SYDNEY – Queen Elizabeth’s representative in Australia fired a prime minister without warning the palace, or the prime minister, because “according to the constitution, the responsibility is mine,” according to archived letters released Tuesday.
In a November 11, 1975 dispatch, Governor General John Kerr told the Queen’s private secretary that he had taken an unprecedented step to fire Prime Minister Gough Whitlam as Whitlam prepared to end a budget confrontation of a month calling for a partial election to the Senate.
“I decided to take this step … without informing the Palace in advance,” Kerr wrote to former private secretary Martin Charteris on the day of Whitlam’s firing.
“It was better for Her Majesty not to know in advance, although it is … my duty to tell her immediately,” Kerr added, according to the documents.
The publication of the 211 so-called “palace letters” tears the veil from one of the great mysteries of Australian politics, and may rekindle a conversation about whether the country should sever ties with Britain and become a republic.
Whitlam’s firing remains one of the country’s most polarizing political events because it represents an unprecedented level of intervention by the Commonwealth.
Historians say the country never told the full story, and in 2016 a historian sued the Australian National Archives for access to letters between Kerr and the queen. The lawsuit failed because the letters were private, but the Superior Court reversed the ruling in May.
The letters show that Kerr and Buckingham Palace discussed the political crisis affecting the country, and Kerr’s role in it, for two months before Whitlam’s firing as the prime minister tried to get parliament to approve his budget.
His efforts were rewarded, at least by the palace. The day after Whitlam was fired, Charteris congratulated Kerr on his trial.
“By not informing The Queen of what she intended to do before doing so, she acted not only with perfect constitutional property but also with consideration of Her Majesty’s position,” he wrote.
