It was the year of living feverishly. On March 21, 1975, Malcolm Fraser was elected Liberal Party leader, and almost the first thing he said after he won the party room ballot was that the opposition he led had no intention of blocking supply in the Senate – a parliamentary procedure that would choke off the government’s supply of funds – except in “extraordinary and reprehensible” circumstances.

Seven months later, the opposition used its upper house majority to delay supply until the Gough Whitlam-led Labor government called an election. Three weeks after that, the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, sacked the Whitlam government and appointed Fraser prime minister on condition that he held an election. Whitlam was thrashed at the polls on December 13. The rest, as they say, is history.