The Guardian: Palace letters: release of Queen's correspondence on Australian PM Gough Whitlam's 1975 dismissal – live
After a four-year legal battle by the historian Jenny Hocking, the National Archives of Australia releases letters. Follow updates
John Kerr did not warn Gough Whitlam of his intention to dismiss him, to prevent a situation where Whitlam asked the Queen to dismiss the governor general, another letter reveals.
We’re now seeing a letter from 20 November when Kerr wrote “a much fuller recount of everything” that had happened nine days earlier.
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.
“I simply could not risk the outcome for the sake of the monarchy.”
And now we are being shown the letter Sir John Kerr sent to Buckingham Palace on the day of the dismissal, after he had sacked Gough Whitlam. Kerr wrote:
I should say I decided to take the step I took without informing the palace in advance because, under the Constitution, the responsibility is mine, and I was of the opinion it was better for Her Majesty not to know in advance, though it is of course my duty to tell her immediately.
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https://ift.tt/eA8V8J by Naaman Zhou
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