The Truth of the Palace Letters

Deceit, Ambush and Dismissal in 1975

Paul Kelly, Troy Bramston

• Publisher: Melbourne University Press Digital
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780522877564
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Australian & Oceanian History
• Index: History

In July 2020 the National Archives of Australia released the long-suppressed correspondence between Sir John Kerr and Queen Elizabeth II, written during Kerr's tumultuous tenure as Governor-General of Australia. The letters cover the constitutional crisis that culminated in Kerr's infamous dismissal of Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975.In The Truth of the Palace Letters Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston reveal their meaning and significance for understanding the dismissal. The analysis of these documents and their authors throws a revealing light on the connection between the Queen in Buckingham Palace and the Governor-General in Canberra. Coupled with newly discovered archival documents and interviews, Kelly and Bramston explain the implications of the letters for our Constitution, our democracy and the republic debate.

1

An Australian Decision

After the most dramatic day in his life, Sir John Kerr retired to his study on 11 November 1975 to write to the Queen, Australia’s head of state, to explain his dismissal of the Whitlam Government, an action he took in her name. The emotional and constitutional showdown with Gough Whitlam at 1 p.m. that day remained, he said later, ‘engraved upon my mind’.¹ It would shape the rest of his life. For the Governor-General it had been a busy day—honouring the fallen on Remembrance Day and conducting his own constitutional execution.

By Kerr’s standards this letter was brief. But writing to the Queen was central to his constitutional duty. Throughout the crisis Kerr informed the Palace of the events—but Kerr operated on one overarching principle: if vice-regal intervention was required, it would be his decision alone and done in his way.

As a proud man who had become Governor-General after having once dreamt of becoming Prime Minister, Kerr would now leave his own mark on history. ‘I did not tell the Queen in advance that I intended to exercise these powers on 11 November,’ Kerr said later. ‘I did not ask her approval.’² Seeking such approval would have been constitutionally flawed, politically dangerous and beneath Kerr’s pomposity.

Kerr knew the Queen had no legal role to play in the crisis. The powers of the sovereign are exercised in Australia by the Governor-General. Indeed, this was the basis on which Kerr took the job. He did not become Governor-General to outsource his influence to Buckingham Palace. His obsequious cultivation of the Palace had one constant motive—to buttress his own autonomy. The dismissal, in each of its cumulative decision-making steps, was an Australian project.

In his letter written after the dismissal, Kerr now informed the Queen through her private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, of something truly remarkable—an elaborate, secret and extraordinary plan he had implemented, none of whose components he had previously disclosed to the Palace.³ These were: that he had decided on a 11 November dismissal in a Government House ambush; that Whitlam had come to request a half-Senate election that Kerr would deny him since there was no guarantee of supply; that he had consulted Chief Justice Sir Garfield Barwick the previous day thereby tying the High Court to his dismissal; that Barwick had advised Kerr his intention was consistent with ‘your constitutional authority and duty’; that he would deny Whitlam any genuine opportunity to go to an election as Prime Minister; that his plan had involved commissioning Malcolm Fraser as caretaker and minority Prime Minister to provide advice to the Governor-General; and that, acting on Fraser’s advice after supply had been secured, he had dissolved the parliament for an election.

Before 11 November, Kerr had told the Palace none of the above—absolutely nothing. The Queen was hostage to Kerr. None of the incendiary steps that he took that turned 11 November into the biggest constitutional and political controversy in Australia’s history was cleared with the Palace. The Queen was not told he had decided to dismiss Whitlam nor the extraordinary manner of the dismissal—cutting Whitlam down in a constitutional strike at Yarralumla. History tells us this was not the way the Palace behaved.

The Governor-General wrote lengthy letters to the Palace, but what he didn’t say was far more important than what he did say. The Palace was informed about his thinking and his options. It was told nothing about his elaborate plans that were being put in place from 6 November onwards. Keeping the Palace in ignorance was a deliberate strategy.

Kerr attached to this 11 November letter the critical documents for the Palace—his dismissal letter to Whitlam, his statement as Governor-General, his letter commissioning Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister and the letter of affirming advice from the Chief Justice. In his letter Kerr said: ‘I should say that I decided to take the step I took without informing the Palace in advance because under the Constitution the responsibility is mine and I was of the opinion that it was better for Her Majesty not to know in advance, though it is, of course, my duty to tell her immediately.’⁴ He provided the briefest account of the exchange with Whitlam at the point of dismissal, saying that, on being informed, Whitlam said: ‘I shall have to get in touch with the Palace immediately.’ Kerr told him that would be useless as he was at that time no longer Prime Minister. In subsequent years, both Kerr and Whitlam offered a fuller account with different versions.

The key point was the Governor-General’s determination to have the issue resolved then and there in his study. He was determined not to let Whitlam get away from Yarralumla without an election. Whitlam was on Kerr’s territory. He was alone—without staff, without support. The Queen was asleep in her Buckingham Palace bed when Kerr terminated the Prime Minister.

According to Whitlam, Kerr passed him the dismissal letter and Whitlam asked: ‘Have you discussed this with the Palace?’ Kerr replied: ‘I don’t have to and it’s too late for you. I have terminated your commission.’ He told Whitlam that ‘the Chief Justice agrees with this course of action’. Whitlam shot back: ‘I advised you that you should not consult him on this matter.’ According to Whitlam, Kerr shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘We shall all have to live with this’ and Whitlam replied: ‘You certainly will.’⁵

Kerr’s account is more dramatic. He claimed that during the exchange he gave Whitlam an opportunity to save himself. The Governor-General’s assertion is that after telling Whitlam he had decided to dismiss him but before giving him the letter, Whitlam had an opportunity to change his mind and advise an election as Prime Minister. This seems dubious in the extreme. What sort of opportunity was this, just a few seconds with Whitlam in a state of shock? Kerr said: ‘Mr Whitlam jumped up, looked urgently around the room, looked at the telephones and said sharply: “I must get in touch with the Palace at once.” … I therefore made my final decision to withdraw his commission.’ Whitlam repudiated Kerr’s account, branding as a ‘concoction’ the notion that he was looking for a phone to ring the Palace.⁶ Obviously, the Palace could not save him.

Both men agreed on the final exchange. Kerr wished Whitlam good luck in the election. Kerr told the Palace a few days later that he said: ‘I think you could well win the election. Good luck.’ Kerr extended his hand. Whitlam accepted it. They shook hands. Whitlam walked out of the study as a deposed Prime Minister.

Could Whitlam have torn up the letter? Kerr said: ‘The lawyer in Mr Whitlam would have told him this was impossible.’⁷ But Whitlam’s instinctive question about the Palace is revealing. Obviously, he felt the Palace would not have agreed to his dismissal in this way.

It is noteworthy Kerr told Whitlam the Chief Justice agreed with the dismissal. But he made no comment about the Palace. If the Palace had agreed in advance—as some commentators assert—then surely Kerr would have said so. He would have loved to have upstaged Whitlam by telling him the Palace was on his side. But Kerr said nothing of any ‘royal green light’ from the Palace, for the obvious reason that there was no such prior approval.

The Palace was first informed of the dismissal late at night when David Smith, Kerr’s official secretary, rang during the afternoon of 11 November, Australian time. His call was taken by William Heseltine, assistant private secretary under Charteris, and an Australian. Heseltine said: ‘I was asleep in my virtuous bed in an apartment in St James’ Palace when the telephone rang. I said, “Hello David, what on earth are you ringing for at this time of night?” And he said, “Well, the Governor-General has dismissed the Prime Minister.” The double-take of all time. I can’t remember what I said to him but the reaction was stunned surprise.’⁸

Whitlam also rang the Palace and spoke to Charteris. In his letter to Kerr written six days later, Charteris described the phone conversation:

Mr Whitlam prefaced his remarks by saying that he was speaking as a ‘private citizen’; he rehearsed what had happened, the withdrawal of his Commission, the passing of Supply and the votes of no confidence in Mr Fraser and of confidence in the Member for Werriwa, which had been passed by the House of Representatives, and said that now Supply had been passed he should be re-commissioned as Prime Minister so that he could choose his own time to call an election. He spoke calmly and did not ask me to make any approach to The Queen, or indeed to do anything other than the suggestion that I should speak to you to find out what was going on.⁹

Interviewed in June 1995, Charteris said the ‘sole purpose’ of Whitlam’s call was to inform the Palace of his dismissal. Asked if Whitlam made any requests or complaints to the Palace, Charteris said: ‘He didn’t ask me to do anything.’¹⁰

But the Charteris letter offers only one interpretation: Whitlam wanted Charteris to speak to Kerr on his recommissioning as Prime Minister. Whitlam omitted this point from his own account when he said: ‘After the drama of the day I telephoned a good friend in London, Sir Martin Charteris, soldier, diplomat, sculptor and Private Secretary to The Queen. It is a fact that The Queen’s representative in Australia had kept The Queen in the same total ignorance of his actions as he had the Prime Minister of Australia.’¹¹ Whitlam did not believe the Palace had any role in his dismissal.

The Queen was informed of the dismissal at a meeting with Charteris and Heseltine at the Palace in the early morning. Heseltine said: ‘I can’t remember whether she was in her dressing gown, I think she had got dressed already for breakfast … I think she was indeed surprised, as surprised as we had been. She certainly gave no indication to me that there had been any thought that something like this would happen.’ Asked about the Queen’s view of the dismissal, Heseltine said: ‘Ha, ha, I think she is an old and wily bird about her own views … I’m reasonably confident myself that she thought it could have been handled better.’¹²

Drawing upon her experience in studying the Palace, Anne Twomey said:

For all her reign, The Queen has protected her self interest in not becoming involved in political or constitutional controversies. Whenever a constitutional crisis has arisen including a ‘race to the Palace’ the Queen has employed the tactic of ‘masterly inactivity’ in the hope that the crisis would be resolved domestically so that she would not have to become involved. Normally that tactic is successful.¹³

Former minister and historian Sir Paul Hasluck spent five years as Governor-General, enjoyed good relations with Charteris and was a confidant with access to the Palace after his departure. ‘The wisdom of constitutional monarchy is to avoid confrontation,’ Hasluck said, describing the culture of the Palace. Criticising Kerr in a subsequent discussion with Charteris, Hasluck said the task was to ‘never let an issue come to a crisis in a political sense’.¹⁴ Avoiding confrontation served the mutual interest of the Queen and Governor-General, a principle Kerr violated.

In the prelude to and during the crisis, Kerr was the busy correspondent with the Palace, writing far longer letters than Charteris. This is understandable because Kerr was informing the Palace about the crisis. A careful reading of the letters shows they rested on two shared assumptions—that the Queen had no constitutional role in the crisis and sought no role, and that the responsibility for any involvement or intervention by the Crown rested entirely with the Governor-General. These are the understood rules of Australia’s constitutional monarchy.

But the letters transcend such axioms. They are stamped with the different personalities of the two principals, Kerr and Charteris. The stakes were high. The 1975 crisis had the potential to put Australia’s constitutional monarchy on the path to extinction. As the crisis approached, Charteris was encouraging and supportive of Kerr. On 24 September he wrote: ‘As I have had occasion to remind you on previous occasions, the Governor-General of Australia 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.’¹⁵ On 2 October, with Kerr preoccupied with a potential crisis, Charteris wrote: ‘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. When an actual crisis comes the circumstances are so often subtly yet decisively different from what was envisaged.’¹⁶

Once supply had been blocked, Charteris reinforced these sentiments—the Crown wanted the issue resolved without a constitutional confrontation and expressed its confidence in Kerr. Obviously, it could say nothing less. Charteris wrote:

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. I fear, however, that you are dealing with two resolute and obstinate men … Your friends in this house can take comfort that your long training in the law equips you singularly well to cope with it.¹⁷

As the potential crisis neared, with a growing prospect of some form of intervention by the Governor-General, Charteris was emphatic: ‘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 d...