Well, that’s another Remembrance Day passed and hopefully another year before we’ll be subjected to yet another cacophonic Boomer chorus of wailing about the Dismissal. Even worse, Boomer lefties trying to hitch the Dismissal to their Republic nonsense that Australian voters comprehensively rejected at a referendum. (What? Lefties refusing to accept the verdict of a democratic vote? Never!)
Oddly, of all people, current Governor-General Sam Mostyn has almost, kinda-sorta, defended her predecessor.
Governor-General Sam Mostyn has issued an extraordinary clarification of her position on the Dismissal, declaring she would abide by the conventions of the role following outspoken remarks about her predecessor John Kerr’s actions in 1975.
Ms Mostyn cleared up her assessment of Mr Kerr’s decision to sack Gough Whitlam during a speech to mark the 50th anniversary of the event at Old Parliament House.
Mostyn appears to be trying to walk with a foot in each paddock. Probably because she knows she’ll get disinvited from all the ‘smart’ dinner parties if she comes right out and defends Kerr. But she also clearly has at least developed some appreciation of the gravity of the Governor-General’s role, despite being Anthony Albanese’s hand-picked diversity hire. The role seems to do that: Kerr was, after all, Whitlam’s Old Labor Mate hand-pick for Governor-General.
The move came after Ms Mostyn recently told The Australian she believed the governor-general should hold the government to account if it was “moving in the direction of irresponsibility”.
“It is true that I could not imagine a situation in modern Australia, where a prime minister would be surprised or blindsided by the Governor-General in the circumstances that occurred in 1975,” Ms Mostyn said on Tuesday.
“Importantly, nor am I taking a more expansive approach to my role or redefining any of the core principles of responsible and representative government. These are incontrovertible principles and sit at the core of our democracy […]
“I don’t believe a governor-general should ever be in the business of surprising a prime minister,” Ms Mostyn said at the time.
“If a government starts to behave irresponsibly, the role of the governor-general will be to have those conversations with the prime minister, with the ministers of the crown, early enough to say ‘there’s trouble ahead’.
Which is all well and good, but she’s dreaming if she thinks Whitlam would have listened to anyone. Indeed, it’s almost certain that Whitlam would have had Kerr recalled, if he’d actually been warned to pull his head in. For Whitlam, “crash through or crash” was a hubristic mission statement of his own towering self-belief.
In fact, that’s exactly what Whitlam tried to do, except that Kerr beat him to the punch, as Liberal frontbencher and Constitutional expert Julian Leeser points out.
“Whitlam had flagged with the Governor-General earlier in the day that he would be coming to advise a half-Senate election. When Whitlam came to Government House, Kerr asked him if he intended to continue to govern without supply. Whitlam said he did. Kerr then said Whitlam could not continue to govern without supply and that Kerr would withdraw Whitlam’s commission.”
Mr Leeser said at that point, “Whitlam could have discussed the issues with Kerr and negotiated to call a general election with Whitlam remaining as Prime Minister, but instead Whitlam said, “I must get in touch with the Palace at once” — in other words, to get Kerr sacked”.
Whitlam was a victim of his own arrogance.
Leeser is backing the long-vilified Kerr.
Leeser, a lawyer who attended the Constitutional Convention as a 21-year-old in 1998 and is considered one of the parliament’s pre-eminent constitutional experts, addressed “claims of foul play about the Fraser opposition’s tactic of blocking supply to force an election”.
“But this very same tactic had been unsuccessfully attempted by the Labor Party in the Senate on 170 occasions between 1950 and 1970 in order to block a budget and force the then Liberal government to an election,” Mr Leeser said.
“Speaking in 1970, Opposition Leader Gough Whitlam said: ‘The Labor Party believes that … any government which is defeated by the parliament on a major taxation bill should resign… This bill will be defeated in another place. The government should then resign.
“And later: ‘Let me make it clear at the outset that our opposition to this budget is no mere formality. We intend to press our opposition by all available means on all related measures in both Houses … we will vote against the bills here and in the Senate. Our purpose is to destroy this budget and to destroy the government which has sponsored it. That was the Labor Party position on the blocking of supply, and the consequences that should follow, before 1975.’
Oh, but it’s different when they do it.
Leeser is also calling out Labor’s ‘stolen valour’, in claiming that Whitlam ‘changed Australia’. The changes had already been made: Whitlam merely and falsely claimed credit for them.
“For instance, the White Australia policy was ended by Harold Holt, it was John Gorton who established the Australian film industry, and it was Bill McMahon who stopped sending troops to Vietnam. But for all Whitlam’s derring-do, his government was beset by a range of scandals and financial mismanagement.”
And, under Robert Menzies, 80 per cent of university places were covered by scholarships. The key difference was that they had to be earned. All that Whitlam’s ‘free’ university did was tax working people in order to cement the generational privilege of middle-class dullards.
Kerr did the country an immeasurable service.
