Someone on soc.hstory.what-if asked some years ago: "WI Whitlam strikes first, by Advising the Queen to dismiss Kerr as G-G, before Kerr has a chance to dismiss Whitlam as PM?"
My response:
***
I am no expert on Australian constitutional law, so I will just quote David
Butler's discussion of this question on pages 320-321 of Howard R. Penniman,
ed., *Australia at the Polls: The National Elections of 1975* (Washington
DC: American Enterprise Institute 1977) in his "Appendix A: Politics and
the Constitution: Twenty Questions Left by Remembrance Day":
"(12) Can a Prime Minister Secure the Dismissal of a Governor General? There
has been only one recorded instance of this happening: in 1932 Eamon de
Valera, the newly elected prime minister of Ireland, asked the Crown to
change the governor general of Ireland who had been appointed on the advice
of the previous government and who had protested publicly about being treated
with discourtesy. But the opinion is strongly held that the Queen ought to
accede promptly to almost any request from a Commonwealth prime minister for
the dismissal of a governor general. It is open to question whether
'promptly' means that if Whitlam had been able to get to the phone at 1 p.m
on November 11, he could have insisted that the Queen (at 2 a.m. English
time) should have agreed on the spot to his request and taken immediate
action. If she had asked for time, the governor general could, of course,
have dismissed Whitlarn in the interim (though she might have asked for a
truce while she considered the matter).
"She would have been in a great difficulty in seeking advice. Her British
ministers and the British high commissioner in Canberra would be scrupulously
anxious to keep out of an Australian domestic concern. The Australian high
commissioner in London could only speak as the mouthpiece of the Canberra
government. Her own palace advisers, skilled though they may be about British
politics, would hardly be able to help on the Australian scene. The natural
contact, the governor general, though he might have a right to give his side
of the story, could hardly guide her on the proper action. She would be under
great pressure to give a speedy answer--and it is hard to see how she could
prudently refuse such a request.
"But if that is so, it raises a specter to hover over any future Australian
crisis. Will every governor general carry a letter of dismissal in his hand
when he confronts a prime minister? Will every prime minister carry a radio
telephone with an open line to Buckingham Palace?
"It makes nonsense of any picture of the governor general as an umpire, if he
can be first dismissed by any batsman whom he thinks of declaring out. But
there is, of course, a qualification to this picture. Even if the prime
minister technically has the power to get rid of an uncooperative governor
general, from a political point of view it would usually be very rash to
invoke such a power. Certainly if Whitlam, after dismissing Cairns and
Connor, were to have dismissed the governor general, his own appointee, the
howls of indignation, the innuendos of dictatorship, would have been
overwhelming. Despite his remarks on November 11 about contacting the Queen
(quoted on page 321 [1]) Whitlam himself later indicated that in the last
resort he would have chosen an election.
"But it is worth pursuing the question of what might have followed if Whitlam
had secured the dismissal of Sir John Kerr. To provide for the absence of a
governor general, it has been customary for some of the state governors to be
entrusted with a dormant commission to act as governor general. Until ten
years ago the task seems always to have been allotted to the senior of the
governors of New South Wales and Victoria largely because of geographical
convenience, and only these two governors held a dormant commission. Although
practice has changed somewhat, it seems that in 1975 the task would naturally
have fallen to Sir Roden Cutler, governor of New South Wales since 1966. But
it could have been transferred to, say, Sir Mark Oliphant of South Australia,
a Labor-appointed governor [2] Yet there can be no certainty that he or any
other governor would have proved more cooperative with Whitlam than Sir John
Kerr--if each in turn was obdurate, are we to envisage the successive
dismissal of one acting head of state after another? Even to outline this
fantasy underlines the hazardousness, perhaps even the unlikelihood, of an
actual dismissal of the governor general."
[1] "The governor general dismissed Whitlam summarily, it seems, because he
thought that any other course would lead to his own dismissal and a
continuance of the crisis. There is no doubt that Whitlam had given some
grounds for such a belief. His whole approach to the governor general had
been truculent and uncompromising. He had spoken in jest perhaps, of the
governor general as 'My Viceroy'; on October 17 he said 'Unquestionably the
Governor-General takes advice from his Prime Minister and no one else.' He
had moved swiftly to get the Queen to revoke the dormant governor general's
commission from Sir Colin Hannah on October 23 after the governor of
Queensland had publicly sided with the Senate. And in his press conference
on November 11 he was to say, when asked if he would contact London, 'The
Governor-General prevented me getting in touch with the Queen by just
withdrawing the commission immediately. I was unable to communicate with the
Queen, as I would have been entitled to if I had any warning of the course
the Governor-General was to take."
[2] In a footnote, Butler adds here, "It can readily be argued that the
process of appointing a new governor general would involve no more delay than
the routines of swearing in an acting governor general and that Whitlam could
in a matter of hours have got into office some immediately available
outsider. But that is by no means certain."
My response:
***
I am no expert on Australian constitutional law, so I will just quote David
Butler's discussion of this question on pages 320-321 of Howard R. Penniman,
ed., *Australia at the Polls: The National Elections of 1975* (Washington
DC: American Enterprise Institute 1977) in his "Appendix A: Politics and
the Constitution: Twenty Questions Left by Remembrance Day":
"(12) Can a Prime Minister Secure the Dismissal of a Governor General? There
has been only one recorded instance of this happening: in 1932 Eamon de
Valera, the newly elected prime minister of Ireland, asked the Crown to
change the governor general of Ireland who had been appointed on the advice
of the previous government and who had protested publicly about being treated
with discourtesy. But the opinion is strongly held that the Queen ought to
accede promptly to almost any request from a Commonwealth prime minister for
the dismissal of a governor general. It is open to question whether
'promptly' means that if Whitlam had been able to get to the phone at 1 p.m
on November 11, he could have insisted that the Queen (at 2 a.m. English
time) should have agreed on the spot to his request and taken immediate
action. If she had asked for time, the governor general could, of course,
have dismissed Whitlarn in the interim (though she might have asked for a
truce while she considered the matter).
"She would have been in a great difficulty in seeking advice. Her British
ministers and the British high commissioner in Canberra would be scrupulously
anxious to keep out of an Australian domestic concern. The Australian high
commissioner in London could only speak as the mouthpiece of the Canberra
government. Her own palace advisers, skilled though they may be about British
politics, would hardly be able to help on the Australian scene. The natural
contact, the governor general, though he might have a right to give his side
of the story, could hardly guide her on the proper action. She would be under
great pressure to give a speedy answer--and it is hard to see how she could
prudently refuse such a request.
"But if that is so, it raises a specter to hover over any future Australian
crisis. Will every governor general carry a letter of dismissal in his hand
when he confronts a prime minister? Will every prime minister carry a radio
telephone with an open line to Buckingham Palace?
"It makes nonsense of any picture of the governor general as an umpire, if he
can be first dismissed by any batsman whom he thinks of declaring out. But
there is, of course, a qualification to this picture. Even if the prime
minister technically has the power to get rid of an uncooperative governor
general, from a political point of view it would usually be very rash to
invoke such a power. Certainly if Whitlam, after dismissing Cairns and
Connor, were to have dismissed the governor general, his own appointee, the
howls of indignation, the innuendos of dictatorship, would have been
overwhelming. Despite his remarks on November 11 about contacting the Queen
(quoted on page 321 [1]) Whitlam himself later indicated that in the last
resort he would have chosen an election.
"But it is worth pursuing the question of what might have followed if Whitlam
had secured the dismissal of Sir John Kerr. To provide for the absence of a
governor general, it has been customary for some of the state governors to be
entrusted with a dormant commission to act as governor general. Until ten
years ago the task seems always to have been allotted to the senior of the
governors of New South Wales and Victoria largely because of geographical
convenience, and only these two governors held a dormant commission. Although
practice has changed somewhat, it seems that in 1975 the task would naturally
have fallen to Sir Roden Cutler, governor of New South Wales since 1966. But
it could have been transferred to, say, Sir Mark Oliphant of South Australia,
a Labor-appointed governor [2] Yet there can be no certainty that he or any
other governor would have proved more cooperative with Whitlam than Sir John
Kerr--if each in turn was obdurate, are we to envisage the successive
dismissal of one acting head of state after another? Even to outline this
fantasy underlines the hazardousness, perhaps even the unlikelihood, of an
actual dismissal of the governor general."
[1] "The governor general dismissed Whitlam summarily, it seems, because he
thought that any other course would lead to his own dismissal and a
continuance of the crisis. There is no doubt that Whitlam had given some
grounds for such a belief. His whole approach to the governor general had
been truculent and uncompromising. He had spoken in jest perhaps, of the
governor general as 'My Viceroy'; on October 17 he said 'Unquestionably the
Governor-General takes advice from his Prime Minister and no one else.' He
had moved swiftly to get the Queen to revoke the dormant governor general's
commission from Sir Colin Hannah on October 23 after the governor of
Queensland had publicly sided with the Senate. And in his press conference
on November 11 he was to say, when asked if he would contact London, 'The
Governor-General prevented me getting in touch with the Queen by just
withdrawing the commission immediately. I was unable to communicate with the
Queen, as I would have been entitled to if I had any warning of the course
the Governor-General was to take."
[2] In a footnote, Butler adds here, "It can readily be argued that the
process of appointing a new governor general would involve no more delay than
the routines of swearing in an acting governor general and that Whitlam could
in a matter of hours have got into office some immediately available
outsider. But that is by no means certain."