. Diplomacy was a very long way from being his strongest suit.

The Whitlam Government came to power with an extremely ambitious reform agenda, both in domestic and foreign policy. In implementing his program, it would face significant opposition from entrenched interests. Neither Whitlam nor any member of his Cabinet had previous ministerial experience, even at the most junior level. In order to implement his program, Whitlam needed an influence strategy to promote the legitimacy of his government and the mandate he had won. If he could negotiate some kind of accommodating modus operandi with his opponents, his prospects of success would be improved.

Progressive governments are generally at a disadvantage in Australia because of the difficulty of their winning a majority in the Senate. The Australian Constitution puts urban dwellers in the big cities of Sydney and Melbourne at a disadvantage because every state was allocated the same number of seats in the Senate. Thus, both Tasmania, with a population of 400,000 in 1974 and New South Wales with 4.5 million each had 10 seats in the Senate. Paul Keating later referred to the Senators who benefitted from this inequality, somewhat inelegantly, as “unrepresentative swill”. This system was designed to protect the interests of the smaller states, but it generally favoured the conservative side of politics. The Whitlam Government’s lack of control of the Senate, for all but one of its three years in office, ultimately proved fatal to its survival.

© Pearls and Irritations