tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/sir-john-kerr-87664/articlesSir John Kerr – The Conversation2022-01-18T05:28:29Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1749652022-01-18T05:28:29Z2022-01-18T05:28:29ZNew, exclusive letters between the queen and 6 governors-general show the evolution of a relationship of equals<p>More than a year after the High Court’s decision in the <a href="https://www.claytonutz.com/knowledge/2020/june/administrative-law-updater-the-palace-letters-released">“Palace letters” case</a>, which said the queen’s correspondence with Governor-General Sir John Kerr is not “personal”, more letters have now been made public. </p>
<p>The letters between a further six governors-general and the queen have now been released to me, from Lord Casey in 1965 to Sir William Deane in 2001. Deane’s letters are being revealed here for the first time. In total, this is more than 2,000 pages, spanning 36 years and nine prime ministers.</p>
<p>These newly released letters cover some of the most important and memorable moments in Australian politics: the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2017/May/The_1967_Referendum">1967 referendum on Aboriginal rights</a>; the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-01/disappearance-harold-holt-inside-search-operation-australia/12817236">disappearance of Prime Minister Harold Holt</a> and appointment of Prime Minister John McEwen; the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/whitlam-election">election of Gough Whitlam in 1972</a>; <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/from-the-archives-1974-whitlam-calls-a-double-dissolution-election-20190405-p51ba4.html">Whitlam’s double dissolution election in 1974</a> and <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/australias-prime-ministers/malcolm-fraser/elections">Malcolm Fraser’s in 1983</a>; the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2004A03181">Australia Act</a>; the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/mabo-case">High Court’s 1992 Mabo decision</a>; and the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/from-the-archives-1999-australia-says-no-to-a-republic-20191104-p537bp.html">1999 republic referendum</a>.</p>
<p>The breadth of correspondence gives us a rare opportunity to explore the changing nature of the vice-regal relationship over time. </p>
<p>The letters also provide a point of comparison with Kerr’s “sycophantic grovelling” and “stomach-churning” letters, as former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/the-palace-letters-9781922310248">describes them</a>. Seen across the 36-year trajectory of this vice-regal correspondence, Kerr is even more clearly an outlier.</p>
<p>In just three and a half years, Kerr’s correspondence comprises as many pages as four governors-general (from Casey to Sir Ninian Stephen) put together. </p>
<p>No other governor-general even comes close to the obsessive frequency of Kerr’s 116 lengthy letters. Casey wrote about 34 letters during his five-year term, Sir Paul Hasluck 37 in six years, and Stephen just 23 letters in six and a half years.</p>
<h2>How much other governors-general shared with the queen</h2>
<p>The correspondence of these seven governors-general spans 14 elections, two of which, the 1974 and 1983 double dissolutions, had the potential to cause controversy for the governor-general in accepting the prime minister’s advice to call them. </p>
<p>Similarly, Whitlam’s formation of the “duumvirate” (two-man ministry) in 1972 was an unprecedented situation for his first governor-general, Hasluck. This was a two-week ministry made up of Whitlam, with 13 portfolios, and his deputy Lance Barnard with 14, until the final number of seats had been determined. </p>
<p>It is notable neither Hasluck in 1974 nor Stephen in 1983 discussed their options or intentions with the palace before accepting the prime minister’s advice.</p>
<p>There is no parallel in the correspondence of other governors-general with Kerr’s discussions with the queen, her private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, and Prince Charles, regarding the possible dismissal of the Whitlam government and the use of the reserve powers (against ministerial advice) to do so.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/at-long-last-we-can-tear-open-the-queens-secret-letters-with-australias-governors-general-174584">At long last, we can tear open the queen's secret letters with Australia's governors-general</a>
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<p>It is a hallmark of these letters that, unlike Kerr, the governors-general report back to the queen <em>after</em> these events they describe. </p>
<p>Casey informs the queen after he has appointed McEwen as acting prime minister following Holt’s disappearance, for example, while Hasluck writes to Charteris ten days after accepting Whitlam’s advice to call the 1974 double dissolution. </p>
<p>Stephen also writes to the queen two weeks after accepting Fraser’s contentious advice to call the 1983 double dissolution. Eighteen months later, he follows up with a letter on the intricacies of the <a href="https://research.monash.edu/en/publications/gough-whitlams-1974-re-election-government-by-double-dissolution">double dissolution provision</a> in section 57 of the Constitution and the discretionary power it confers to the governor-general.</p>
<p>In fact, it is Charteris who writes to Hasluck prior to the 1974 double dissolution hoping for further information, telling Hasluck he was “not uninterested at the moment in anything to do with the prerogative of Dissolution!”. Hasluck ignores this invitation to discuss the prerogative.</p>
<p>These post-facto comments are in no way comparable to Kerr’s extensive discussions with Charteris over several months about the governor-general’s reserve powers and the possible dismissal of the prime minister. There is simply no equivalent to what Kerr calls “<a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-dismissal-dossier-electronic-book-text">Charteris’s advice to me on dismissal</a>”.</p>
<h2>Cowen’s streak of assertiveness</h2>
<p>Similar to Stephen after him, Governor-General Zelman Cowen is assertive and independent, at times disputing aspects of the queen’s letters and instructing the private secretary on matters of law. </p>
<p>In a letter to the private secretary Sir Philip Moore in December 1978, Cowen corrects erroneous press reports claiming if Whitlam had sought Kerr’s recall as governor-general in 1975, the queen would not have acted on the advice of the Australian prime minister and would instead have acted on the advice of her UK ministers. </p>
<p>Quoting his <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/isaac-isaacs/author/cowen-zelman/">own book</a> on the governor-general, Sir Isaac Isaacs, Cowen tells Moore, “it is inappropriate that UK ministers should be concerned in the appointment of a Governor-General” and it is “surely inappropriate that the Monarch should act otherwise” than on the Australian prime minister’s advice.</p>
<p>Cowen also strongly disagrees with Moore on the 1978 appointment of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1978/03/03/archives/australian-resigns-new-post-at-unesco-sir-john-kerr-cites-criticism.html">Kerr as Australia’s ambassador to UNESCO</a> – and on the appointment of any former governor-general to paid public office. He said, </p>
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<p>I have grave doubts about this […] any suggestion (or appearance of a suggestion) that a Governor General might be influenced in his conduct by such expectations is damaging. </p>
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<h2>‘I get no joy from these assessments’</h2>
<p>The suggestion other governors-general show the same “obsequious deference” as Kerr in these letters is unsustainable. </p>
<p>Bill Hayden follows Stephen as governor-general in 1989, towards the end of Bob Hawke’s term as prime minister. Clearly still bristling at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Australian_Labor_Party_leadership_spill#:%7E:text=A%20leadership%20spill%20in%20the,Bob%20Hawke%20as%20his%20replacement.">having lost the Labor leadership</a> to Hawke so close to the 1983 election, Hayden interprets his “duty” in writing to the queen as providing “a candid and fair, if at times harsh” assessment of political figures, many of whom are his former colleagues. </p>
<p>His reports are dry, lengthy descriptions of the political, social and economic situation in Australia. He invariably sees large-scale problems for Hawke, saying his “extraordinary popularity defies reasoned understanding”. </p>
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<p>Hayden is an astute and detailed observer, correct in many of his forecasts, and yet throughout his letters there is little sense of what he does in his daily routine as governor-general. </p>
<p>Where others send copies of articles, speeches and reports on things like engagements at Government House, Hayden’s letters seem more removed from everyday vice-regal life. They appear increasingly forced — particularly after Paul Keating defeats Hawke in a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/flashback-1991-keating-defeats-hawke-in-a-leadership-spill-20180822-p4zyzj.html">1991 leadership spill</a> to become prime minister — and his letters become less frequent.</p>
<p>There is a poignancy in Hayden’s final lament to the queen about his “harsh judgment” of Keating. “I get no joy from these assessments”, he tells the queen, adding he has done so only as “a matter of duty to you”. Keating is a personal friend, “an admirable person”, he insists, seeming to regret what he has written. </p>
<p>It adds a human element to the absurdity of the arcane secret ritual of vice-regal correspondence.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jenny-hocking-why-my-battle-for-access-to-the-palace-letters-should-matter-to-all-australians-139738">Jenny Hocking: why my battle for access to the 'Palace letters' should matter to all Australians</a>
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<h2>Deane strikes a tone of equals</h2>
<p>With Sir William Deane following Hayden as governor-general, the transition from the supine deferential genuflections of Kerr to an exchange of letters between equals is complete. </p>
<p>Deane passes much of the routine reporting on plans for royal visits, election results and press clippings on the republic debate to the official secretary, who writes to the queen’s private secretary. Deane himself, for the most part, writes directly to the queen – “Your Majesty, Ma’am” – rather than her private secretary.</p>
<p>This assertion of vice-regal equivalence is a statement in itself, not so much of Deane’s self-assured independence, but Australia’s. </p>
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<p>At the same time, Deane informs the queen he will be sending copies of their correspondence to the prime minister, effectively ending the secrecy of vice-regal correspondence from the Australian government, which had so plagued Whitlam.</p>
<p>This dramatic shift follows an unusual exchange with the queen’s private secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes, early in Deane’s term. </p>
<p>In the context of the burgeoning constitutional debate ahead of the republic referendum, Fellowes asks the official secretary, Douglas Sturkey, whether there was anything members of the royal family could do “in the interests of the monarchical system”. He raises the timing of a possible royal visit by either Prince Charles or the queen. </p>
<p>Sturkey tells Deane he finds Fellowes’ suggestion “curious”: </p>
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<p>I cannot seriously believe that Sir Robert Fellowes is proposing an active (and unprecedented) role for the monarchy in public constitutional debate. </p>
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<p>Deane tells him not to do anything about it, and the letter goes unanswered for two months.</p>
<p>These letters are a unique window on an evolving vice-regal relationship and an exceptional addition to our history. It is immensely disappointing, therefore, the National Archives has made numerous redactions throughout them. </p>
<p>Worse, Buckingham Palace was consulted on those redactions. The former director-general of the archives, David Fricker, <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/why-is-the-queen-still-interfering-in-our-history-and-why-is-the-national-archives-allowing-this/">conceded</a> last year that the archives was consulting “the Royal Household” on redactions, despite the High Court’s decision overturning the queen’s embargo over their release.</p>
<p>After a four-year legal action to secure the release of these letters, the least the archives could do is to finally let us see them in full.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jenny Hocking has received funding from The Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>More than 2,000 pages of letters spanning 36 years and nine prime ministers have now been made public, albeit with disappointing redactions throughout.Jenny Hocking, Emeritus Professor, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1745842022-01-11T19:17:43Z2022-01-11T19:17:43ZAt long last, we can tear open the queen’s secret letters with Australia’s governors-general<p>One consequence of the High Court’s 2020 <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/2020/19.html">judgement</a> that caused the National Archives to release <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/kerr-palace-letters">Sir John Kerr’s correspondence</a> with Buckingham Palace was that the royal correspondence of other governors-general also had to be released. </p>
<p>More than a year and a half later, after the archives scoured every document for an embarrassing detail that could be redacted, these letters have now been made public. </p>
<p>They cover the terms of four governors-general: Lord Richard Casey (1965-69), Sir Paul Hasluck (1969-74), Sir Zelman Cowen (1977-82) and Sir Ninian Stephen (1982-89).</p>
<p>What is most remarkable about the letters is how similar they are to Kerr’s correspondence with the palace. </p>
<p>All the features that critics have picked on as unprecedented and inappropriate – the detailed political analysis, the obsequious deference, the focus on formalities, the discussion of reserve powers – are common features in the correspondence of Kerr’s predecessors and successors.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/palace-letters-show-the-queen-did-not-advise-or-encourage-kerr-to-sack-whitlam-government-142376">'Palace letters' show the queen did not advise, or encourage, Kerr to sack Whitlam government</a>
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<h2>Frank political reports</h2>
<p>This is unsurprising, because the palace encouraged the governors-general to write with “complete freedom and frankness” about political affairs in Australia and anything affecting the monarchy and the powers or status of the governor-general. This keeps the monarch well informed about her various realms.</p>
<p>Each governor-general, therefore, gave regular detailed and often quite critical reports on the political controversies of the day and the likely outcomes of elections. </p>
<p>Kerr’s analysis was, indeed, quite tame compared with that of his predecessors, Casey and Hasluck, who had stronger political pedigrees.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439966/original/file-20220110-28-1lx2uga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439966/original/file-20220110-28-1lx2uga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439966/original/file-20220110-28-1lx2uga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439966/original/file-20220110-28-1lx2uga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439966/original/file-20220110-28-1lx2uga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439966/original/file-20220110-28-1lx2uga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439966/original/file-20220110-28-1lx2uga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439966/original/file-20220110-28-1lx2uga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Sir Paul Hasluck (left) and Lord Casey (right) at Government House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/DetailsReports/PhotoDetail.aspx?Barcode=11431267">National Archives</a></span>
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<h2>Flattery and formality</h2>
<p>To today’s eyes, the correspondence is often cloying and obsequious in its formality and deference, but this was standard for the time. The letters include many professions of “loyalty” and “devotion” to the monarch and every royal tour is a “great success” and “very well received”, especially by the “plain folk”. </p>
<p>Hasluck, in his comment about a prospective first meeting of Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, said:</p>
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<p>If I may venture to say so, with due humility and respect, the wisdom and experience of Her Majesty will find here an opportunity to help make a promising Prime Minister into a better one and I believe he will prove responsive to Her counsel and guidance.</p>
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<p>Not even Kerr could have topped that for flattery.</p>
<p>The excess of admiration also flowed the other direction. Governors-general are constantly praised for their “wisdom”. Deference is also given to their greater knowledge and understanding of the local political situation.</p>
<p>Letters from the palace praise and support the governor-general – they never criticise or instruct.</p>
<p>The focus on the formalities was strong throughout. This is because the monarchy represents itself to the people through such courtesies, pomp, honours and ceremony. Hence, a large part of the correspondence concerns changes to the oath of allegiance, the national anthem, the vice-regal salute, the royal anthem and the honours system. </p>
<p>Hasluck did his best in 1972 to dissuade the prime minister, William McMahon, from initiating a search for a “national song”, fearing it would replace “God Save the Queen” as the national anthem. </p>
<p>In 1984, Stephen was still having robust discussions with Prime Minister Bob Hawke about the use of “God Save The Queen” and the vice-regal salute. He even changed an Executive Council Minute by hand so that groups such as the Country Women’s Association and the RSL could continue to sing “God Save the Queen” without being in the presence of royalty. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-palace-letters-case-and-what-will-the-high-court-consider-131000">Explainer: what is the 'palace letters' case and what will the High Court consider?</a>
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<h2>The reserve powers</h2>
<p>But what about the reserve powers, which allow a governor-general to act without, or contrary to, ministerial advice? Was it unprecedented or inappropriate to discuss their nature and hypothetical application? No, because the others did so, too. </p>
<p>Hasluck, for example, discussed what would happen if the prime minister, Sir John Gorton, was defeated in a vote of no confidence in 1970 (which had been a real prospect) and then requested the dissolution of parliament and an election. </p>
<p>Hasluck said he would have felt bound to ask whether it was impossible for Gorton to carry on the government without an election, and whether the governing parties might be able to continue to govern under a different leader. </p>
<p>Hasluck wanted to be satisfied all possibilities of forming a government without an election had been tried before granting one. If not, he would exercise his reserve power to refuse a dissolution and appoint a new prime minister. Hasluck said he had put down these thoughts on paper </p>
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<p>so that Her Majesty may be aware of the way in which I interpret my constitutional duties.</p>
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<span class="caption">Sir Paul Hasluck (left) with Prime Minister John Gorton at the swearing in the Gorton ministry in 1970.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span>
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<p>He was not alone. Stephen also reported his views on his reserve power to refuse advice to hold a double dissolution election and made Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser come back with additional advice before he agreed to grant one in 1983. </p>
<p>Hasluck exercised a reserve power by <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/107899959">refusing to sign</a> an Executive Council Minute approving a US defence science base in Australia just 12 days before the 1969 election. </p>
<p>He deferred acting because it would breach the caretaker conventions. He only signed the papers after the Coalition won the election and wished to proceed.</p>
<p>As for the governor-general consulting the chief justice of the High Court on legal matters, this again was shown to be well precedented. </p>
<p>Casey, for example, consulted Chief Justice Garfield Barwick after the presumed death of Prime Minister Harold Holt in 1967 and also, more bizarrely, on whether a satirical magazine that ran a spoof interview with Prince Philip could be prosecuted under the Crimes Act.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439970/original/file-20220110-27-dpduit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Prime Minister Harold Holt with Governor-General Lord Casey after swearing in of Holt as prime minister." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439970/original/file-20220110-27-dpduit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439970/original/file-20220110-27-dpduit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439970/original/file-20220110-27-dpduit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439970/original/file-20220110-27-dpduit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439970/original/file-20220110-27-dpduit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439970/original/file-20220110-27-dpduit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439970/original/file-20220110-27-dpduit.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Prime Minister Harold Holt with Governor-General Lord Casey after swearing in of Holt as prime minister.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/DetailsReports/PhotoDetail.aspx?Barcode=11196676">National Archives</a></span>
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<h2>A snapshot of Australian history</h2>
<p>The letters of the governors-general provide a fascinating snapshot of political history. They add context to our understanding of the governor-general’s office and the relationship between the monarch and Australia. Seeing only Kerr’s correspondence led to distorted interpretations. Reading it in the context of his predecessors and successors gives a much more accurate picture.</p>
<p>While many of the reports are quite candid and frank, their release after so many years is hardly damaging, and the efforts to keep them secret for so long are again shown to be absurd. </p>
<p>Australia’s history should not be locked up forever in hermetically sealed boxes – it belongs to all of us and it is good that we can finally see some of it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Twomey has received funding from the Australian Research Council and occasionally does consultancy work for governments and inter-governmental bodies. She has written books on the reserve powers and the role of vice-regal officers in Australia.</span></em></p>While many of the letters are quite candid, their release after so many years is hardly damaging, and the efforts to keep them secret for so long are again shown to be absurd.Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1484392020-10-27T23:27:38Z2020-10-27T23:27:38ZBook extract - The Palace Letters: the Queen, the governor-general, and the plot to dismiss Gough Whitlam<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364656/original/file-20201021-15-cu9y84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/the-palace-letters">The Palace Letters: The Queen, the governor-general, and the plot to dismiss Gough Whitlam</a> by Jenny Hocking.</em></p>
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<p>It was cold, mid-winter in Canberra, when I returned to the National Archives in mid-2019 searching for more documents, scouring through the accession records for Sir John Kerr’s papers, where, I told myself, even the most obscure files might turn up something important, something I had never imagined.</p>
<p>And then, quite suddenly, one of them did.</p>
<p>As I waited for the High Court to consider my application for special leave, a file containing letters between Kerr and the queen’s private secretary after Kerr had left office landed in my inbox.</p>
<p>I had requested this file, with the arresting title “Buckingham Palace”, eight years earlier, after which it had disappeared into the archival limbo of “withheld pending advice”.</p>
<p>It suddenly reappeared in a “decision on access” email, with no explanation for the eight-year delay, with its cache of letters providing a jaw-dropping account of royal intervention in Kerr’s autobiography, <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781349814039">Matters for Judgment</a>, which was soon to be released.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365723/original/file-20201027-19-7uuhwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365723/original/file-20201027-19-7uuhwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365723/original/file-20201027-19-7uuhwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365723/original/file-20201027-19-7uuhwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365723/original/file-20201027-19-7uuhwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365723/original/file-20201027-19-7uuhwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365723/original/file-20201027-19-7uuhwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The crowd outside Parliament House on November 11 1975.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Australian Democracy</span></span>
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<p>The supportive exchanges between Kerr, Prince Charles and the queen and [her private secretary, Sir Martin] Charteris, which had been so welcome before the dismissal, soon became a major concern for the palace, which feared losing control of both the increasingly erratic Kerr and their letters.</p>
<p>As the outcry over the dismissal showed no sign of abating even a year later, including demonstrations and angry placards, and paint thrown at the vice-regal Rolls-Royce, pressure was building on Kerr to resign.</p>
<p>Under siege, he began to agitate for the release of the palace letters, which he felt would bolster support for his actions. This began with careless comments about the letters and “the attitude of the Palace” at the time of the dismissal to friends and colleagues.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364657/original/file-20201021-19-3k95qj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364657/original/file-20201021-19-3k95qj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364657/original/file-20201021-19-3k95qj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364657/original/file-20201021-19-3k95qj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364657/original/file-20201021-19-3k95qj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364657/original/file-20201021-19-3k95qj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364657/original/file-20201021-19-3k95qj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Palace Letters.</span>
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<p>Word of Kerr’s indiscretion, his boasting of the queen’s approval of “the way that I am going about things”, soon reached the palace itself, to great alarm. It grew to a crescendo soon after Kerr’s resignation as governor-general took effect in December 1977, with his visit to the queen’s new private secretary, Sir Philip Moore, to plead his case for the release of the letters.</p>
<p>Kerr was intent on using the letters to garner support for his action in dismissing Whitlam if he possibly could – and what better place to do it than in his autobiography, which he was finalising in self-imposed exile in England? His book was being eagerly, and in some quarters nervously, awaited, since Kerr was loudly proclaiming that he would now report “the facts of the happenings of 1975 […] in the interests of truth”.</p>
<p>With publication looming, and with it the prospect that Kerr might reveal their secret discussions, the queen’s private secretary contacted Kerr directly and asked for a copy of his draft manuscript. </p>
<p>“Buckingham Palace has evinced an interest in the manuscript and all parts of it which touch directly upon the Queen’s position and the Palace’s position will need to be thought about,” Kerr wrote to his lawyers in Sydney. Kerr dutifully sent his manuscript to the queen’s private secretary, and it was soon “in safe keeping now at Buckingham Palace”.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364658/original/file-20201021-19-14ji74v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364658/original/file-20201021-19-14ji74v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364658/original/file-20201021-19-14ji74v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364658/original/file-20201021-19-14ji74v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364658/original/file-20201021-19-14ji74v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364658/original/file-20201021-19-14ji74v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364658/original/file-20201021-19-14ji74v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Sir John Kerr agitated for the release of the palace letters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia/AAP</span></span>
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<p>“It will make fascinating reading,” Moore assured him, “I will get into [sic] touch with you again as soon as I have finished it.”</p>
<p>Moore’s brief comment on the book arrived three weeks later, and if you thought the historical dissembling about the dismissal must eventually reach a natural end, think again.</p>
<p>The queen’s private secretary thanked Kerr for excising any references to his discussions with Charteris about “the controversy”: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am grateful to you for being so scrupulous in omitting any reference to the informal exchanges which you had with Martin Charteris. I know that you have throughout been anxious to keep The Queen out of the controversy and I much appreciate the way in which you have achieved this in the book.</p>
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<p>Which shows Kerr to be as unreliable in print as he was in office.</p>
<p>Kerr could scarcely hide his delight at this royal approbation of his expurgated history: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I did my very best of course to omit any reference to the exchanges between Martin Charteris and myself. It is particularly gratifying to me to know that the result is satisfactory.</p>
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<p>These letters not only confirm Kerr was in contact with Charteris regarding the dismissal, but they also reveal that the palace and Kerr then agreed to keep these “exchanges” hidden by omitting any mention of them in Kerr’s “autobiography”.</p>
<p>Matters for Judgment duly contained no mention of his “informal exchanges” with Charteris, nor any details of Charteris’s “illuminating observations” and “advice to me on dismissal” that Kerr had noted in his journal.</p>
<p>Despite Kerr’s claims his book would present “the truth” and “facts” about the events of November 1975, it was a tawdry exercise in historical distortion by omission – a royal whitewash of history.</p>
<p>Most shocking in this latest revelation of ongoing royal intrigue was the clear example it provided of the mechanism through which the secrecy that drove the dismissal – the collusion of Kerr with others, and his deception of the prime minister – continued in the construction of its history. It shows the involvement of the palace in the construction of a flawed and filtered history about one of the most contentious episodes in Australia’s history.</p>
<p>It was a shameful episode in that shared history, the details of which were still emerging.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/palace-letters-reveal-the-palaces-fingerprints-on-the-dismissal-of-the-whitlam-government-142476">'Palace letters' reveal the palace's fingerprints on the dismissal of the Whitlam government</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148439/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jenny Hocking is affiliated with the Australian Republic Movement. </span></em></p>In this extract from Jenny Hocking’s new book, Buckingham Palace becomes alarmed when Sir John Kerr agitates for the release of the so-called “palace letters” to bolster his version of events.Jenny Hocking, Emeritus Professor, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1428372020-07-16T11:46:01Z2020-07-16T11:46:01ZGrattan on Friday: Palace letters make great reading but leave a republic as far away as ever<p>In the midst of our present crisis, this week’s release of the Palace letters has taken us back to the debate about another crisis, massive at the time and of lasting significance but rather put into perspective by COVID-19.</p>
<p>For many younger people, the extraordinary events of November 11 1975 would hold absolutely no interest. They might know who Gough Whitlam was, but John Kerr?</p>
<p>For a lot of those who remember that dramatic day, however, it was like no other in modern politics.</p>
<p>The Palace letters have reignited the argument about Kerr’s action in dismissing Whitlam, and what really happened behind the scenes.</p>
<p>The correspondence between the then governor-general and the Queen’s private secretary Martin Charteris gives an intimate running insight into the building drama, and Kerr’s thinking, including his desire to inundate the Palace with material amid his concern it might be too much. Charteris assures him: “The Queen is absorbing it with interest and is very grateful to you for taking so much trouble to keep her informed”.</p>
<p>In his letters Charteris steers between careful formality, reassurance to a man under pressure, and some chatty commentary. He tells Kerr he was relieved Whitlam had abandoned his idea of asking the governor-general to assent to the appropriation bills if they were rejected. “From your point of view this would have been a real bouncer and not at all easy to play!”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/palace-letters-show-the-queen-did-not-advise-or-encourage-kerr-to-sack-whitlam-government-142376">'Palace letters' show the queen did not advise, or encourage, Kerr to sack Whitlam government</a>
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<p>These fascinating documents have provided grist for protagonists on both sides of the dismissal debate.</p>
<p>Kerr’s defenders point to his November 11 letter reporting he hadn’t informed the Queen he was about to sack Whitlam. “I was of the opinion that it was better for Her Majesty not to know in advance.”</p>
<p>Those who argue the Palace interfered highlight the correspondence before the dismissal, in which Kerr and Charteris canvass options and the constitution.</p>
<p>Charteris told Kerr the governor-general’s reserve powers did exist, despite claims to the contrary, but “it is only at the very end when there is demonstrably no other course that they should be used.” After the dismissal, a major criticism of Kerr was that he acted too early.</p>
<p>The Palace, which resisted the letters being made public, entered the debate after their release, saying they confirmed neither the Queen nor the Royal Household “had any part to play in Kerr’s decision to dismiss Whitlam.”</p>
<p>The letters won’t close the old argument – the question is whether they’ll give any new life to the debate about an Australian republic. Anthony Albanese seized the occasion to say Kerr’s action “to put himself above the Australian people” reinforced “the need for us to have an Australian head of state … the need for us to stand on our own two feet”.</p>
<p>By now, Australia should have been a republic for two decades. We had the chance in the 1999 referendum, and we blew it. The yes vote was defeated by several factors - including divisions among pro-republic Liberals, the cunning of then prime minister John Howard, and the conservatism of Australians when asked to change the constitution.</p>
<p>Since then the difficulties have increased and may be insurmountable. There are multiple reasons why change could be even harder second time round (even after the Queen’s reign ends).</p>
<p>The issue probably resonates less than in the 1990s. It would be caught up in the culture wars, which have become deeper and more destructive in recent years.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-big-reveal-jenny-hocking-on-what-the-palace-letters-may-tell-us-finally-about-the-dismissal-142473">The big reveal: Jenny Hocking on what the 'palace letters' may tell us, finally, about The Dismissal</a>
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<p>Most important, it would be near impossible to get a model that was both safe and saleable.</p>
<p>The 1999 model was for a president appointed by a two-thirds majority of federal parliament. There was no attempt to codify the powers of the president, despite the governor-general’s “reserve powers” being at the core of the 1975 crisis.</p>
<p>These days, the public would almost certainly want the president directly elected. But that would carry risks. It could lead to competitive tension between a popular president and an unpopular prime minister.</p>
<p>The powers of a popularly-elected president would need to be clearly spelled out (codified). As Malcolm Turnbull writes in his book A Bigger Picture, “Nobody would seriously contemplate leaving the powers of a directly elected president in the undefined, and thus potentially uncertain, world of convention”.</p>
<p>One compromise some suggest would be to remove the circumstances that caused the 1975 crisis by taking away the Senate’s power to block supply. Good luck with that.</p>
<p>Many politicians and constitutional experts would be uncomfortable with a direct-elect model.</p>
<p>Controversy over the model would translate into a divided electorate. And when it comes to referendums, division is certainty deadly.</p>
<p>Look at what’s been happening with the attempt to put recognition of Indigenous people into the constitution. You’d think this should be relatively easy. It’s anything but.</p>
<p>Under cover of the pandemic, the government has abandoned minister Ken Wyatt’s ambition for a referendum this term. But there wasn’t enough agreement anyway.</p>
<p>The challenge of finding acceptable wording for recognition is formidable (just as devising an acceptable republican model is fraught). And a referendum for Indigenous recognition, like one for a republic, would bog down in the culture wars.</p>
<p>Despite the problems, the optimists would think we could achieve both changes. The pessimists would doubt either is attainable in the foreseeable future.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/palace-letters-reveal-the-palaces-fingerprints-on-the-dismissal-of-the-whitlam-government-142476">'Palace letters' reveal the palace's fingerprints on the dismissal of the Whitlam government</a>
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<p>It’s an academic question admittedly, but it is worth asking ourselves which of these constitutional changes would be of more significance to our identity as a nation.</p>
<p>Those who’d nominate moving to a republic would start with the obvious – we should have an Australian head of state.</p>
<p>They’d also say becoming a republic would boost Australia’s image in our region, although one suspects this point is weaker than previously – we’re less defined in our neighbourhood by our British ties these days.</p>
<p>Those who’d prefer the limited political capital to be spent on Indigenous recognition would emphasise how overdue this is, and how symbolically important.</p>
<p>While the flow-on effects shouldn’t be over-estimated – the Apology didn’t work miracles - recognition could help generate goodwill and co-operation needed for tangible improvements in the lives of disadvantaged Indigenous people.</p>
<p>Recognition of First Australians would be a gesture of reconciliation as well as a statement of our values as a nation.</p>
<p>To my mind, it is a higher priority than the republic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142837/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the midst of our present crisis, this week’s release of the Palace letters has taken us back to the debate about another crisis, massive at the time and of lasting significance but rather put into perspective…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1424762020-07-14T07:45:44Z2020-07-14T07:45:44Z‘Palace letters’ reveal the palace’s fingerprints on the dismissal of the Whitlam government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347224/original/file-20200714-62-1i8jtev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C538%2C359&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Independent Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The “palace letters” show the Australian Constitution’s susceptibility to self-interested behaviour by individual vice-regal representatives. They also reveal the vulnerability of Australian governments to secret destabilisation by proxy by the Crown. </p>
<p>They reveal a governor-general, fearing his own dismissal, succumbing to moral hazard, and the British monarch’s private secretary encouraging him in the idea that a double dissolution was legitimate in the event a government could not get its budget bills passed. </p>
<p>The letters confirm the worst fears of those who viewed Governor-General Sir John Kerr’s sacking of the Whitlam government as a constitutional coup. They reveal Kerr shortened by at most a mere three months the resolution of the crisis created by the conservative Malcolm Fraser-led opposition’s refusal to pass the government’s budget bills, compared to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s own timetable shared with Kerr.</p>
<p>The correspondence shows Kerr was privy to Whitlam’s plan to hold a double-dissolution election in February 1976 if all other avenues, including a half-Senate election, failed to secure passage of the budget beforehand. Whitlam candidly told Kerr he would be replaced as governor-general if he obstructed that plan. This introduced the element of moral hazard that saw Kerr take a reckless and self-interested route in ending the crisis rather than the steadier one privately put to him by Whitlam – one that Kerr could have, had he chosen, quite properly facilitated.</p>
<p>Crucially, the palace provided a specific nudge to Kerr in the direction of dismissing the government as a solution. It did so by highlighting one expert’s view that Kerr could secure an election while saving his own position as governor-general.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347277/original/file-20200714-30-1kai3uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347277/original/file-20200714-30-1kai3uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347277/original/file-20200714-30-1kai3uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347277/original/file-20200714-30-1kai3uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347277/original/file-20200714-30-1kai3uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347277/original/file-20200714-30-1kai3uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347277/original/file-20200714-30-1kai3uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The palace provided a specific nudge to Kerr on dismissing the government.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga</span></span>
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<p>A September 24 1975 letter from the queen’s private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, to Kerr pointed him to Canadian constitutional law expert Eugene Forsey’s opinion that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] if supply is refused this always makes it constitutionally proper to grant a dissolution. </p>
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<p>In such correspondence, the queen’s private secretary is understood as speaking for the queen herself. As such, this could be interpreted as the monarch providing not just comfort but actual encouragement to the governor-general in his sacking of the government. </p>
<p>By adding his point about Forsey as a handwritten postscript to the letter, Charteris created a degree of ambiguity on this score, giving rise to a potential argument that it was Charteris’s personal view and not that of the queen.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/palace-letters-show-the-queen-did-not-advise-or-encourage-kerr-to-sack-whitlam-government-142376">'Palace letters' show the queen did not advise, or encourage, Kerr to sack Whitlam government</a>
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<p>But this should be read in the context of the overall correspondence in the year leading up to The Dismissal. In these letters, Kerr repeatedly canvasses the opposition’s potential blocking of supply, the likely resulting constitutional crisis and his difficulties in that context. There is, notably, no counterveiling call from the palace to let the legitimately elected prime minister see his plan through, even though Kerr had conveyed Whitlam’s plan to the palace. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1282944111985610755"}"></div></p>
<p>In a crucial letter to Charteris on September 30, Kerr outlined Whitlam’s privately proposed electoral path to a resolution. </p>
<p>In the event the opposition continued to block the budget bills, Whitlam wanted to hold a half-Senate election. After that the government would again put the budget bills to the Senate. Should the opposition continue to block them, Whitlam planned a double-dissolution election. Kerr relayed to Charteris Whitlam’s view that it “could not take place until February 1976”.</p>
<p>Why didn’t Kerr co-operate with Whitlam to implement this relatively speedy path to resolution of the crisis? The answer likely lies in Whitlam’s candour in telling Kerr he would ask the queen to replace Kerr should he not accede to the plan.</p>
<p>Since the letters through Charteris also confirm the queen’s intention, unreservedly, to accept Whitlam’s advice to sack Kerr should she be asked to do so, Kerr knew this threat to be real and increasingly immediate.</p>
<p>The question is, since the queen made clear through Charteris she would uphold Australia’s constitutional convention that the monarch follow the prime minister’s advice, why would her representative, Kerr, not simply do the same with regard to Whitlam’s plans for the crisis’s resolution? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-big-reveal-jenny-hocking-on-what-the-palace-letters-may-tell-us-finally-about-the-dismissal-142473">The big reveal: Jenny Hocking on what the 'palace letters' may tell us, finally, about The Dismissal</a>
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<p>This is the note missing from the palace side of the correspondence – an absence against which Charteris’s handwritten postscript pointing Kerr to the Forsey opinion that “dissolution” was a legitimate option when governments fail to get their money bills passed is stark.</p>
<p>Forsey was later a strong public supporter of Kerr’s sacking of the Whitlam government. No wonder the palace fought to stop these letters being released.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142476/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Wallace has received funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>The letters confirm the worst fears of those who viewed Governor-General John Kerr’s sacking of the Whitlam government as a constitutional coup.Chris Wallace, Associate Professor, 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1423762020-07-14T07:00:08Z2020-07-14T07:00:08Z‘Palace letters’ show the queen did not advise, or encourage, Kerr to sack Whitlam government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347267/original/file-20200714-38-q48wuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Toby Melville</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For more than four decades, the question has been asked: did the queen know the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, was about to dismiss the Whitlam government, and did she encourage or support that action?</p>
<p>The release of the “palace letters” between Kerr and the palace can now lay that question to rest. The answer was given, unequivocally, by the queen’s private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, in a letter to Kerr on November 17 1975. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I may say so with the greatest respect, I believe that 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.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Certainly, Kerr had kept the palace up to date with the various developments in Australia. While governors-general usually communicate with the queen only three or four times a year during ordinary times, it is common during a crisis for updates on the political situation to be made every few days – particularly if there is a risk of the queen becoming involved or the exercise of a reserve power.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-big-reveal-jenny-hocking-on-what-the-palace-letters-may-tell-us-finally-about-the-dismissal-142473">The big reveal: Jenny Hocking on what the 'palace letters' may tell us, finally, about The Dismissal</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Drawing the palace into the crisis</h2>
<p>In 1975, there were multiple issues that might have drawn the palace into the crisis. </p>
<p>First, there was the question of whether Kerr should exercise a reserve power to refuse royal assent to an appropriation bill that had been passed by the House of Representatives but not the Senate. Fortunately, Whitlam dropped this idea, so that controversy disappeared. </p>
<p>Then there was the question of whether state premiers would advise state governors to refuse to issue the writs for a half-Senate election, and whether Whitlam would then advise the queen to instruct the governors to issue the writs. This didn’t happen either, because Whitlam did not get to hold his half-Senate election. But the prospect was enough to worry the palace.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347272/original/file-20200714-140154-1gukeab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347272/original/file-20200714-140154-1gukeab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347272/original/file-20200714-140154-1gukeab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347272/original/file-20200714-140154-1gukeab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347272/original/file-20200714-140154-1gukeab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347272/original/file-20200714-140154-1gukeab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347272/original/file-20200714-140154-1gukeab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Whitlam government was dismissed on November 11 1975.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/National Archives of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Next there was the issue of what to do with the Queensland governor, Sir Colin Hannah. Hannah, in a speech, <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/143864721.pdf">had referred to</a> the “fumbling ineptitude” of the Whitlam government. Hannah held a “dormant commission” to act as administrator of the Commonwealth when the governor-general was away. </p>
<p>Whitlam, contrary to the advice of both the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Attorney-General’s Department, advised the queen to remove Hannah’s commission to be administrator.</p>
<p>Separately, the Queensland opposition petitioned for Hannah to be removed as governor, but that required the advice of British ministers, as Queensland was still in those days a “dependency” of the British Crown.</p>
<p>So the palace had to juggle advice on Hannah from two different sources.</p>
<h2>A race to the palace</h2>
<p>Another pressing question was what should be done if Whitlam advised Kerr’s dismissal. Kerr’s letters more than once referred to Whitlam talking of a “race to the Palace” to see whether he could dismiss Kerr before Kerr dismissed him.</p>
<p>Kerr saw these “jokes” as having an underlying menace. Kerr knew he didn’t have to race to the palace – he could dismiss the prime minister immediately. But he also knew, after Whitlam advised Hannah’s removal merely for using the words “fumbling ineptitude”, that Whitlam wouldn’t hesitate to act. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347273/original/file-20200714-139820-168se8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347273/original/file-20200714-139820-168se8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347273/original/file-20200714-139820-168se8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347273/original/file-20200714-139820-168se8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347273/original/file-20200714-139820-168se8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347273/original/file-20200714-139820-168se8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347273/original/file-20200714-139820-168se8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sir John Kerr.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/National Archives of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The letters also show Kerr had been told that while the “Queen would take most unkindly” to being told to dismiss her governor-general, she would eventually do so because, as a constitutional sovereign, she had no option but to follow the advice of her prime minister. This would inevitably have brought her into the fray in an essentially Australian constitutional crisis.</p>
<p>Kerr explained in a letter after the dismissal that if he had given Whitlam 24 hours to advise a dissolution or face the prospect of dismissal, there was a considerable risk Whitlam would advise the queen to dismiss Kerr. He wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] the position would then have been that either I would in fact be trying to dismiss him whilst he was trying to dismiss me, an impossible position for The Queen, or someone totally inexperienced in the developments of the crisis up to that point, be it a new Governor-General or an Administrator who would have to be a State Governor, would be confronted by the same implacable Prime Minister. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Advice from the palace</h2>
<p>The letters reveal much of Kerr’s thinking, but little from the palace. Charteris rightly accepted the reserve powers existed, but they were to be used “in the last resort and then only for constitutional and not for political reasons”. </p>
<p>Charteris stressed the exercise of such powers was a</p>
<blockquote>
<p>heavy responsibility and it is only at the very end when there is demonstrably no other course that they should be used.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This did not give Kerr any “green light” or encouragement to act. No-one suggested to him that the end had come and there was no other course to be followed. That was for Kerr to judge, and rightly so, because the powers could only be exercised by him – not the queen. </p>
<p>Whether the end had come and there was no other course is essentially what continues to be debated today. Should Kerr have waited? Should he have warned Whitlam? Was another course of action available?</p>
<p>All of these questions may justly be debated. But, no, the queen did not direct Kerr to dismiss Whitlam. He was not encouraged to do so. He was only encouraged to obey the Australian Constitution, which is something we all should do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142376/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Twomey has received funding from the ARC and sometimes does consulting work for governments. She has written books on the reserve powers, including 'The Veiled Sceptre - Reserve Powers of Heads of State in Westminster Systems' and 'The Chameleon Crown - The Queen and Her Australian Governors' which deal with issues in this article. (She also uses capital letters and notes that 'queen' without a capital letter is not a political statement, but the Conversation's uniform style.)</span></em></p>There are many questions regarding The Dismissal that can still be debated. But the queen simply advised the governor-general to follow the constitution, which is as she should have done.Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1424732020-07-13T20:05:03Z2020-07-13T20:05:03ZThe big reveal: Jenny Hocking on what the ‘palace letters’ may tell us, finally, about The Dismissal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347032/original/file-20200713-22-vvzhah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Forty-five years after they were written, hundreds of previously secret letters between the queen and the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, relating to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 will be released in full by the National Archives of Australia this morning.</p>
<p>Containing 211 letters and 1,200 pages in total, the “palace letters” will be the greatest addition to the history of the dismissal of the Whitlam government since the revelation of Sir Anthony Mason’s <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/the-dismissals-third-man-drawn-from-the-shades-of-history-20120824-24rwk.html">role</a> nearly a decade ago.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jenny-hocking-why-my-battle-for-access-to-the-palace-letters-should-matter-to-all-australians-139738">Jenny Hocking: why my battle for access to the 'Palace letters' should matter to all Australians</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The letters have been held in the National Archives, locked away as “personal” records under the embargo of the queen. That is, until the High Court’s emphatic 6:1 <a href="https://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases/case_s262-2019">decision</a> in June this year that they are Commonwealth records and to be made available for public access.</p>
<p>The impact of this extraordinary decision is being keenly felt in Buckingham Palace and with some trepidation, since the letters will be released against the wishes of the queen, as the High Court judgments make clear.</p>
<p>The queen’s private secretary argued strongly against their release when the case began in the Federal Court, as did the governor-general’s official secretary, even claiming in letters included in a submission from the official secretary, Mark Fraser, that their continued secrecy was essential “to preserve the constitutional position of the Monarch and the Monarchy”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347026/original/file-20200713-54-1rvfq0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347026/original/file-20200713-54-1rvfq0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347026/original/file-20200713-54-1rvfq0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347026/original/file-20200713-54-1rvfq0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347026/original/file-20200713-54-1rvfq0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347026/original/file-20200713-54-1rvfq0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347026/original/file-20200713-54-1rvfq0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jenny Hocking has led the long court battle to have the palace letters released.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Ross/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In rejecting this presumption of royal secrecy, the High Court has enforced a measure of transparency and accountability over a monarch and a monarchy once seen as untouchable. The significance of the decision and its ramifications is tremendous, beginning with the release of the letters themselves.</p>
<p>In anticipation of their historic public release, let’s take a look at the palace letters – what we know about them, what to look out for, and what they might tell us. These details are drawn from the court proceedings and from documents in Kerr’s archives.</p>
<h2>What will be in the palace letters?</h2>
<p>Firstly, there are 211 letters. This is a simply staggering number, on a scale I had never imagined, since previous governors-general had reported to the queen at most only quarterly. They include telegrams as well as letters.</p>
<p>Kerr’s letters include a number of large attachments, running to several hundred pages, such as newspaper clippings, articles and other people’s letters to him. Since these attachments “corroborat[e] the information communicated by the Governor-General” to the queen, they will be equally significant for revealing how Kerr depicted the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-gough-whitlams-dismissal-as-prime-minister-74148">polarised events of 1975</a> to the queen, and on what basis.</p>
<p>The letters cover the entirety of Kerr’s period in office, July 1974 to December 1977. Their number grew markedly from August 1975, as Kerr increased his quite obsessive “reporting” on the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, to the palace.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347034/original/file-20200713-26-sbm7uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347034/original/file-20200713-26-sbm7uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347034/original/file-20200713-26-sbm7uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347034/original/file-20200713-26-sbm7uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347034/original/file-20200713-26-sbm7uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1239&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347034/original/file-20200713-26-sbm7uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1239&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347034/original/file-20200713-26-sbm7uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1239&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sir John Kerr.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Australian Democracy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At times, Kerr wrote several letters in a single day. As a result, there are slightly fewer letters from the queen to Kerr in reply. </p>
<p>There are 116 “contemporaneously made copies” of Kerr’s letters and telegrams to the queen, most of them through her private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, some handwritten and some typed, and sent either by Kerr or the official secretary, David Smith. Charteris assured Kerr the queen read every one of them. Some of Kerr’s letters are addressed directly to the queen.</p>
<p>There are 95 original letters and telegrams from the queen to Kerr, all of them through Charteris. This nexus through the private secretary is entirely in keeping with their role as the official channel of communication with the monarch – Charteris writes for, and as, the queen. This is an important fact to bear in mind as we assess the letters.</p>
<p>In terms of that nexus, a critical detail emerging from the court case is that the queen’s letters, sent through Charteris, “convey the thoughts of The Queen to the Governor-General”. There can be no walking back from the fact the letters from the queen express her thoughts and her views. </p>
<p>This is extremely important in understanding the implications of the letters, particularly since some have tried to distance the queen from her letters to Kerr on the basis that her private secretary wrote them, even suggesting this constitutes a royal form of “plausible deniability”. Any attempt to construct a “get out of jail free” card for the queen over the content of her own letters is completely unsustainable.</p>
<h2>Political and constitutional implications</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347035/original/file-20200713-26-n3mzdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347035/original/file-20200713-26-n3mzdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347035/original/file-20200713-26-n3mzdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347035/original/file-20200713-26-n3mzdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347035/original/file-20200713-26-n3mzdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347035/original/file-20200713-26-n3mzdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1082&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347035/original/file-20200713-26-n3mzdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1082&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347035/original/file-20200713-26-n3mzdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1082&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sir John Kerr’s letter dismissing Gough Whitlam.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many of the letters will be highly sensitive politically since we know from the Federal Court submissions they “address topics relating to the official duties and responsibilities of the Governor-General”. The specific nature of those discussions will be one of the intriguing questions to answer when the letters are opened.</p>
<p>Did those topics include options and strategies relating to Kerr’s decisions, which the governor-general ought to have been discussing with the prime minister? Did they include a discussion of Kerr’s concern for his own position as governor-general, his fear that Whitlam might recall him – which is a decision for the prime minister alone to make and in which the queen can play no part other than to act on that advice? And did they include a consideration of the putative power of the governor-general to dismiss the government, which retained its majority in the House of Representatives and its confidence at all times, without warning?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/high-court-ruling-on-palace-letters-case-paves-way-to-learn-more-about-the-dismissal-and-our-constitution-139391">High Court ruling on 'Palace letters' case paves way to learn more about The Dismissal - and our Constitution</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Scattered references to the palace letters in Kerr’s papers shed further light on what we can expect to find. The most significant of these is his reference to “Charteris’ advice to me on dismissal”. Kerr writes of having “the additional advantage” of “the illuminating observations […] sent to me by Sir Martin Charteris”, indicating the significant role the letters played in his deliberations about dismissing the government and his eventual decision to do so.</p>
<p>Extracts from some of the palace letters explicitly refer to the prospect of Whitlam’s dismissal. In September 1975, Kerr writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>if I were at the height of the crisis contrary to his advice to decide to terminate his commission […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and, on November 6 1975: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>he [Whitlam] said that the only way in which an election for the house could occur would be if I dismissed him.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those particular letters, together with those written around key dates – the blocking of supply in the Senate, Executive Council meetings, Whitlam’s decision to call the half-Senate election, among others – will be a focal point for examining the letters.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347036/original/file-20200713-62-1mgn6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347036/original/file-20200713-62-1mgn6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347036/original/file-20200713-62-1mgn6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347036/original/file-20200713-62-1mgn6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347036/original/file-20200713-62-1mgn6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347036/original/file-20200713-62-1mgn6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347036/original/file-20200713-62-1mgn6ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The palace letters will shed more light on the momentous events that led to The Dismissal on November 11 1975.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The critical and defining context to assess the palace letters is that while Kerr and the queen were discussing these essentially political issues regarding the “events of the day” and the “official duties and responsibilities” of the governor-general, Kerr remained “silent” on these issues to the prime minister. </p>
<p>Worse, the queen well knew that. Whether there was any response from the queen about Kerr’s errant conception of his role as governor-general, his refusal to speak to or take the advice of the prime minister, will be of great interest.</p>
<p>Whatever the palace letters may reveal, the most important thing is that now we <em>can</em> know it. With that knowledge, the full history of the dismissal of the Whitlam government can finally be told.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jenny Hocking is affiliated with the Australian Republic Movement.</span></em></p>After a long court battle, Australians are finally about to learn more about one of the most pivotal episodes in our political and constitutional history.Jenny Hocking, Emeritus Professor, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1397382020-06-07T19:51:00Z2020-06-07T19:51:00ZJenny Hocking: why my battle for access to the ‘Palace letters’ should matter to all Australians<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340004/original/file-20200605-176585-69r2ge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Independent Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Professor Jenny Hocking recently won her longstanding campaign for the National Archives of Australia to release the so-called “Palace letters” about the dismissal of Gough Whitlam in 1975. This is her account of that campaign.</em></p>
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<p>In August 1975, speaking at a private dinner at Sydney’s Wentworth Hotel, Governor-General Sir John Kerr proudly described himself as “the Queen’s only personal representative in Australia with direct access to her”.</p>
<p>Kerr was a staunch monarchist, and what he saw as his “direct” access to the Queen was of great moment to him:</p>
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<p>I am in constant communication with her on a wide variety of matters, on most of which I am communicating directly to her.</p>
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<p>We now know just how constant that communication was. Kerr wrote frequently, at times several letters in a single day. There are 116 of his letters to the Queen, almost all of them sent through her private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, containing extensive attachments including press reports, other peoples’ letters to Kerr, telegrams and articles. There are also 95 letters from the Queen to Kerr, all through Charteris.</p>
<p>These 211 letters in the National Archives of Australia, written during the entirety of Kerr’s tenure as governor-general and with increasing frequency after August 1975, constitute “the Palace letters”. They are without doubt the most significant historical records relating to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in November 1975. Yet, until last week’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-29/high-court-rules-palace-letters-released-historian-jenny-hocking/12299164">landmark High Court decision</a>, they had been closed to us by the archives, labelled as “personal” records and placed under the embargo of the Queen.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/high-court-ruling-on-palace-letters-case-paves-way-to-learn-more-about-the-dismissal-and-our-constitution-139391">High Court ruling on 'Palace letters' case paves way to learn more about The Dismissal - and our Constitution</a>
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<p>Aware of their immense historical significance, and with the support of a legal team working pro bono, in 2016 I launched a Federal Court action against the National Archives in an effort to secure access to the Palace letters.</p>
<p>It was not only the obvious importance of letters between the Queen and the governor-general, her representative in Australia, relating to Kerr’s unprecedented dismissal of the elected government that drove this case. It was also the importance of asserting the right of public access to, and control over, our most important archival records.</p>
<p>It took four years and a legal process through the Federal Court, the full Federal Court, and finally the full bench of the High Court of Australia - at which the federal attorney-general Christian Porter joined with the archives against my action. But in an emphatic 6:1 decision, the High Court ruled against the archives. It found the letters were not “personal” but rather Commonwealth records, and as such must now be available for public access under the provisions of the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2016C00772">Archives Act</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340007/original/file-20200605-176564-1bgzy0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340007/original/file-20200605-176564-1bgzy0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340007/original/file-20200605-176564-1bgzy0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340007/original/file-20200605-176564-1bgzy0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340007/original/file-20200605-176564-1bgzy0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340007/original/file-20200605-176564-1bgzy0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340007/original/file-20200605-176564-1bgzy0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Jenny Hocking last month won her case in the High Court to have access to the Palace letters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Peter Rae</span></span>
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<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>This is an immensely important decision, overturning decades of archival practice that has routinely locked away royal records from public view as “personal”. It also provides a rare challenge to reflexive claims of “royal secrecy”, here and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Its implications will be felt broadly in other Commonwealth nations and potentially in the United Kingdom, where the Royal Archives are firmly closed from public access except with the permission of the monarch. Of equal importance is that the High Court’s ruling has brought the Palace letters firmly under Australian law, ending the humiliating quasi-imperial imposition of the Queen’s embargo over our archival records, and over our knowledge of our own history.</p>
<p>What made this case so important was the significance of original documents to the evolving history of the dismissal. A series of revelations in recent years, much of it from <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-dismissal-dossier-electronic-book-text">Kerr’s papers</a>, has transformed that history and deeply challenged our previous understandings of the dismissal.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-gough-whitlams-dismissal-as-prime-minister-74148">Australian politics explainer: Gough Whitlam's dismissal as prime minister</a>
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<p>As a deeply contested and polarised episode, access to original records – as opposed to subsequent interpretations – was unusually significant. There could be no more significant records than the letters between the governor-general and the Queen regarding what the Federal Court described as “one of the most controversial and tumultuous events in the modern history of the nation”.</p>
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<h2>What the Palace letters might tell us</h2>
<p>I first came across the Palace letters more than a decade ago, when I began exploring Kerr’s papers as part of the research for my <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/gough-whitlam-his-time-updated-edition-paperback-softback">biography of Gough Whitlam</a>. When I sought access to them I was told they were “personal” papers -– “non-Commonwealth, no appeal”. This meant I could neither access them nor appeal that denial of access to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The only way of challenging the label “personal” was a Federal Court action, an onerous and prohibitive prospect.</p>
<p>A series of revelations from Kerr’s papers highlighted their importance and the travesty of their continued closure. These include: a personal journal Kerr wrote in 1980 in which he cites several of the letters and recounts his critical discussion with Prince Charles in September 1975 expressing concern for his own recall as governor-general if he were to dismiss Whitlam; extracts from some of the letters; and his frequent references to the letters in other letters to friends and colleagues. Perhaps the most crucial item of all was a handwritten note, “Points on Dismissal”, in which he refers to “Charteris’ advice to me on dismissal”.</p>
<p>There could scarcely be a stronger indication that the Palace was intensely involved with Kerr’s consideration of the possible dismissal of the elected government. This, along with other materials, suggest that at the very least, Kerr had drawn the Palace into his planning before the dismissal.</p>
<p>Kerr cites a letter to the Queen in August 1975 in which he raised the “possibility of another double dissolution”. Just why he would be raising this two months before supply had been blocked in the Senate, and when the prime minister had held a rare double dissolution just the previous year and was intending to call the half-Senate election which was then due, may be answered when we see the letters.</p>
<p>Kerr writes that his conversations with Whitlam “were reported in detail to the Queen as they happened” for several months before the dismissal itself. This is a simply extraordinary situation: the governor-general is reporting to the Queen his private conversations, plans, matters of governance, and meetings with the Australian prime minister, and this is kept secret from the prime minister himself.</p>
<p>This is the crucial context of secrecy and deception in which the Palace letters must be considered: that Whitlam knew nothing of these discussions because Kerr had decided on a constitutionally preposterous policy of “silence” towards the prime minister, who retained the confidence of the House of Representatives at all times.</p>
<p>It is this extensive communication through hundreds of letters to and from the Queen, when taken in the context of Kerr’s self-described “silence” towards his own prime minister, that shows Kerr’s aberrant perception of his vice-regal role as acting as “the Queen’s personal representative” while failing to consult his own prime minister.</p>
<p>As historian <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6779564/weve-never-been-truly-independent-and-the-palace-letters-will-show-it/#:%7E:text=The%20British%20Crown%20was%20interfering%20in%20the%201975%20dispute%20in,of%20secrecy%20in%20Australian%20politics.">John Warhurst has noted</a>, from what we already know of the Palace letters: </p>
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<p>…the British crown was interfering in the 1975 dispute in ways that should offend anyone who wants Australia to be a fully independent nation … the Palace did not stand above the fray … Kerr consulted the Palace and took advice from the Queen’s secretary acting on behalf of the Queen.</p>
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<h2>Knowing our story, in full</h2>
<p>The National Archives’s denial of access to the Palace letters has prevented us knowing the extent of that consultation and advice for too long. The High Court’s resounding rejection of the basis for that secrecy is an historic opportunity for the director-general of the archives, David Fricker, to make good his <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/about-us/media-and-publications/media-releases/hocking-v-dg-national-archives-australia">claim</a> the archives is a “pro-disclosure organisation”, recognise the profound breach with the past the decision represents, and embrace the spirit of public access that underpins it by releasing all 211 of the Palace letters.</p>
<p>It’s time for an open reckoning with our past, a fully informed debate about the events of 1975, and an answer to the lingering questions over the role of the Queen.</p>
<p>No matter how unpalatable this story may be to some, it’s our story and we have a right to know it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jenny Hocking recently won a High Court case allowing her access to the Palace letters. </span></em></p>The dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 is our story, and we have a right to know it in full.Jenny Hocking, Emeritus Professor, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1393912020-05-29T06:56:47Z2020-05-29T06:56:47ZHigh Court ruling on ‘Palace letters’ case paves way to learn more about The Dismissal - and our Constitution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338423/original/file-20200528-51509-rzzu5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showCase/2020/HCA/19">High Court has ruled</a> that Sir John Kerr’s correspondence with the queen comprises “Commonwealth records”. This means access to them is now in Australian hands and can no longer be vetoed by the private secretary to the queen. </p>
<p>This correspondence, which includes Kerr’s briefings to the queen on the political crisis prior to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-gough-whitlams-dismissal-as-prime-minister-74148">dismissal of the Whitlam government</a> on November 11 1975, and his explanation to her afterwards of why he exercised this power, have so far been kept from public view.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-palace-letters-case-and-what-will-the-high-court-consider-131000">Explainer: what is the 'palace letters' case and what will the High Court consider?</a>
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<p>The High Court’s decision opens the possibility that we will finally see the last pieces of factual evidence about The Dismissal – revealing the concerns and reasoning of the governor-general, as events occurred, without the gloss of hindsight. </p>
<p>It could even allow this festering wound in our political history to be healed, once all the information has been revealed. But it depends now on what the National Archives does next.</p>
<h2>How were these letters treated until now?</h2>
<p>Until now, the National Archives has claimed all correspondence it holds between governors-general and the queen, even when written in their official capacities, is “personal” and not a “Commonwealth record”. </p>
<p>This means there was no legal obligation on the National Archives to provide public access to these letters. Instead, the National Archives had stated it could only release these documents in accordance with the conditions placed on them by the person who lodged them with the National Archives.</p>
<p>But it let those conditions be changed on the instructions of the queen in 1991 so that her private secretary and the secretary of the governor-general held a veto over the release of any such correspondence.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-gough-whitlams-dismissal-as-prime-minister-74148">Australian politics explainer: Gough Whitlam's dismissal as prime minister</a>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338490/original/file-20200529-96705-1o5uh4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338490/original/file-20200529-96705-1o5uh4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338490/original/file-20200529-96705-1o5uh4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338490/original/file-20200529-96705-1o5uh4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338490/original/file-20200529-96705-1o5uh4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338490/original/file-20200529-96705-1o5uh4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338490/original/file-20200529-96705-1o5uh4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Professor Jenny Hocking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/James Ross</span></span>
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<p>In the case brought by academic Jenny Hocking against the National Archives, <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showCase/2020/HCA/19">the High Court held</a> by a majority of six to one that the letters between Sir John Kerr and the queen were created, received and held as institutional documents by the “official establishment of the Governor-General” before being transferred to the National Archives by the official secretary to the governor-general in his official capacity. This level of official control over them was enough to make them “Commonwealth records”, even if the governor-general still held ownership rights over them (which the majority said it did not need to decide). </p>
<p>In their joint judgment, Chief Justice Kiefel and Justices Bell, Gageler and Keane said they could not see how the correspondence could be described, however “loosely”, as “private or personal records of the Governor-General”.</p>
<p>They said it could not be supposed that Kerr could have taken the correspondence from the governor-general’s official establishment and destroyed or sold it. </p>
<p>Justice Gordon thought even if Kerr did have property rights in the original documents, he gave up any claim to them when they were deposited with the National Archives. Justice Edelman agreed the correspondence between the governor-general and the queen was “created or received officially and kept institutionally”. </p>
<p>Only Justice Nettle concluded these letters were personal communications between Kerr and the Queen, and were not Commonwealth records. </p>
<h2>Does this mean we get to see the letters now?</h2>
<p>The court did not order that the letters be publicly released. Instead, it ordered the director-general of the National Archives reconsider Jenny Hocking’s request for access to the correspondence held by the archives, treating them as Commonwealth records.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/aa198398/s31.html">Section 31</a> of the Archives Act 1983 requires the National Archives to give public access to any Commonwealth record that it holds that is within the open access period and is not an “exempt record”. </p>
<p>The correspondence between Kerr and the queen has been in the “open access period” since 2006/2007. The only question that remains is whether the director-general will now claim that the correspondence is comprised of “exempt records”. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/aa198398/s33.html">Section 33</a> of the Act lists a number of exemptions. These include documents that could reasonably be expected to cause damage to international relations, or where disclosure of matters in the record would constitute a breach of confidence. </p>
<p>The damage that might be caused by the release of documents necessarily diminishes over time. So even if these exemptions are claimed, consideration would have to be given to whether they remain applicable, given the age of the documents. </p>
<p>The director-general of the National Archives <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/about-us/media-and-publications/media-releases/hocking-v-dg-national-archives-australia">responded</a> to the High Court’s decision by stating the
“National Archives is a pro-disclosure organisation” that operates on the basis of making records publicly available “unless there is a specific and compelling need to withhold it”.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see what “compelling” needs it might identify.</p>
<h2>Are there any wider implications of the decision?</h2>
<p>The High Court’s decision will also affect the release of correspondence by other governors-general. The release of <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/casey-richard-gavin-gardiner-9706">Lord Casey’s</a> correspondence with the Queen was <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/palace-backtracks-on-governorsgeneral-richard-caseys-letters/news-story/205a61416c6ff49d0c74792124bd1d74">recently blocked</a> by Buckingham Palace, which stated it would refuse access to any correspondence with the queen until at least five years after her death, and then only if the private secretary to the new monarch agrees. That veto has now been destroyed by the High Court.</p>
<p>So not only is Kerr’s correspondence with the queen liable to be opened, but also the correspondence by all other governors-general with the queen, when it is in the “open access period” and subject to any exemption. </p>
<p>That may mean we get a better idea of how the roles of the governor-general and the queen operate under our Constitution, which would be a good thing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139391/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Twomey has received funding from the ARC and sometimes does consulting work for governments. She has written a book on the reserve powers, which discusses the Whitlam dismissal and relies on primary documents such as those discussed in this article. She also sought access, unsuccessfully, to these documents in 2008 and has requested access to other correspondence between Governors-General and the Queen, which requests have also been denied. She hopes to finally get access to these documents.</span></em></p>However, the win does not necessarily mean the public will have access to the letters - much now rests on what the National Archives does next.Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.