Letter to the Editor: Setting the record straight on the Dismissal

DEAR News Of The Area,

I HAVE read the article of Friday 14 November 2025 by Greg Mclntosh entitled “Reflections on the 1975 constitutional crisis”.

lt contains excellent research concerning his views on Senate elections and the dramas that preceded his analysis of that dramatic event.

However, he speaks from hindsight which is a valuable tool that many of us mere mortals don’t possess as we get the news from journalists whose prejudices are alarmingly incorrect.

So let me highlight the Whitlam myth starting with the saying the ‘Emperor has no clothes’ and where there are no spin doctors to massage or manipulate the falsehoods from a first edition perspective and free from media interference.

The below are excerpts from John Kerr’s autobiography “Matters of Judgment” (pages 358-360).

“ln the morning of the 11th ‘November 1975 the Governor General, John Kerr asks Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, if he still intended ‘to govern without parliamentary supply.’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I replied that in my view he had to have parliamentary supply to govern and as he had failed to obtain it and was not prepared to go to the people, I had decided to withdraw his commission.

“Things then happened as I had then foreseen. Mr Whitlam jumped up, looked urgently around the room, looked at the telephones, and said sharply, ‘l must get in touch with the palace at once’, I replied ‘lt is too late.’ He said ‘why?’ and I told him, ‘Because you are no longer Prime Minister.’”

You will notice the Queen was not involved at all, the decision was Kerr’s alone in accordance with Section 74 of The Australian Constitution.

All of this is reaffirmed in a summary of the crisis reported by The Institute of Public Affairs, NSW on pages 1-24.

Sir David Smith’s 1975 lecture titled “The Dismissal: Setting the Record Straight’, regarding the Senate’s position, stated on Page 11 “that Whitlam himself tried to use the Senate to force a Government to an early election on two occasions, and with his Party having tried to do it 170 times over the previous twenty-five years, did it never occur to him that his opponents might one day try to use the same tactics against him?”.

Now that the tables were turned on him, what did Whitlam do?

On leaving Government House, with his commission as Prime Minister withdrawn, Whitlam went back to the Lodge and ordered a steak for lunch, failing to tell his party leader in the Senate of what had transpired.

It was sometime later that the Governor General activated Section 128 of the Constitution and let the people decide by way of an election.

The result of course was that on 13 December 1975 the Coalition won in a landslide victory, which makes a mockery of Prime Minister Albanese’s recent demonising of Governor General Kerr when he was only 12 in 1975.

To give you some idea of the character of Whitlam one has to go back to 1972, just one month after he won that election.

He and his mate Lionel Murphy went over to the UK and spoke to the UK Prime Minister, Edward Heath, stating that Australian’s (us) wanted to sever links between the Parliament of Westminster and the Parliaments and Governments of this nation.

The Premiers of every state caught wind of it and also travelled to the UK in a delegation headed by Labor Premier of WA The Honourable John Tonkin.

They all insisted that Whitlam did not represent the peoples of Australia.

Heath then said he would not undo these things that had happened since Federation.

Finally, first the eleventh of November and then the thirteenth of December, 1975, undoubtedly will be remembered as two of the most significant days in our history calendar, justifying in such an overwhelming manner the foresight of both our English and Australian founding fathers.

The genius of our British system of things whereby ‘Power at the Top’ is amazingly shared between the people’s representatives, the states’ representatives, the Vice-Regal authority and the High Court, offering such a safe guard to our freedoms.

It recognises intrinsic value of the dictator type who with all his imbalance represents an aspect of a notion which must be expressed, but must equally be terminated if his “contribution” is to be incorporated in a balanced whole.

lf a revolution had been the only way of terminating J T Lang or even Mr Whitlam, their contribution would almost surely have been despised by the victors.

I well remember the press describing J T Lang as ‘the great Australian carbuncle’ (heads up all evil), grasping of course only part of his contribution now we can see it more in perspective.

However that contribution amply justifies Sir Phillip Game’s statement to J T Lang when he said “You hold your authority through me – I withdraw that authority”.

For no dictator type has the insight to terminate his own leadership.

Mr Mclntosh’s attempts to pontificate on such a complex subject, dictates that he still has further research to undertake.

Hopefully he will continue to read widely and by dint of effort arrive at that moment of enlightenment when he will discover that Section 64 (The Governor General) and Section 128 (we the people) remain unbroken.

Regards,
Paul L OWENS JP (Rtd.),
Formerly of Coffs Harbour.