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Sep 29, 2022 · On 11 November 1975, after a series of dramatic events including a 1974 double dissolution and a budgetary supply crisis, the Gough Whitlam -led federal Labor government became the first (and only) government in Australian history to be dismissed by the Governor-General. While this constitutional crisis has overshadowed the Whitlam years, the ...
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The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, also known simply as the Dismissal, culminated on 11 November 1975 with the dismissal from office of the prime minister, Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), by Sir John Kerr, the Governor-General who then commissioned the leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Fraser of the Liberal Party, as prime minister to hold a new election.
Nov 9, 2022 · This was not so elsewhere. A pro-Whitlam protest in Melbourne at Liberal Party headquarters on the afternoon of the dismissal ‘erupted into one of the most violent demonstrations ever seen in the city’—according to The Australian —as protesters clambered over police cars and “kicks and punches were freely given”.
- What Happened?
- What Was Its Impact?
- What Are Its Contemporary Implications?
On October 16, 1975, the Senate resolved that it would not pass supplyuntil the Whitlam government agreed to call a general election. This meant the Commonwealth would soon run out of money to pay public servants, provide pensions, pay its contractors, and provide services. The Whitlam government decided to tough it out in the hope the Coalition op...
The reaction was relief for some, and outrage for others. The public and the media, being unfamiliar with constitutional history and the role and powers of vice-regal representatives, saw the Dismissal as unprecedented and shocking. A martyrdom narrative was constructed – that it was only ever Labor leaders who were dismissed (Whitlam and former NS...
One salutary consequence has been that both governments and oppositions have been more wary about taking matters to extremes, preferring to let conflicts be resolved in the ordinary course by elections. The Dismissal soured politicians’ taste for brinkmanship. It revealed the likely consequence of a loss of political legitimacy. Another somewhat ir...
Nov 11, 2020 · The National Archives of Australia provides access to records, including Cabinet documents, for the period of the Whitlam Government. Whitlam's account of these controversial events is given in The Truth of the Matter and in Abiding Interests. In 1985, on the tenth anniversary of the dismissal, he published The Whitlam Government 1972–1975.
Jul 14, 2020 · The Queen was not informed in advance about the 1975 dismissal of Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, newly released letters show. Whitlam's government was removed by the Queen's ...
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Nov 11, 2015 · On November 11, 1975, the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, dismissed the Labor government of Gough Whitlam. The government had been unable to get its budget through the Senate, in which it lacked ...
