Palace letters: Why John Kerr gave Gough Whitlam no warning of his dismissal

A week after dismissing Gough Whitlam in 1975, Governor-General Sir John Kerr told the Queen that the reason he gave the Prime Minister no prior warning of the dismissal was the need to protect the monarchy in Australia.

“I was in a position where, in my opinion, I simply could not risk the outcome for the sake of the Monarchy,” Sir John wrote to Buckingham Palace in a long letter on 20 November 1975.

This goes to the heart of the controversy over the dismissal. Whitlam always attacked Sir John for dismissing him in an ambush without proper warning in a violation of the responsibilities of the governor-general as the Crown’s representative.

In his letter to the Queen, released today by the National Archives, Sir John rejected criticism in Australia that he should have given the Prime Minister 24 hours to consider whether, once informed of Sir John’s view, Whitlam should have had the discretion to go to a general election as prime minister.

Sir John said the risk in this scenario was that Whitlam might advise the Queen “in the strongest of terms that I should be immediately dismissed.”

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The Governor-General said: “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.”

In short, Sir John said his action was to save the Queen from an embarrassing dilemma that could have permanently damaged the monarchy in Australia.

The Governor-General also informed the Palace in this letter that in this situation the possibility would arise of a new governor-general or an administrator who “would be confronted by the same implacable prime minister”.