Governor-general Michael Jeffery’s letters to Queen Elizabeth have vanished

An internal review by Government House and a search by the National Archives has failed to find the missing letters.

Queen Elizabeth and with then-governor-general Major General Michael Jeffery in Canberra in 2006. Picture: John Feder

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Letters sent by former governor-general Michael Jeffery to Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 and 2004 have vanished after an internal review by Government House and an extensive search by the National Archives of Australia did not find any such records.

These records, open for public access after 20 years, could not be located after a request made by The Australian to view them.

No letters from the queen or her Buckingham Palace staff sent to the then governor-general and Government House staff could be located. This is highly unusual given the extensive vice-regal correspondence of his predecessors that has been opened to the public. Moreover, these letters are classified as official commonwealth records under the Archives Act 1983.

Government House conducted an internal review that consulted with third parties outside government in an effort to locate the missing correspondence.

“No documents have been located,” a spokesman for Government House told The Australian. “The (Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General) has, and continues to, work with the National Archives.”

Jeffery, who was governor-general from August 2003 to September 2008, died in December 2020. The existence of letters written in 2003 and 2004 could deal with Australian troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and John Howard’s re-election in October 2004, and might offer his perspective on a range of matters.

Major General Michael Jeffery in 2011. Picture: Kym Smith

The National Archives undertook an extensive electronic and physical search for the vice-regal correspondence and came up empty-handed. This involved “a review of all consignment listings for transfers received from” Government House, which is the controlling agency.

The Australian viewed several large folders of correspondence sent to and from Jeffery that were transferred to the National Archives by Government House but it included only one letter from him thanking her for lunch at Buckingham Palace in 2004.

Successive governors-general wrote to the late queen as her representative in Australia, giving her an outline of their activities and sharing their frank assessments of personalities, political events and policy matters.

The formal decision provided to this masthead was that “no records relating to the subject in the open period as defined by the Archives Act 1983 (the Act) can be found.” It was also determined that no records matching the criteria of the search found that they had “previously existed but have been destroyed”.

“Although a decision has been made on your application,” a spokeswoman for the National Archives said, “National Archives will continue to work with the ­Office of the Secretary of the ­Governor-General to identify and locate any additional records of correspondence.”

In June 2023, The Australian revealed that the correspondence of Jeffery’s predecessor, Peter Hollingworth, was also missing. However, after an internal review and extensive search, these records were located in the former governor-general’s possession and transferred to the National Archives.

The letters revealed Hollingworth complained bitterly about his resignation from the vice-regal role over his past handling of child sexual abuse while Anglican archbishop of Brisbane. The queen and the then Prince Charles offered their sympathy.

This followed extensive reporting on vice-regal letters between Queen Elizabeth II and governors-general Richard Casey (1965-69), Paul Hasluck (1969-74), John Kerr (1974-77), Zelman Cowen (1977-82), Ninian Stephen (1982-89), Bill Hayden (1989-96) and William Deane (1996-2001).