Jenny Hocking - The Palace Letters: The Queen, the governor-general, and the plot to dismiss Gough Whitlam

The Palace Letters

Jenny Hocking is emeritus professor at Monash University, Distinguished Whitlam Fellow at the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University, and Gough Whitlams award-winning biographer. Professor Hocking first sought access to the Palace Letters from the National Archives in 2011 and again in 2015, but was refused. Aided by a crowd-funded money-raising campaign, and a stellar legal team prepared to work for her on a pro bono basis, she then took legal action to gain access to the documents. The Federal Court rejected her arguments in 2018, and the Full Federal Court rejected her appeal against this decision in 2019. She appealed this decision in the High Court on 4 February 2020, and the courts judgment in her favour was handed down on 29 May 2020.

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To my mother, Barbara Hocking

Reporter: Do you think the Queen knew about this course of action?

Gough Whitlam: I shouldnt think so, but I dont know.

Reporter: Do you think the governor-general took any advice from Buckingham Palace?

Gough Whitlam: I dont know. I dont know. I was not informed that he had.

11 November 1975

Contents

by Malcolm Turnbull

Chapter One:

Chapter Two:

Chapter Three:

Chapter Four:

Chapter Five:

Chapter Six:

Chapter Seven:

Chapter Eight:

Chapter Nine:

Chapter Ten:

Chapter Eleven:

Chapter Twelve:

Foreword

by Malcolm Turnbull,

prime minister of Australia, 201518

No less than Her Majesty the Queen was determined that the letters between Sir John Kerr and her private secretary should remain secret. By 2020, they were more than forty years old. If they had been cabinet documents, they would have been released in 2005. They concerned the greatest constitutional crisis in our history.

Had it not been for Jenny Hockings tenacity, they would have remained secret for years to come. One of the other actors in this drama was to say, I owe nothing to history. Certainly, history owes a great deal to Jenny Hocking.

I first became aware of the issue not long after the 2016 election. Professor Hockings application to the Archives for access to the documents had been rejected on the basis that they had been deposited on terms they should remain confidential until 2027 and that they were personal correspondence, as opposed to official government correspondence covered by the usual, timely rules for disclosure.

When I consulted the attorney-general, George Brandis, he told me that the Archives position was supported by legal advice from the then solicitor-general, Justin Gleeson. While I had great respect for Mr Gleesons erudition, I had no doubt that his advice must be wrong. The correspondence between the governor-general and the Queen is no more personal than correspondence between the governor-general and the prime minister.

However, it was very clear that the Queen, or at least her courtiers, were adamantly opposed to disclosure. Their concern, so we were advised, was not about the content of the correspondence, but that it could set a precedent for the disclosure of correspondence between Her Majesty and her viceroys in those remaining Commonwealth countries that, like Australia, retain the monarch of the United Kingdom as their head of state. Her Majestys position was that the documents should remain confidential until the earlier of 2027 or the end of the Queens reign.

When Professor Hocking challenged the Archives decision in the Federal Court, I had no doubt that she would be successful. That seemed to offer an elegant solution. There would be no need for the Palace to break its own precedent, nor would the Australian government be obliged to take issue with Her Majestys wishes.

While Justice Griffiths was considering the matter, I did explore the possibility of my formally advising Her Majesty that she should agree to release the letters. I was satisfied, however, that this advice would have been most unwelcome better to await the resolution of the issue in the Federal Court.

However, the elegant solution was denied us when Justice Griffiths found in favour of the Archives in March 2018. Again, I had no doubt this would be reversed on appeal. By the time the Full Bench gave its decision in February 2019, I was no longer prime minister, but its judgment was equally astounding. Two of the three judges upheld Justice Griffiths.

Happily, common sense prevailed in the High Court, and Professor Hocking was triumphant in May 2020. The elegant solution was finally presented, but not without considerable trouble and expense for Professor Hocking, for which we should all be most grateful.

The letters are fascinating because they give a contemporaneous account of Kerrs thinking during the lead-up to the constitutional crisis and his sacking of Whitlam. But they are acutely dispiriting as well. Kerrs sycophantic grovelling is stomach-churning. But, worst of all, they show him bringing the Queen and her private secretary into his confidence in a manner he did not extend to the prime minister of Australia.

This was Kerrs greatest mistake. He should have taken Whitlam into his confidence and set out the course of action he would be obliged to follow if, indeed, Whitlam was not able to secure supply. He did not do so, as he acknowledges, because he was worried that Whitlam would ask the Queen to sack him. Even if this apprehension was a realistic one, it was no excuse. Kerr, in short, put the retention of his own job ahead of his duty to be honest and open with his own prime minister.

For many years, Australian monarchists have argued that the governor-general is the real head of state, and that the Queens only role is to appoint, or remove, the governor-general on the advice of the prime minister. This correspondence shows the governor-general as an anxious country manager reporting back to head office, seeking not just approbation for, but guidance on, his conduct in a worsening political crisis.

The content of Kerrs letters did not surprise me, but the replies from the Palace did. I had expected Sir Martin Charteris would reply with little more than a brief, polite acknowledgement. That would have been the more tactful response. But, as Professor Hocking elaborates, Charteris and Kerr discussed the political and constitutional circumstances of the time in considerable detail.

Kerr had joined Prince Charles at independence celebrations in Papua New Guinea in September 1975, and had raised directly with Charles the possibility of Whitlam asking the Queen to sack him and appoint a more compliant governor-general. He was clearly seeking to find out what the Queens reaction would be, and the answer came back in a letter from Charteris on 2 October. The Queen would, Sir Martin, wrote, take most unkindly to it. There would be considerable comings and goings, but I think it is right that I should make the point that at the end of the road The Queen, as a Constitutional Sovereign, would have no option but to follow the advice of her Prime Minister.