Albanese rewrites history in fiery attack over Whitlam Dismissal
His commemorative address at Old Parliament House should have reflected a controversy tempered by time. It was not the occasion to argue the toss. But having worked himself into a righteous fury, albeit of the performative kind, Albanese saw an opportunity to dump on his political opponents.
Typical of the cognitive dissonance which follows when reality supplants ideology, Albanese’s appraisal was that of a toddler hurling his teddy from the political cot.
Gough Whitlam’s ousting, he declared, was a “partisan political ambush” as well as a “calculated plot hatched by conservative forces”.
The “old suffocating conservatism so many had imagined defeated for good in December 1972 had reached out of its political grave to drag down a democratically elected government,” he fulminated.
Conservatism defeated for good? That is the mindset of socialist historicism. We already have an insight into this, when Albanese declared in September his ambition was for Labor “to be the natural party of government”.
This is ideological entitlement. Believe you are an instrument of destiny, and you will also believe those who impede your ambitions do so without legitimacy. This was Whitlam’s mentality as his government unravelled, a resentment he held for the rest of his life.
His political demise was ignominious, but it galvanised a new generation of believers. And while Albanese’s modesty precludes him from saying so, we are talking not just about a great man but great men.
It has also given rise to a generation of Dismissal revisionists, foremost among them the Prime Minister. Brandishing his dog-eared copy of the Bush and Bracken Act this week, he declared that governor-general Sir John Kerr had “justified his actions on the basis of incorrect advice from [High Court] chief justice [Sir Garfield] Barwick, improperly given”.
Barwick, he said, advised that the Whitlam government “needed to have the confidence of both the House of Representatives and the Senate”.
In saying this, Albanese was setting up a strawman.
“Of course it’s actually very unusual in recent times, in the last fifty years, for any government to have a majority in both houses,” he told ABC radio this week.
This was also a case of Albanese verballing Barwick.
As the latter said in his advice to Kerr, a prime minister who could not ensure supply was duty bound to advise a general election or resign. If he refused to do either, the governor-general had authority to withdraw his commission. The chief justice’s observation that a government’s legitimacy, notwithstanding its majority in the lower house, was dependent on the confidence of the Senate was in the context of ensuring supply.
As for Albanese’s claim Barwick had “improperly given” Kerr constitutional advice, that was rich coming from a prime minister notorious for his insistence, when rebuffing media questions about his conversations with notable figures, that “private discussions are private”.
Contrary to Albanese’s claim, it was then a longstanding practice for governors-general as well as state governors, to seek constitutional advice from a chief justice – as made clear in this masthead by Anne Twomey, professor emerita in constitutional law at the University of Sydney.
Likewise Albanese’s claim there was “no real precedent – and no legitimate pretext” for the events of November 11, 1975. Again, Twomey has pointed out the Senate had the power to defer supply as it did, and that upper houses in the states had blocked supply as a means to snuff out governments.
Albanese is not the only bush lawyer of Labor prime ministers. Had he been Whitlam, Paul Keating told The Australian in September, he would not only have rejected Kerr’s withdrawing his commission but also would have ordered police to arrest the governor-general for “abusing a kingly power”.
This is a ludicrous notion. For starters, a prime minister cannot lawfully direct police to arrest a person, let alone the governor-general, particularly for a non-existent offence.
It became even more farcical when the Sydney Morning Herald revealed this week Keating had actually urged Whitlam to arrest Kerr. Gobsmackingly, Keating had even envisaged the op execution, taking into account the governor-general was also commander-in-chief of the Australian Defence Force.
“In other words, you’d have to have the soldiers with you for this to happen,” he said.
For a bloke who warned in 1986 that Australia was in danger of becoming a banana republic, Keating sure does a great impression of El Presidente.
But none of this is to say governors-general never act in a manner that brings into question their impartiality. Take the incumbent, Sam Mostyn, for instance. An Albanese nominee, she last week in an interview with Troy Bramston of this masthead criticised Kerr’s actions, saying she did not “believe a governor-general should ever be in the business of surprising a prime minister”.
But Mostyn is yet to learn a governor-general should be in the business of observing vice-regal reticence. It did not help that in the same interview she foresaw her role as interventionist – one that would “protect the Australian public against the potential of irresponsible government”.
This was an expansionist (and controversial) take on her function. Forced later to clarify her position, Mostyn insisted she was not “taking a more expansive approach” to her role, nor “redefining any of the core principles of responsible and representative government”.
Her Excellency clearly was miffed that commentators had “drawn a long bow”. For the record, she added she would “welcome respectful discussion and debate on the role of the Governor-General”.
Here is my two cents worth, Sam Mostyn. If you wish to avoid those with a long bow, best not stroll on the range while sporting an apple on top of your head.
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As Anthony Albanese reminds us constantly, he is one for bringing Australians together, uniting the country, avoiding division, and moving forward. Hence his decision this week to go the full philippic on the governor-general’s dismissal of the Whitlam government half a century ago.