Secret palace letters finally released after 45 years show Prince Charles was in the loop about the crisis engulfing the Whitlam government.
But the letters confirm that the heir-to-the-throne, the then 26-year-old Prince Charles was in the loop over the constitutional crisis and talking to the Governor-General Sir John Kerr over his fears that he would be sacked by Gough Whitlam, as previously suggested in historian Professor Jenny Hocking’s book.
In 1000 pages of documents, the key letter from Governor-General Sir John Kerr to Buckingham Palace on November 11, 1975 confirms the Queen was not consulted on the decision.The letter shows the Queen did not know about the decision to dismiss the Whitlam government.“I decided to take the step I took without informing the Palace in advance ... it was better for Her Majesty NOT to know,” Sir John Kerr’s letter states.
“If in the period of 24 hours in which he 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,’’ Sir John Kerr wrote.The trove of documents also reveals that on October 2, Sir John Kerr discussed his concerns that the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam would ask the Queen to sack him as Governor-General.
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Governor-General's intentions to dismiss Whitlam 'likely known to the palace' | Sky News AustraliaPolitical Consultant Jim Middleton says it is likely the Palace was aware Sir John Kerr wanted to dismiss Gough Whitlam.\n\nPrivate letters between Queen Elizabeth II and former Governor-General Sir John Kerr were released on Tuesday revealing Sir John dismissed then-prime minister Gough Whitlam without first informing the Queen. \n\nThe National Archives released more than 1,000 pages of documents from Mr Whitlam’s 1975 dismissal, including much sought-after correspondence between the Governor-General and Buckingham Palace. \n\n“I decided to take the step I took without informing the Palace in advance … it was better for Her Majesty NOT to know,' one of the letters penned by Sir John Kerr reads.\n\nMr Middleton said it was ‘unsurprising’ Sir John Kerr withheld his decision to act from the palace because the palace seemed to know such a dismissal was possible.\n\n“What we see in the palace papers so far … is that they were well aware it was on his mind and indeed there was communication between the palace and Sir John Kerr about this very matter,” he said.\n\n“The palace also knew that Sir John Kerr feared that Gogh Whitlam would sack him.”\n\nMr Middleton said the dismissal demonstrates an imbalance in the relationship between the governor-general, the Queen and the elected prime minister of Australia, and wonders whether the place should have given warning to Mr Whitlam. \n\n“On this occasion, the Queen chose to do and observe what her appointed representative wanted rather than what Australia’s elected Prime Minister desired,” he said. \n\n“Constitutionally, should the palace have informed Gogh Whitlam that their appointed representative the governor-general was worried about being sacked by the prime minister? \n\n“Should they have been informing him that dismissal was an option in some form or another?” \n
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