The Dismissal - Episode 1

Episode 1: Prof Jenny Hocking & John Menadue

In this first episode of Pearlcast from Pearls and Irritations, we begin a powerful three-part series on one of the most consequential events in Australia’s political history: the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Gough Whitlam’s dismissal, Editor Catriona Jackson is joined by two guests who bring unparalleled insight and lived experience to the conversation: Professor Jenny Hocking, respected historian and author of The Palace Letters, and John Menadue, former head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Whitlam and Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations.

Together, they explore the political and constitutional crisis that culminated in the dismissal, tracing its origins to the moment Whitlam was elected. The episode reveals how conservative forces – both within and beyond Parliament – worked to undermine the legitimacy of a democratically elected Labor government.

The panellists discuss the Coalition's struggle to accept being in opposition, how media mogul Rupert Murdoch influenced the crisis, and the personal ambitions, insecurities, and manipulation that happened behind the scenes of the greatest constitutional crisis in Australian history.

“Any democratic system depends on the willingness of an opposition to accept defeat.” – John Menadue

“What was done in ’74 forms a model for what Kerr should have done in ’75.” – Jenny Hocking

“Rupert Murdoch played an extraordinarily destructive role… I haven’t spoken to him for 50 years.” – John Menadue

For more great analysis and insights on The Dismissal visit Pearls and Irritations -  subscribe to the newsletter here. 

Hosted by Catriona Jackson

Produced by Martyn Pearce

Transcript

Catriona Jackson: 0:13

Hello and welcome to the very first edition of Pearlcast, the podcast from the team at Pearls and Irritations. We begin with a topic close to our hearts, the dismissal of the Whitlam government, which is fifty years ago, this November 11. We have three of the most authoritative sources in the nation taking part. Our editor-in-chief, John Menadue, the living link to the scandal, and the nation's top public servant at the time. Jenny Hocking, author of The Palace Letters and the Nation's preeminent dismissal historian, and Brian Toohey in our third episode, the journalist who has dug deepest into the darkest side of the events. Every Australian over fifty, no matter your political convictions, will remember where you were when you heard Mr. Whitlam had been sacked. Fifty years later, we still don't have all the facts. For our first in a three-part series, Jenny Hocking and John Menadue join me today. Welcome to you both. We'll spend this edition looking into the the context, the background to the most what has been described as one of the most dramatic days in Australian political history. So look, let's to begin with, let's go back to that time, to the early 1970s when the government was first elected. For those who weren't around, it was no ordinary election win, was it, Jenny? Can we start with you?

Jenny Hocking: 1:33

Yeah, thanks, Catriona, and uh thanks for inviting me on this very first Pearlcast. It's a great honour and good luck with the series. It's astonishing that we are still talking about the dismissal 50 years later, and still, as you say, unraveling what really happened at that time. It was indeed no ordinary victory because this was the first Labour government in 23 years. And that's just an extraordinary period of time. Um, and I well recall my own parents who were uh very much involved in um political matters and very concerned, and how dramatic that was for them that finally my father said the party I actually voted for finally came into office. And I think in terms of the Australian polity and in terms of the dismissal, that's actually a really critical context because what that did was set up a process in the post-large in most of the post-war period in which we'd become used to even ossified in our structures of governance around the conservative way of doing government, the expectations of government, the relationships with the arms of government, and in particular with the senior levels of the public service. And I think many of those senior public servants did struggle in terms of dealing with an incoming Labour government for the first time, and particularly one that was so avowedly reformist as the Whitlam Labour government was, with a really strong, detailed program for change. And they simply were not able to deal culturally or politically with that big shift. And many of the listeners would be familiar with, I think, the legendary antagonism between the head of treasury, for example, Sir Fred Wheeler, and uh and the Whitlam government, and Whitlam personally in particular. So there are a lot of tensions uh associated with such a long period of unbroken conservative rule that also led, I think, very strongly, to the inability of the now opposition, the coalition, to deal with the fact that they were on the opposition benches for the first time in 23 years. And I think it's fair to say they were not happy about that. And the Liberal leader in the Senate, Senator Reg Withers, articulated that very soon after the government was elected and described the victory of the Whitlam government as an aberration and said it was the result of the electoral insanity of the two largest states, New South Wales and Victoria, which is an enormous insult to the voting public. But it also gives you an indication of how uh the coalition were unable to accept the fact and the legitimacy of the Whitlam Government, and that played out through the entire three years of the Whitlam Government.

Catriona Jackson: 4:29

John, we're unbelievably lucky to have you with us today, not just because your Pearls and Irritations, editor-in-chief, but because you were in there on the ground floor. You'd worked for Whitlam as his principal private secretary for roughly a decade beforehand, but now you are his head of the public service. It was an enormous cultural shift for Australian society, but also the bureaucracy and the Australian people.

John Menadue: 4:52

I think that well, that's right. And as Jenny has uh put it, it was um a real sea change uh in Australian political life after twenty-three years. The fact is, I think, that the coalition was they had a born to rule attitude towards government. That as Senator Withers uh pointed out, it was an aberration, uh some a point of insanity on behalf of the electorate, and it had to be redressed. Also that in the period of the Whitlam government, three years, more bills had been rejected by the Senate than in the previous seventy-two years, which was an extraordinary situation. And clearly uh the excitement that we had continued for a while, but we didn't understand the traps that an opposition that was uh not a loyal opposition, it was unprepared to accept a change of government. And ev any democratic system depends on the willingness of of an opposition to accept defeat. And the Conservative government at that time and that then opposition did not accept the fact that a Labour government was legitimate.

Catriona Jackson: 6:07

So it's t three elections in in a very short period of time. Uh Whitlam called the men on the opposition benches the men of yesterday. It was all it was all on, wasn't it? John, reading through the history, it's really quite startling how early talk of a dismissal started. It wasn't just when the budget got stalled, was it?

John Menadue: 6:26

No, it was certainly as we mentioned about Senator Withers uh back in uh early nineteen seventy-three. Uh that it also was repeated, that speculation, which led it in nineteen early nineteen seventy-four, that the Senate might refuse supply on that occasion. In fact they didn't, uh but Gough Whitlam headed them off by going to a double dissolution because that was lurking in the back of his mind that the that supply might be refused. But the Governor General has lucky the time agreed to a double d dissolution, and that issue of supply dismissal at least was put aside for a period, but of course it returned dramatically about eighteen months later.

Catriona Jackson: 7:12

Jenny, w where did where the the key the key parts of the story start for you? Well, I think they really start at the beginning.

Jenny Hocking: 7:19

I think it was Graeme Fruedenberg who said the moves towards dismissal began with the election of the Whitlam government. And I think, you know, from what we've heard about Senator Reg Withers' comments, that's that's right. And we have to remember that the Senate did not go to an election in 1972. And so when Whitlam first came to office, he's dealing with a Senate that was elected as long ago as five years earlier. So, you know, half the Senate had been elected in 1970 and the other half in 1967. So they were of a time, completely different political time from 1972. They were really, I think Whitman just sort of described them dismissively as the men of yesteryear, and they were not in tune with the political shift that had occurred quite dramatically through those early years of the 1970. And of course, the coalition together with the DLP had a clear majority in 1972 in the Senate. And as John mentioned, it was a remarkably obstructive uh Senate at that time. And, you know, the largest number of bills were rejected in every year of the Liberal of the Whitlam government that had been elected, that had been uh rejected in any other year, and the total being more than in the previous 72 years put together, it's quite extraordinary. But at the same time, more bills were passed through each session of parliament than had been passed in a single session before. So you get this sort of duality, which is a really activist government that is actually achieving things despite the extraordinary level of obstruction in the Senate. Now, in this, the 1974 push to have an election because of blocking supply, which, as John said, never actually got to that point, but got very close in the Senate, is absolutely critical for two reasons. The first is that it shows that this planning to use the numbers in the Senate in order to force the government back to an election by blocking supply began very early on in the term of the Whitlam government. And the opposition in the Senate in 1974 moved to put a motion to begin that process during budget discussions. And it was only because of the very different role played by the Governor General then, Governor General Haslock, who had worked with Whitlam during that day very closely and very carefully in order to go back into the Senate through Senator Lionel Murphy and present to the Senate the fact that the Governor General had accepted the Prime Minister's advice to call a double dissolution, conditional on supply being passed. And that is absolutely vital because this is what Kerr should have done the following year and did not. What was done in 74 forms a model for what Kerr should have done in 1975. And it's always astonished me that that's not brought to stronger attention because uh uh Haslock and Whitlam really averted a crisis in 1974 by ensuring that supply was passed then by the Senate. The Prime Minister's advice was accepted, crisis was averted, and we had an election. And the critical point, which we'll probably talk about, is how the Senate was then constituted in 1974 after the 1974 election, because that was a very big change.

Catriona Jackson: 10:31

Absolutely, Jenny. So you've brought in one of the key other critical players. One of the things, again, doing the research that really strikes me is how personality-driven this whole thing is. You've got Whitlam, this great reformer, who, let's say politely, doesn't suffer fools, Fraser who's conservative in a sense, but running a party in shock, let's put it that way, in shock that they're not in government anymore. Then you've got John Kerr, a man who you could describe as possibly vain, biddable, you know, a number of things. I'll let you use some describers. Um but it was an extraordinary mix, wasn't it? And a number of other personalities as well. I I'm interested, John, in in your first impressions of Kerr. You met with him frequently, didn't you?

John Menadue: 11:12

Uh yes. As Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet, I had meetings with him probably every five or six weeks to he wanted to be kept informed of uh uh what was happening uh in the Parliament uh and the bureaucracy. So I got to understand what sort of a person uh he was. He was very insecure. I think that's the one thing that stands out above all else. And even after the dismissal, his insecurity was reflected in the fact he was concerned that someone might jump over the fence at Yarralumla and was security adequate at the time. And he also brought his wife into meetings that I was having with the Governor General Kerr, this was after the election. I was just astounded that his wife I think his wife, second wife, was a stronger personality than he was, uh and he felt that he needs some s uh reassurance and support. But coming back to the days uh before the dismissal, I came to the view that he was a very w vain and weak man. And it's very clear that people were able to manipulate him. And the one person in particular that did that, I think, was Sir Martin Chartres, which uh Jenny has uh provided information and background through the palace letters that he saw Kerr as a weak, vain man who could be manipulated. And that's what happened in the lead up to the dismissal. He was easy ploy f for Charteris, the Queen's private secretary, uh, to achieve a result uh that otherwise may not have been achieved.

Catriona Jackson: 12:51

So, Jenny, a perfect segue to you, author of the the The Palace Letters, we have a vain man possibly being pushed to take a larger role than is reasonable by a a pushy wife. Uh sorry I I hesitate to use that expression, but a forceful woman uh as his wife, uh who's a bit of a queen lover as well. It it's not a great recipe in in the context of a reformist government, is it?

Jenny Hocking: 13:14

Oh look, absolutely not. And I think what we know from the palace letters between Kerr and the Queen through her private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, in the months leading up to the dismissal, bear that out. Uh, I mean, they're absolutely shocking to read that Kerr is uh, I think, you know, it's a national humiliation to read um what Malcolm Turnbull described as his sycophantic groveling before Sir Martin Charteris. Um, you know, he's seeking advice and approbation from even the most banal of the decisions he has to make as Governor General, right through to the extreme decisions he makes over the unprecedented use of the reserve powers to dismiss the government. But very early on, he even asks Charteris uh what he should wear to his investiture. Should he wear a lounge suit or or a dinner suit? You know, it's it's absolutely embarrassing to read these letters. And certainly Kerr was weak, but he was but he was also quite besotted by the trappings of monarchy and quite determined to take that role very literally for himself as Governor General, and to see that as a role that contained great power. Um, it's interesting that Kerr spoke to before he took the position, because we've got to remember he was a Chief Justice of the New South Wales Supreme Court. So to see him take a position after barely a year in that role, as what many people saw as a sort of nominal role as Governor General was quite unusual. But he spoke to both Sir Anthony Mason, who played a very critical role in the dismissal, High Court Justice, and uh Sir Robert Hope, and discussed with them the nature of the role of Governor General. And they both told him from their own reports that this was almost a dead-end job, that he was much better off remaining as Chief Justice, that it was a job uh that was fairly nominal. And Kerr disagreed. And Mason recalls him pointing quite specifically at the capacity uh through the reserve powers for this to be a role of some power and telling both Mason and Hope that. So there's no doubt that Kerr was attracted to notions of this is a powerful position. He also argued over things before he took the position up. He argued for a larger salary, he argued for the introduction of a pension for the Governor General, and he argued for a larger dress allowance for himself and Lady Kerr. And Whitlam agreed to all of these. And Kerr kept him waiting for several months before he decided to take the position. And Whitlam had actually approached initially Sir Paul Hasluck to continue as Governor General, and he'd actually asked three other people to take it as well. So history might have been very different if any one of those had accepted the position of Governor General. But we ended up with Sir John Kerr with I think you could not have found somebody less suited to that position as Governor General.

Catriona Jackson: 16:07

So, Jenny, we'll come back to uh the the multiple sources of advice pouring into John Kerr as as things head up. But John, I want to come to you. You've got a really clear understanding of what kind of man Goff Whitlam was. Why did he believe so comprehensively that John Kerr wouldn't ever dirty on him?

John Menadue: 16:27

Lawyers are inclined to believe that other lawyers will act honourably. And Gough, I think, was fascinated with lawyers, and if you look at all a whole range of his appointments, that there were a fair number of lawyers there, that they could present a case, understand the arguments. I think that was an important factor. He'd known uh John Kerr somewhat uh earlier, not unterribly well, although later he said it to me that Mark was the best appointment he ever made and uh John Kerr was the worst, and I think that was uh probably right. Interestingly I was present w when I was working for Rupert Murdoch, that John Kerr came for a lunch at uh Holt Street in Sydney. And uh that was a very pleasant lunch, and obviously Rupert Murdoch was somewhat impressed with John Kerr because he was quite articulate. And afterwards um Ru Rupert said to me and others, I wonder if John Kerr would be good as an editor of the Australian which I s which set me back and I I I let it pass. Um I saw and what was to uh occur later, a quite important relationship developing between Kerr and Murdoch, but I think started back when he thought he might be a good uh editor of the Australian. But there were other things to come.

Catriona Jackson: 17:54

So you you worked also as general manager for News Limited for for Rupert Murdoch back in the day and and tried to uh Murdoch supported Whitlam in the 72 election. You tried to make sure they had good relations as any Prime Minister should with a a man of that much power.

John Menadue: 18:11

It was. It was quite e exciting working for Murdoch in the lead up to the seventy-two campaign. He was very much on side and I established, I think, a very quite good personal relationship with Rupert, and I admired what he was doing in those days. He was young and open, but I found later that he was very much a a key player in the dismissal and his relationship uh with Kerr. Rupert Murdoch was always interested in politics. He was a bit of a frustrated politician, and I think he still shows that. I know he spoke to me about the possibility he might run as a candidate for he didn't say what party in Australia. You know, it was a stupid suggestion, but it indicated to me he's interested in politics. But coming back to the lead up to the dismissal, we mentioned earlier the speculation about a possibility of a dismissal or double dissolution back in nineteen seventy-four. At the end of nineteen seventy-four, Rupert, while he was h holding his normal soirees as we used to call them, at uh his uh property in Cavern, just out of Canberra, editors from around the world, managers and so on. I I wasn't there, but uh I received a report from Ian Fitchett, uh who was sort of the duan of the press gallery at the time. And he said that uh at that soiree that Rupert was running at Cavern, that John Kerr arrived late in the afternoon. He had clearly had a few drinks by then, which was a nature of uh John Kerr. And there was discussion left over from the possibility of uh a dismissal or s or refusal of supply. And Rupert persuaded John Kerr to s discuss perhaps the options that might be available to a Governor General if uh supply was refused. And Kerr volunteered a whole range of options, including dismissal. Uh nothing particularly happened uh for some time afterwards, but Rupert was pretty clear in his own mind having that sort of unofficial briefing from the Governor General. We also know that after that meeting at Cavern, that Rupert Murdoch had a meeting with Marshall Green, the American ambassador, and Rupert Murdoch told Green that at a f future date because of the economic difficulties that the government could be dismissed. The ambassador reported to Washington about that, and it wasn't until we uh saw the uh the the letters, uh Assange uh letters, that we learnt of that. But one difficulty was that Murdoch was spelt with a K and not with an H. So the search engines didn't pick it up uh for about twelve months. But there it was when it was finally picked up that Murdoch told the Americ the Murdoch told the American ambassador that the government would be dismissed at some time uh in the future. In the lead up to the dismissal, uh about four days beforehand, I had a lunch with Rupert Murdoch and Ken Cowley, who was his manager for over twenty years uh in Australia. That was a pleasant lunch at uh Manuka, and I still had good relations with Rupert, although after dismissal and I haven't had any relationship for fifty years. And I think Rupert's happy with that and probably and I am as well. But at the lunch, uh Rupert once again wanted to talk politics, and uh he asked me what I thought would happen. I said I thought there'd be a half Senate election. Said, no, John, there'll be there'll be a double dissolution, the government will be dismissed. And I sort of took a step back. I said, no, no, no, no, that's uh that will not happen. And then partly because of a personal relationship he had with me, he said to me, John, don't worry, you'll be appointed ambassador to Japan. This was twelve months before I was appointed. That shoe didn't quite drop until I was appointed to Japan. But very clearly Rupert had an intimate knowledge of the likelihood of a dismissal. He threw his papers wholeheartedly behind Malcolm Fraser in the dismissal. Rupert Murdoch can't help playing politics, and he played an extraordinarily d destructive role in this, and not surprisingly, I haven't spoken to him for fifty years.

Catriona Jackson: 22:59

So that tells us that Rupert Murdoch was absolutely central. It also tells us he must have been in contact with Fraser, because it was Fraser as has then Prime Minister who appointed you as ambassador to Japan. So he was sitting right at the centre of a little circle with Kerr having deeply inappropriate conversations with him, him them talking to the Americans, and then talking to Fraser. It's it's an extraordinary web we're seeing develop. Jenny, how do you weigh those spheres and and and great big chunks of of influence on on as we're getting close to the the days before the actual the 11th?

Jenny Hocking: 23:36

Look, I think what it points to is what so much of the material we've very you know gradually been able to eke out of the archives around this have told us. And that is that the dismissal was a very carefully planned, uh very protracted planning, had its first run in 1974 in the federal sphere in any case, and uh was meticulously put together, as everything that John has said about that fascinating discussion uh series with Rupert Murdoch and Kerr indicates. And it it does show that what is was initially presented as a sort of immediate response to the contingency of supply being blocked, Kerr had no other option, he acted alone, etc. It took several years for that to unravel, but that was a very strong part of what I call the dismissal narrative that was put forward at that time, that no one else was involved, Fraser didn't know, and certainly the Queen and the Palace were not involved. Now, you know, as I say, we've we've we've long since re recognized that it was far more uh there was collusion, there was deception. Nobody would deny that, even Justice Mason acknowledges that um courtesied the Prime Minister and warned him against doing so. But if I could just come back to one really important point in the aftermath of the 1974 election that gets to the mechanics of the decision or how it actually was able to happen. The really important outcome of the 1974 election, of course, was in the numbers on the Senate, because this was where the government was going to stand or fall, funnily enough. Governments are normally made in the House of Representatives, but for the Whitlam government, all eyes were on the Senate and whether supply would be blocked. The numbers that were returned in the Senate in 1974 meant that the opposition could not defer supply. It did not have the numbers to defer supply. It had the numbers to reject them, but not to defer it. And given that there were some uh Liberal senators who had made absolutely clear they were not prepared to reject supply, they would only defer it. That would apparently solve their consciences. They could pretend they hadn't really brought down a government by deferring. They needed a shift in the electoral outcome of 1974 because they only had 29 plus one of the independents made 30. They needed 31 votes to defer supply because you have to pass an amendment. That amendment says we will not pass the consider the bills until you go to an election. And so supply was never actually even voted on in 1975. It was in limbo with this constant return to the House of Representatives demanding an election. How that was achieved was when two Labor members, uh, Lionel Murphy uh was appointed to the High Court and replaced with a non-Labor appointee, Cleaver Bunton, and Bunt had supported the government on supply. But with the death of Burt Milliner, a Queensland Labour Senator, Joe Bielke Peterson, uh Premier of Queensland, uh his government in the Queensland Parliament replaced Milliner with someone who was determined, in his own words, to go to Canberra to bring down the Whitlam government, and that was a renegade right-wing Labour member, Pat Field, who was promptly expelled from the Labour Party. He was from the DLP arm of the Labor Party, and determined, as he said himself, to bring down the Whitlam Government. Now, the loss of that critical Senate seat for the Labour Party is what gave the coalition the numbers in the Senate to the first supply. And that is why Steele Hall, the independence, the Liberal Movement Senator from South Australia, described it to Malcolm Fraser as marching into power over a dead man's corpse. So you can see that there was very strong language, very strong feelings about what was being done to the conventions of political practice in Australia at that time, particularly with the remaking of the Senate, so that it no longer reflected the electoral outcome of the 1974 election. Without that, the dismissal and the blocking of supplier could not have happened.

Catriona Jackson: 27:43

So an extraordinary set of circumstances there, as you outline, Jenny. They have a the first go in 74, it doesn't work. A confluence of circumstances with resignations, dismissals, the Queenslands playing jiggery pokery with who gets appointed. They have a second go in 75 and it works.

Jenny Hocking: 28:00

Well, it does show how much planning there was, how careful it was. The other thing that Kerr makes very clear, and you know, he said he has said this in interviews previously, Fraser himself has acknowledged it. Um, there's an extraordinary manuscript in the uh archives of an unfinished book that Kerr was working on uh when he died. And in that he says quite explicitly that Fraser threatened him. He uses that word, threatened to expose him. And Fraser himself used those words when I interviewed him about it, and he said he put enormous pressure on Kerr. I think this is just immensely improper. The idea that a leader of the opposition is putting such extreme pressure on a governor general to act against the government that retains its uh at all times the confidence of the House of Representatives and to encourage the governor general to act against it is simply extraordinary. But Kerr uses even stronger language in this uh uh unpublished manuscript uh in the National Archives. And there's no doubt this was another source of immense pressure on him at the time. And it was coming from several forces, as we know. The palace, he felt pressured, he felt pressured from Fraser. And I think the issues that John has raised that the all-encompassing, the incessant importuning on Kerr from the media, particularly the Murdoch media, was putting enormous pressure on him. And he includes in some of his letters to the Queen copies of many of these articles from uh the press that are tell uh saying the Governor General should act. And he sends this across to Chartres and the Queen, um, I think as a way of saying, look, people expect me to act, and getting a sense from the palace how how they would feel about that.

Catriona Jackson: 29:44

So much more to discuss, Jenny. Lucky we have a second and third episode. Thank you so much, John and Jenny. In our next episode, the day of the dismissal itself, the day Sir John Kerr shocked a nation by sacking a democratically elected Prime Minister. Whitlam. Would later call it a coup d'etat. You've been listening to Pearlcast. We are really keen in our first one to have feedback from listeners. Please do send us your comments and suggestions at Pearlcast at PNI.com. We'll put that on our website. Very keen to hear what listeners think. I'm Catriona Jackson. Until next time.