kerr the cur

Thirty years ago today a deceitful, duplicitous, conniving and self-important old drunk named John Kerr sacked a democratically elected Government in Australia. He dismissed the Labor Government of Gough Whitlam. And he did it with the connivance of Opposition Leader  Malcolm Fraser and High Court Chief Justice Garfield Barwick.

The imperious, self-centred and supremely confident Whitlam walked into a trap. He did not see it coming. Even when he was dismissed he showed amazing lack of political skills. He went back to The Lodge and had a steak for lunch.  He could have got to the Queen first. He could have sacked Kerr. In the House of Reps he could have used tactics to thwart both Kerr and Fraser who had been skulking in the shadows at Yarralumla waiting for Kerr to fire Whitlam and install him as caretaker Prime Minister until Australia went back to the polls  a few weeks later.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating said this week that as a junior Minister in the Whitlam government he thought Gough should have placed Kerr under house arrest. And at the time – as the Blocking of Supply crisis grew – Kerr confided in people that he couldn’t warn Whitlam of the dangerous path the PM was going down because Whitlam, if warned, would have sacked him.

So he put self-preservation, and self-interest, over the interests of a Government elected by the Australian people. It is true that the Whitlam Government was increasingly on the nose with a lot of people. They were tiring of Gough’s “crash or crash through’ style. Tiring of the stuff ups and the scandals like the Khemlani loans affair.

Some people still use the Fraser victory at the forced election as justification  for what Kerr did. Not true. I am sure Fraser would have won the next election anyway.  But it was a sad day for a precious democracy, a black day for Australia, when a self-important potentate took it on himself to sack a government.

Whitlam should have seen it coming and got to the Queen first. The events of November 11, 1975 showed that Whitlam was a dreamer, a shaker, some say a visionary. But he turned out to be a lousy tactician and politician.

He thought he could stare down all opposition because he was Gough Whitlam. I hope he never played poker. Because bluffs do get called.

Friday, November 11, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005