The newly released 'Palace letters' have revealed Sir John Kerr sacked the Whitlam government in 1975 without giving advance notice to the Queen, because "it was better for Her Majesty not to know".
The 211 letters exchanged between Sir John Kerr and the palace at the time of the dismissal are this morning being released by the National Archives of Australia, in Canberra.
The letters, penned between 1974 and 1977, had been locked up and labelled as private documents, but a High Court decision in May deemed them to be the property of the Commonwealth and thus able to be released.
Many hoped the the correspondence would answer some of the questions surrounding Australia's biggest constitutional crisis — and already, it it seems they will.
National Archives of Australia director-general David Fricker gave a brief overview of the correspondence this morning, ahead of the scheduled release.
He revealed, in one letter, Sir John wrote that he had to act without giving Gough Whitlam a chance to call an election, because he feared he would be sacked himself, and that would have put the Queen in a difficult position.
On November 20, 1975 — more than a week after the dismissal — he wrote:
"History will doubtless provide an answer to this question, but I was in a position where, in my opinion, I simply could not risk the outcome for the sake of the monarchy."If, in the period of 24 hours in which he [Whitlam] was considering his position he advised the Queen that I should be immediately dismissed, the position would then have been that either I would be, in fact, trying to dismiss him while he was trying to dismiss me - an impossible position for the Queen."
The Queen's private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris responded:
"If I may say so with the greatest respect, I believe in not informing the Queen of what you intended to do before doing it, you acted not only with constitutional propriety, but also with admirable consideration for Her Majesty's position."
"Again, with great respect, I think you are playing the vice-regal hand with skill and wisdom," Sir Martin wrote on November 4.
"Your interest in the situation has been demonstrated, and so has your impartiality.
In the lead-up to the dismissal, Sir John and Sir Martin discussed the evolving constitutional crisis — and in particular, what powers the governor-general had to intervene.
Altogether, the letters comprise 1,200 pages and include press clippings about events in Australia at the time.
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