November 9, 2025 • 14 mins
Tomorrow marks fifty years since the infamous moment when a clearly nervous spokesperson for the Governor General stood on the steps of Parliament House and announced that Gough Whitlam had been dismissed.
But what happened on Remembrance Day in 1975 wasn’t just an unprecedented political crisis — it was a warning. One that exposed the fragility of our constitution and the lingering power of a system designed to serve the monarchy, ahead of the people.
Since then, nothing has changed to stop it all from happening again.
Today, press gallery veteran Paul Bongiorno, on what the dismissal revealed about Australia’s democratic foundations – and why he says we need to become a Republic to stop history repeating.
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Guest: Press gallery veteran Paul Bongiorno
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Robert.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Tomorrow marks fifty years since this infamous moment when a
clearly nervous spokesperson for the Governor General stood on the
steps to Parliament House and announced that Gough Whitlam had
been dismissed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Why his Excellency's commanded, Malcolm Fraser pray, Minister John Arker,
Governor General, God.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Save the Queen. But what happened that day in nineteen
seventy five wasn't just an unprecedented political crisis. It was
a warning one that exposed the fagility of our constitution
and the lingering power of assistant design to serve the
monarchy ahead of the people.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Well, may we say, God save the Queen?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well cause nothing well say with the Governor General.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Since then, nothing has changed to stop this from happening again.
I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to seven.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
AM today Press Gallery veteran Paul bon Jorno what the
dismissal revealed about Australia's democratic foundations and why he says
we need to become a republic to stop history repeating.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's Monday, November ten. Paul, where were you when yous
broke that Whitlam had been dismissed.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I was in Woongong, New South Wales working for wind
Television News and we just completed an interview for a
news item that night in fairy Meadow was the suburb
I remember it world And we just got back into
the news car and I turned the radio on. It
must have been about three o'clock and the lead story
was that the Governor General had sacked the Prime Minister,
(01:57):
Gough Whitlam.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
What a day it's been in Except for the most
hardened of political journalists, it's been a mind bending experience.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Now we were taken aback, although there had been speculation,
you know, for a week or so that maybe this
could happen, because the newspapers, particularly the Australian, but also
the leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Fraser, were calling for
the Governor General to act and to end the political
(02:25):
crisis that was happening due to the fact that the
opposition in the Senate was blocking the supply bills for
the government.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I asked the Prime Minister for the second time whether
he and his government would resign for the second time.
He replied that he would not. The opposition now has
no choice. We will use the power vested in us
by the Constitution and delay the passage of the government's
money bills through the Senate until the Parliament goes to
(02:55):
the people.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And in the days that followed you actually interviewed with
them about what had hun folded. Can you tell me
about that interaction that interview.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, well, Whitlam had agreed while he was Prime Minister
to turn up to a multicultural event in the Woollongong
Town Hall on the Saturday night and he stuck to
this appointment. And the news editor who said you better
take a crew and see if you can nab Whitlam.
So we went over to the Woollongong Town Hall and
only by the time we got there there was an
(03:26):
ABC four Corners set up with Kerry O'Brien being the reporter,
and they'd organized to do a live interview into four Corners,
which in those days went to air on Saturday night.
So while they were setting all that up, I went
up to Whitlam and I said, mister Whitlam, I'm from
the local TV news. Can we do a quick interview
with you after mister O'Brien has finished with you, And
(03:48):
he said certainly, And he asked me my name, and
I told him, and he said, ah, Italian, and I
nodded my head. I didn't say see, I could have anyway.
When the interview began, he started off and he said,
you know, there has been a coup data or in
Italian a colpa Dustato, and then he went on to
smell out that in his view, Sir John Kerr had
(04:11):
not only acted improperly, but that he'd used powers that
were at best moot, and that certainly Labor didn't believe
existed any longer. So in Whitlam's mind, and in the
mind of course of many, this was the equivalent of
a violent, although non bloody, change of government.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
The coup Data had succeeded, the punch had come off,
so Whitlam called it a coup. How was it that
dismissal was able to happen in the first place.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, a dismissal was able to happen in the first
place due to the fact that we share the same
constitutional arrangements as what they call a constitutional monarchy. And
that means that the monarch who is the head of
state or indeed her depth or representative in Australia, acts
on the advice of their prime Minister, and the legitimacy
(05:08):
of the government is established in the lower house of
Parliament in our case the House of Representatives, and the
leader who has the confidence of the House, if not
a majority, forms government and this is then recognized by
the Head of State. But in our system the Senate
can block crucial money bills, something that can't happen in Westminster.
(05:30):
They knocked that power out of the House of Lords
at the beginning of the twentieth century. So Malcolm Fraser
and his leader in the Senate, the toe cutter, they
used to call him Reg Withers, they decided to play
hard ball after a year, it has to be said
of political shambles coming from the Whitlam government, and they said,
(05:51):
unless Whitlam calls an election, supply will be blocked.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
The Senate cannot.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Determine who the government shall be.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Now, Whitlam was trying to stare them down in the
Senate and it was dragging on. But there is evidence
to say that it was at least two or three
weeks before the money actually ran out, and Whitlam was
under the understanding he had political intelligence to say that
Fraser couldn't hold his troops and at least two would abstain.
(06:25):
We now know subsequently from the archives five Liberal senators
said they wouldn't block supply. So we now know with
hindsight that Fraser, in pushing the Governor General to intervene,
did so peremptorily and before the crisis of the money
not being available had actually happened. And we also know
(06:48):
during the political standoff in the Senate, Fraser had his
shadow Attorney General write and opinion that said that the
Governor General must sack the Prime Minister. When Whitler mask
Kerr about it, Kerr said, according to Whitlam, and he
told others this, including Paul Keating, that Kerr said bullshit.
So that led Whitlam to believe that indeed Kerr was
(07:12):
on the government side rather than the opposition side. Whitlam
is on the record of saying Kerr won't sack me.
One quote was he hasn't got the guts. Another quote
was he's more sympathetic to us. So all of those
assessments from Whitlam were as history chose us completely wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Coming up, If Albanez he wants Australia to become a republic,
why isn't he holding a referendum. Paul, it's been fifty
years since the dismissal. Why do you think this particular
moment in our political history still resonates so strongly today.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
It's unique in our democratic history. That's for starters. But
why it resonates today is that Kerr's ability to literally
trash the foundational conventions of a constitutional monarchy still go unchecked.
There are no safeguards in our constitution or anything we
(08:15):
have done since nineteen seventy five to prevent a dismissal
happening again. Kerr has set the precedent and it seems
that things that could not happen in Britain can now
happen in Australia, where our system, at the whim of
a tyrant, literally can be turned on its head.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Paul. Anthony Alberanezi has ruled out a referendum on the
Republic in this term. Given what we've just heard about
the unresolved problems at the heart of the constitution. How
does he justify that?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Well, he just advised in two ways. One, in an
interview he gave on Insiders after he saw the King
at Balmoral, he said we wanted to hold one referendum
while I was Prime minister, and we did.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
That, and that's it. We did that, so one referendum
the entire time you're Prime minister. We did that, and
I think we're concentrating.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
On Interestingly enough, the evaded answering David Spear's next question
on whether that meant forever while he remained Prime minister. Now,
I checked this out and a source close to the
Prime Minister and people in the Prime Minister's office made
clear to me that Alberonizi has not ruled out revisiting
(09:31):
these issues while he's Prime minister. He's ruled it out
for this term, and whether he revisits it in another
term in the next term is a decision that has
not yet been made.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
What do you think becoming a republic would mean for Australia,
Paul Well.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
In the first instance, it would show that Australia had
finally grown out of its colonial past, that it was
now a self respecting, independent, sovereign state with its own rules,
its own head of state, and its own ability to
determine the direction that it wants to take constitutionally, and
(10:07):
not have the head of state of what is now
a foreign power, namely Great Britain be able to interfere
in such an egregious way as we saw in the
lead up to the dismissal fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
In the meantime, then what else could be done to
stop something like nineteen seventy five happening all over again.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Well, there are a number of issues in the Constitution
that do need addressing, but primarily the so called reserve
powers need to be codified. We need a referendum that
either codifies it, lays down strict rules how they can
be used, or a referendum to say they no longer
exist in that way. But also I think we definitely
(10:51):
do need a broader conversation on renovating the Constitution and
in fact making sure that an Australian can be a
head of state and not someone from a British family
of a particular religious belief.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And finally, Paul, it's been half a century. How is
history judged to three main players in the dismissal Kerr,
Fraser and Whitlam.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Well, the further away we get from nineteen seventy five,
the worst that Kerr looks, and one word sums up
Kerr deceit. People get confused, They think the fact that
Fraser then won the subsequent election in a landslide gave
the tick to Kerr. Well, no it didn't, because during
the crisis, public opinion was against Fraser. It was only
(11:38):
after that crisis was settled that the voters went back
to the point that the Whitlam government had during that
year performed very poorly and a hostile media never let
them off the hook. And the other point to make
is that Kerr, by making Fraser the Prime Minister, immediately
nobbled Whitlam. So Kerr comes out of it badly when
(12:04):
it comes to Fraser. Well, I think we can listen
to what Whitlam said about Fraser. He said, Fraser was
my opponent. He did what oppositions do in our system,
and he never deceived me. I always knew he was
trying to knock me off and going for it. And
as we know, the two men actually became friends and
(12:25):
allies calling for an Australian head of state back in
nineteen ninety nine. And as for Whitlam, well, Whitlam is
a giant in Australian history for what he achieved in
dragging Australia into the contemporary world on so many issues.
But he's also a flawed giant. His judgment of people
(12:47):
and his handling of the broader political issues during his
prime ministership went a long way to make him extremely
vulnerable to the political tactics of Fraser. One commentator said
of Fraser, he actually rang rings around Whitlam when it
came to the crucial and final political crisis.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Paul, thank you so much for your time at Rivederci.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Out of Adecci, Daniel Tanti Belle cause so many beautiful
things to you and your family.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Also in the news, a neo Nazi rally outside New
South Wales Parliament on Saturday was allowed to go ahead
by police. Organizers from the White Australia Group notified police
more than a week ago about their intention to hold
the protest and nothing was done to stop them. Police
Commissioner Mal Lanyon has confirmed. Commissioner Lanyon said he was
not personally aware that the protest would be taking place
(13:53):
and therefore had not alerted the government. He confirmed a
review would now be undertaken to investigate what he described
as a communication error, and the coalition's Housing spokesperson and
leading moderate Andrew Bragg says he will quit the front
bench if the coalition walks away from net zero. Bragg,
who was a key supporter of Susan Lee, said getting
(14:13):
rid of net zero would make it impossible to stay
in the Paris Agreement. The right of the Party are
pushing for any reference to net zero to be removed
from the Liberal Party's climate policies when the Party Room
meets this Wednesday. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am.
Thanks for listening.
Robert.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Tomorrow marks fifty years since this infamous moment when a
clearly nervous spokesperson for the Governor General stood on the
steps to Parliament House and announced that Gough Whitlam had
been dismissed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Why his Excellency's commanded, Malcolm Fraser pray, Minister John Arker,
Governor General, God.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Save the Queen. But what happened that day in nineteen
seventy five wasn't just an unprecedented political crisis. It was
a warning one that exposed the fagility of our constitution
and the lingering power of assistant design to serve the
monarchy ahead of the people.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Well, may we say, God save the Queen?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well cause nothing well say with the Governor General.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Since then, nothing has changed to stop this from happening again.
I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to seven.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
AM today Press Gallery veteran Paul bon Jorno what the
dismissal revealed about Australia's democratic foundations and why he says
we need to become a republic to stop history repeating.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's Monday, November ten. Paul, where were you when yous
broke that Whitlam had been dismissed.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I was in Woongong, New South Wales working for wind
Television News and we just completed an interview for a
news item that night in fairy Meadow was the suburb
I remember it world And we just got back into
the news car and I turned the radio on. It
must have been about three o'clock and the lead story
was that the Governor General had sacked the Prime Minister,
(01:57):
Gough Whitlam.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
What a day it's been in Except for the most
hardened of political journalists, it's been a mind bending experience.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Now we were taken aback, although there had been speculation,
you know, for a week or so that maybe this
could happen, because the newspapers, particularly the Australian, but also
the leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Fraser, were calling for
the Governor General to act and to end the political
(02:25):
crisis that was happening due to the fact that the
opposition in the Senate was blocking the supply bills for
the government.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I asked the Prime Minister for the second time whether
he and his government would resign for the second time.
He replied that he would not. The opposition now has
no choice. We will use the power vested in us
by the Constitution and delay the passage of the government's
money bills through the Senate until the Parliament goes to
(02:55):
the people.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And in the days that followed you actually interviewed with
them about what had hun folded. Can you tell me
about that interaction that interview.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, well, Whitlam had agreed while he was Prime Minister
to turn up to a multicultural event in the Woollongong
Town Hall on the Saturday night and he stuck to
this appointment. And the news editor who said you better
take a crew and see if you can nab Whitlam.
So we went over to the Woollongong Town Hall and
only by the time we got there there was an
(03:26):
ABC four Corners set up with Kerry O'Brien being the reporter,
and they'd organized to do a live interview into four Corners,
which in those days went to air on Saturday night.
So while they were setting all that up, I went
up to Whitlam and I said, mister Whitlam, I'm from
the local TV news. Can we do a quick interview
with you after mister O'Brien has finished with you, And
(03:48):
he said certainly, And he asked me my name, and
I told him, and he said, ah, Italian, and I
nodded my head. I didn't say see, I could have anyway.
When the interview began, he started off and he said,
you know, there has been a coup data or in
Italian a colpa Dustato, and then he went on to
smell out that in his view, Sir John Kerr had
(04:11):
not only acted improperly, but that he'd used powers that
were at best moot, and that certainly Labor didn't believe
existed any longer. So in Whitlam's mind, and in the
mind of course of many, this was the equivalent of
a violent, although non bloody, change of government.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
The coup Data had succeeded, the punch had come off,
so Whitlam called it a coup. How was it that
dismissal was able to happen in the first place.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, a dismissal was able to happen in the first
place due to the fact that we share the same
constitutional arrangements as what they call a constitutional monarchy. And
that means that the monarch who is the head of
state or indeed her depth or representative in Australia, acts
on the advice of their prime Minister, and the legitimacy
(05:08):
of the government is established in the lower house of
Parliament in our case the House of Representatives, and the
leader who has the confidence of the House, if not
a majority, forms government and this is then recognized by
the Head of State. But in our system the Senate
can block crucial money bills, something that can't happen in Westminster.
(05:30):
They knocked that power out of the House of Lords
at the beginning of the twentieth century. So Malcolm Fraser
and his leader in the Senate, the toe cutter, they
used to call him Reg Withers, they decided to play
hard ball after a year, it has to be said
of political shambles coming from the Whitlam government, and they said,
(05:51):
unless Whitlam calls an election, supply will be blocked.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
The Senate cannot.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Determine who the government shall be.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Now, Whitlam was trying to stare them down in the
Senate and it was dragging on. But there is evidence
to say that it was at least two or three
weeks before the money actually ran out, and Whitlam was
under the understanding he had political intelligence to say that
Fraser couldn't hold his troops and at least two would abstain.
(06:25):
We now know subsequently from the archives five Liberal senators
said they wouldn't block supply. So we now know with
hindsight that Fraser, in pushing the Governor General to intervene,
did so peremptorily and before the crisis of the money
not being available had actually happened. And we also know
(06:48):
during the political standoff in the Senate, Fraser had his
shadow Attorney General write and opinion that said that the
Governor General must sack the Prime Minister. When Whitler mask
Kerr about it, Kerr said, according to Whitlam, and he
told others this, including Paul Keating, that Kerr said bullshit.
So that led Whitlam to believe that indeed Kerr was
(07:12):
on the government side rather than the opposition side. Whitlam
is on the record of saying Kerr won't sack me.
One quote was he hasn't got the guts. Another quote
was he's more sympathetic to us. So all of those
assessments from Whitlam were as history chose us completely wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Coming up, If Albanez he wants Australia to become a republic,
why isn't he holding a referendum. Paul, it's been fifty
years since the dismissal. Why do you think this particular
moment in our political history still resonates so strongly today.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
It's unique in our democratic history. That's for starters. But
why it resonates today is that Kerr's ability to literally
trash the foundational conventions of a constitutional monarchy still go unchecked.
There are no safeguards in our constitution or anything we
(08:15):
have done since nineteen seventy five to prevent a dismissal
happening again. Kerr has set the precedent and it seems
that things that could not happen in Britain can now
happen in Australia, where our system, at the whim of
a tyrant, literally can be turned on its head.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Paul. Anthony Alberanezi has ruled out a referendum on the
Republic in this term. Given what we've just heard about
the unresolved problems at the heart of the constitution. How
does he justify that?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Well, he just advised in two ways. One, in an
interview he gave on Insiders after he saw the King
at Balmoral, he said we wanted to hold one referendum
while I was Prime minister, and we did.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
That, and that's it. We did that, so one referendum
the entire time you're Prime minister. We did that, and
I think we're concentrating.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
On Interestingly enough, the evaded answering David Spear's next question
on whether that meant forever while he remained Prime minister. Now,
I checked this out and a source close to the
Prime Minister and people in the Prime Minister's office made
clear to me that Alberonizi has not ruled out revisiting
(09:31):
these issues while he's Prime minister. He's ruled it out
for this term, and whether he revisits it in another
term in the next term is a decision that has
not yet been made.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
What do you think becoming a republic would mean for Australia,
Paul Well.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
In the first instance, it would show that Australia had
finally grown out of its colonial past, that it was
now a self respecting, independent, sovereign state with its own rules,
its own head of state, and its own ability to
determine the direction that it wants to take constitutionally, and
(10:07):
not have the head of state of what is now
a foreign power, namely Great Britain be able to interfere
in such an egregious way as we saw in the
lead up to the dismissal fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
In the meantime, then what else could be done to
stop something like nineteen seventy five happening all over again.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Well, there are a number of issues in the Constitution
that do need addressing, but primarily the so called reserve
powers need to be codified. We need a referendum that
either codifies it, lays down strict rules how they can
be used, or a referendum to say they no longer
exist in that way. But also I think we definitely
(10:51):
do need a broader conversation on renovating the Constitution and
in fact making sure that an Australian can be a
head of state and not someone from a British family
of a particular religious belief.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And finally, Paul, it's been half a century. How is
history judged to three main players in the dismissal Kerr,
Fraser and Whitlam.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Well, the further away we get from nineteen seventy five,
the worst that Kerr looks, and one word sums up
Kerr deceit. People get confused, They think the fact that
Fraser then won the subsequent election in a landslide gave
the tick to Kerr. Well, no it didn't, because during
the crisis, public opinion was against Fraser. It was only
(11:38):
after that crisis was settled that the voters went back
to the point that the Whitlam government had during that
year performed very poorly and a hostile media never let
them off the hook. And the other point to make
is that Kerr, by making Fraser the Prime Minister, immediately
nobbled Whitlam. So Kerr comes out of it badly when
(12:04):
it comes to Fraser. Well, I think we can listen
to what Whitlam said about Fraser. He said, Fraser was
my opponent. He did what oppositions do in our system,
and he never deceived me. I always knew he was
trying to knock me off and going for it. And
as we know, the two men actually became friends and
(12:25):
allies calling for an Australian head of state back in
nineteen ninety nine. And as for Whitlam, well, Whitlam is
a giant in Australian history for what he achieved in
dragging Australia into the contemporary world on so many issues.
But he's also a flawed giant. His judgment of people
(12:47):
and his handling of the broader political issues during his
prime ministership went a long way to make him extremely
vulnerable to the political tactics of Fraser. One commentator said
of Fraser, he actually rang rings around Whitlam when it
came to the crucial and final political crisis.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Paul, thank you so much for your time at Rivederci.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Out of Adecci, Daniel Tanti Belle cause so many beautiful
things to you and your family.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Also in the news, a neo Nazi rally outside New
South Wales Parliament on Saturday was allowed to go ahead
by police. Organizers from the White Australia Group notified police
more than a week ago about their intention to hold
the protest and nothing was done to stop them. Police
Commissioner Mal Lanyon has confirmed. Commissioner Lanyon said he was
not personally aware that the protest would be taking place
(13:53):
and therefore had not alerted the government. He confirmed a
review would now be undertaken to investigate what he described
as a communication error, and the coalition's Housing spokesperson and
leading moderate Andrew Bragg says he will quit the front
bench if the coalition walks away from net zero. Bragg,
who was a key supporter of Susan Lee, said getting
(14:13):
rid of net zero would make it impossible to stay
in the Paris Agreement. The right of the Party are
pushing for any reference to net zero to be removed
from the Liberal Party's climate policies when the Party Room
meets this Wednesday. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am.
Thanks for listening.
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