The Palace Letters: The Queen, The Governor-General, and the Plot to Dismiss Gough Whitlam

by Jenny Hocking, Malcolm Turnbull (Foreword by)

Overview

What role did the queen play in the governor-general Sir John Kerr’s plans to dismiss prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1975, which unleashed one of the most divisive episodes in Australia’s political history? And why weren’t we told?

Under the cover of being designated as private correspondence, the letters between the queen and the governor-general about the dismissal have been locked away for decades in the National Archives of Australia, and embargoed by the queen potentially forever. This ruse has furthered the fiction that the queen and the Palace had no warning of or role in Kerr’s actions.

In the face of this, Professor Jenny Hocking embarked on a four-year legal battle to force the Archives to release the letters. In 2015, she mounted a crowd-funded campaign, securing a stellar pro bono team that took her case all the way to the High Court of Australia.

Now, drawing on never-before-published material from Kerr’s archives and her submissions to the court, Hocking traces the collusion and deception behind the dismissal, and charts the private role of High Court judges, the queen’s private secretary, and the leader of the opposition, Malcolm Fraser, in Kerr’s actions, and the prior knowledge of the queen and Prince Charles.

Hocking also reveals the obstruction, intrigue, and duplicity she faced, raising disturbing questions about the role of the National Archives in preventing access to its own historical material and in enforcing royal secrecy over its documents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781913348472
Publisher:	Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Publication date:	05/04/2021
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jenny Hocking is emeritus professor at Monash University, Distinguished Whitlam Fellow at the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University, and Gough Whitlam’s award-winning biographer.

Table of Contents

Foreword Malcolm Turnbull xi

Chapter 1 'In the shades of history' 1

Chapter 2 'I never had any doubts' 15

Chapter 3 'Australia owns its history 31

Chapter 4 Archival manoeuvres in the dark 51

Chapter 5 'Mr Whitlam … would inevitably suspect the U.K.'s involvement' 75

Chapter 6 Fourteen minutes 97

Chapter 7 'Who cares what the Queen thinks?' 115

Chapter 8 A royal whitewash of history 137

Chapter 9 'Constitutionally unthinkable' 157

Chapter 10 'My continued loyalty and humble duty' 169

Chapter 11 'You will do it good' 195

Chapter 12 'For the sake of the Monarchy' 221

Acknowledgements 233

Notes 235

Bibliography 257