The Dismissal in Australia 50 years on: Lessons on the fragility of democracy

Brendan Shaw

“It is a truism, perhaps, that the importance of an historical event lies not in what happened but in what later generations believe to have happened.”

-            The Hon Gough Whitlam MP, Former Prime Minister of Australia, 1973

"Democracy is not guaranteed. Stability and a proper functioning democratic system is not guaranteed. It needs to be worked at. It needs to be delivered."

-            Paul Kelly, Editor at Large, The Australian, 2020

“What I see is a disillusioned generation, doubtful that liberal democracy can do anything worthwhile. We need some new, fresh thinking – as well as a free and open environment in which to test, debate and challenge it – to prove it still can.”

-            Jemima Kelly, “The fashion for the young: turn to the radical right”, Financial Times, 12 October 2025

"In a world where democracy seems in decay, we could learn much from the vigilance of those who rallied as spring turned to summer in 1975."

-            Prof Frank Bongiorno & James Watson, "In a world with democracy in decline, we have much to learn from those who rallied against Whitlam’s dismissal", The Guardian, 8 November 2025

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Dismissal.

On 11 November 1975 Australia’s elected national government was dismissed by the then Governor-General, the Queen's representative in Australia's constitutional monarchy.

It was an extraordinary, momentous day in Australian political history.

The event split the nation. It was the most controversial Constitutional crisis in Australia’s short political history since the founding of Australia as a nation on 1 January 1901.

Possibly the most important lesson today for both Australian and international audiences from the Dismissal is how important, yet fragile, democracy is, and how important it is to engage with it and support it if we want to protect it.

At a time in our history when commentators are noting a growing apathy towards democracy in many countries, it is worth remembering that democracy, and the processes, institutions and norms that support it, are only as strong as the people's enthusiasm for them.

What happened on 11 November 1975?

Like many older Australians, I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing on the 11^th of November 1975.

I was a noisy, rambunctious 6-year-old boy at the time. I distinctly remember dancing around our family living room making a ruckus, with my mother and father shushing at me to be quiet as they watched the evening news on our black and white television. They were trying to make sense of what had happened that day.

On that day Australia’s then Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, dismissed then Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam and his Labor government, and appointed the then Opposition Leader, Malcolm Fraser, leader of the Liberal-National Coalition, as interim Prime Minister. On the same day Kerr also dissolved both houses of the Australian Parliament and called a general election. None of this was done on the advice of the Prime Minister.

It's important to remember here that the Whitlam Government was the democratically elected government, returned to power by the Australian people in an election a little over 18 months earlier. At the time, the Whitlam Government still commanded a majority in the House of Representatives, the House that determines who will form government in Australia.

The Whitlam Government had, however, been losing support in the polls. The days, weeks, months and years leading up to that day had seen a series of scandals, crises and stand-offs between the Whitlam Government and the Fraser-led Opposition. It culminated in the Opposition blocking ‘supply’ in the upper house of the Australian Parliament, the Senate, where the Opposition had a majority. Supply is the collection of money bills - or the financial legislation - that allows government to function in Australia.

Under Australia’s Constitution the Senate has more or less the same powers as the lower house, the House of Representatives, the latter being the house of Parliament where government is formed. A key difference between the powers of the House of Representatives and the Senate is that the Senate does not form government and cannot initiate money bills. The Senate can, however, delay, block or reject money bills created by the House of Representatives.

In the second half of 1975, the Opposition had been blocking the government’s finance bills in the Senate for weeks, ostensibly on the back of yet another crisis within the Government. The blocking of supply could potentially trigger a shutdown of federal government services in Australia.

After weeks of brinkmanship, it was this stand-off that led the Governor-General, Kerr, to dismiss Whitlam and his government on 11 November 1975, install Malcolm Fraser as interim Prime Minister, and dissolve Parliament to initiate a national election. All of this happened in a matter of hours on the same day. This was all done without the advice or prior knowledge of the elected Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, which went against the conventions in a Westminster system of government in a constitutional monarchy.

As it happened, Fraser and his conservative Liberal-National Coalition went on to win that subsequent election in a landslide in December 1975. In fact, that landslide election secured the Liberal-National Coalition a primary vote in the House of Representatives of 53%, the highest primary vote the Coalition has enjoyed in the post-war period of Australian history.

What were the circumstances before and after the Dismissal?

Historians, political scientists, political junkies, journalists, lawyers and conspiracy theorists have been debating, researching, reviewing and arguing about the causes, circumstances and lessons of the Dismissal ever since.

Even half a century later, we are still discovering new historical facts, evidence and theories about how it transpired, what occurred on the day, and what should have occurred. Numerous books have been written, countless articles penned, and aspects of the Constitution have been changed, in part learning the lessons of history for posterity.

Fifty years ago, the Whitlam Government still held a majority in the House of Representatives on the day of the Dismissal. There was even a successful vote of confidence on the floor of the House on the afternoon of that day calling on the Governor-General to reverse the appointment of Fraser as Interim Prime Minister and to re-instate Whitlam as Prime Minister with his government.

But Kerr ignored this. After the House of Representatives had passed its vote of confidence in Whitlam and his government, Kerr even refused to meet with the Speaker of the House of Representatives later that same day.

In a startling series of events, when the Speaker of Australia's House of Representatives, Gordon Scholes, arrived at Government House, the Governor-General's residence in Canberra, that same afternoon to convey the wishes of the House of Representatives, he found the gates to Government House locked. Kerr refused to meet with the Speaker for four hours, by which time it was too late for the House's views to be actioned because Kerr had by then already signed letters dissolving the House of Representatives and the Senate and calling for a general election.

One academic has even suggested that for those four hours, Australia was effectively an autocracy.

There is also speculation that in the weeks leading up to 11 November the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Fraser, had threatened Kerr with dismissal if he didn’t act to dismiss Whitlam and his government.

Did Sir John Kerr act alone, or did he have help?

On the day it occurred, many people at the time were unaware or unsure whether Kerr had received assistance and/or advice prior to the event. However, what’s become increasingly clear over the ensuring decades is that Kerr received advice from various sources in the days, weeks and even months before the Dismissal occurred.

For a start, the Liberal-National Coalition had been threatening to block supply for some years, with former Opposition Leader, Billy Snedden, threatening to do so in 1974. So, the concept of the Senate blocking supply, even the Governor-General dismissing the Prime Minister, had been talked about and discussed in the media prior to the Dismissal.

It has since become clear that the then Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, had been considering sacking Whitlam and his government for weeks and months leading up to the event. It has been reported that the Governor-General was taking briefings on national security concerns about the Government from Australia's military and security agencies in the weeks leading up to the Dismissal. He had also planned aspects of the Dismissal with the then opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser, in the days leading up to 11 November without the Prime Minister's knowledge.

It has also emerged in the ensuing decades since that Kerr took legal advice on the Dismissal from Justice Anthony Mason, one of the judges sitting on Australia’s High Court – the highest court in the Australian legal systems and the adjudicator on Constitutional matters. Mason’s support extended to drafting a letter of termination for Kerr to hand to Whitlam when he was planning to dismiss the Prime Minister (although, apparently, in the end Kerr chose to draft a different letter). Mason maintains that he advised Kerr to follow Constitutional convention and inform the Prime Minister, Whitlam, about his intentions to dismiss him if Whitlam did not call a general election. Kerr never did this.

In recent years, the release of the so-called ‘Palace Letters’, including the private correspondence between Sir John Kerr and Buckingham Palace in London, suggests that the Palace was at least aware that Kerr was privately considering sacking Whitlam for some time. Kerr communicated with Sir Martin Charteris, Private Secretary to the Queen, for months on the subject and regularly sent correspondence to the Palace on his thinking, including clippings from Australian newspapers on the merits of the Governor-General dismissing the Government. Kerr even asked the then Prince Charles in a face-to-face meeting whether Kerr would be protected in the event he moved against Whitlam. However, as far as I can tell, there is insufficient evidence to suggest the Palace knew exactly if, how or when Kerr was actually going to dismiss Whitlam prior to when he did it.

Finally, there have been other theories about whether foreign governments were involved in the Dismissal. For example, there have been various suggestions in the years since, some credible and others less so, that parts of the United States Government may have at least had prior knowledge of the plan to remove Whitlam, if not somewhat involved. Relations between the Whitlam government in Australia and the US Administration had been difficult in the years leading up to the Dismissal. While several respected journalists and historians have suggested circumstantial evidence of US Government involvement, no doubt, debate on theories like this will continue for years to come.

Lessons for the future of democracy for today

One of the major lessons coming out of the Dismissal for today’s generations is a reminder of the fragility of democracy, and how important it is to engage with and respect the institutions and processes that democracy needs. The institutions of democracy are only as strong as how the people engage in them, understand them and support them.

At a time when many people are having doubts about the virtues of democracy, we should remember that history demonstrates the importance of maintaining and nurturing it.

This doesn't mean that democracy and its institutions shouldn't evolve and change. They should. In the lead-up to the 50th anniversary, commentators have suggested that Australia's Constitution needs to be amended.

One of the remarkable features of Australia's democracy is that Australia's political institutions have remained resilient, and that the people at the time managed to express their views, have debates, hold an election for the people to decide and protest without more political unrest than there was.

The Dismissal reminds us that people need to understand the value of democracy, understand its processes and norms, and engage with the process. They need to care.

Paul Kelly’s comment that people need to remember how fragile democracy is and how important it is to maintain, cherish and support it is perhaps as important as ever.

Democracy can succeed and thrive as a form of government if people believe in it, support it and care about it.

Democracy is fragile, but with positive community engagement and support its very fragility is perhaps its greatest power.

#politics #democracy #Australia #Dismissal