The bells rang for the resumption of the house at 2 pm. I went straight to the chamber, and whilst the bells were still ringing Vic Garland, a shadow minister from Western Australia, came up to me and some other MPs and simply said, ‘Kerr’s sacked Gough.’ I was stunned. Moments later Fraser entered the chamber as the bells stopped sounding. I knew that Garland had not been kidding when the speaker, Gordon Scholes, who knew the procedures precisely, called Fraser, not by his customary title of Leader of the Opposition, but by the title ‘Honourable member for Wannon'. By then Fraser was no longer the Leader of the Opposition.
Fraser then told the house that he had been commissioned to form a caretaker government and that a double dissolution election would be held on 13 December 1975.
My lasting memory of the debate which followed — on a Labor no-confidence motion against the new caretaker Prime Minister — was the remarkable control that Scholes, the speaker, kept over the emotionally charged, angry Labor MPs. Only a few hours earlier, they had been told by their Prime Minister that there was to be a half-Senate election. They now faced an election for the whole parliament, which they knew in their hearts they could not win. That election would be fought on the record in office of the Whitlam Government.
The no-confidence moved by the Labor Party was carried on party lines, with little debate. The sitting was then suspended so that the speaker could call on the Governor-General with the motion, seeking the reinstatement of Whitlam as Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the Senate had met and passed the appropriation bills, thus guaranteeing supply, one of the conditions of Fraser’s appointment as caretaker PM. Incredibly, Labor’s Senate leader, Ken Wriedt, had not been informed of the dismissal and believed that the Coalition had capitulated when it agreed to pass the bills. This was a huge blunder by Whitlam. Armed with knowledge of the dismissal, the Labor Senate president could have delayed the sitting and at least given his party room for a tactical response.
After our sitting had been suspended, I mingled with a large crowd of angry Labor MPs, staffers and public servants that had gathered outside Parliament House. I ran into Clyde Cameron, who railed to me against what had happened. He predicted an anti-Fraser backlash and said, ‘You won’t win, and even if you do the country will be ungovernable.’ He was wrong on both counts. It was this crowd which, later, gave such a hostile reception to David Smith, the Official Secretary to the Governor-General, when, as tradition required, he read from the steps of Parliament House the proclamation of the Governor-General dissolving the two houses of parliament. Watching over Smith’s shoulder was Gough Whitlam, who then delivered his well-reported declaration, ‘Well may we say “God save the Queen", because nothing will save the Governor-General.’1
All of us felt shock and disbelief at what had happened. It troubled me that Kerr had had to intervene. I knew that he would cop intense abuse from Labor supporters. Yet he had been left with no alternative. Only he,
exercising the reserve powers of the Crown vested in him under the Constitution, could sever the Gordian knot.
Opposition MPs gathered in small groups, discussing the day’s events, speculating about the campaign ahead and expressing just a tinge of apprehension about the reaction of the Australia public to such a momentous event.
That evening Bob Ellicott and I walked together through Kings Hall and came across Jim McClelland, Minister for Labour and Immigration in the Whitlam Government. Known in the Sydney legal profession as ‘Diamond Jim’ on account of his immaculate dressing, McClelland had, as a solicitor, briefed Kerr to appear in disputes involving the Federated Ironworkers’ Association. They had been bitter encounters, and Kerr and McClelland had become good friends. McClelland was very irate and said, ‘You had the Queen’s man in the bag right from the beginning.’ It was a revealing remark. It was untrue but, importantly, betrayed the fact that Labor had operated all along with the belief that because Kerr had been appointed by Whitlam, he would, when the crunch came, do what Labor wanted. It was a monumental miscalculation, for which McClelland, given his long association with Kerr, no doubt felt a special responsibility.
The next morning, the political analyst Malcolm Mackerras dropped into my office and boldly said, ‘You realise that you are now enjoying your last weeks as member for Bennelong. There will be a massive reaction against Kerr sacking Whitlam, and even a safe seat like yours will be lost by the Liberal Party.’ I both thought and hoped that he was wrong, which of course he was. Thirty-one years were to pass before Malcolm, in 2006 and following a redistribution which made my seat even more marginal, again predicted that I would lose Bennelong. This time his forecast proved accurate. In that three-decade period, both Australia and Bennelong had undergone much change.
After 11 November I did not see or speak to Malcolm Fraser until the triumphant party meeting following his massive victory on 13 December 1975. The Coalition’s majority of 55 was by far the largest in Australia’s political history. There had been almost a clean sweep of seats in Queensland; only Bill Hayden’s Oxley was narrowly held by the Labor Party. Even the staunchly pro-Labor city of Canberra had returned a Liberal in one of its two seats.
It had been a bitter campaign, before a deeply polarised electorate. The 35 per cent who habitually voted Labor exhibited their hostility over the dismissal by heaping enormous personal invective on Sir John Kerr, and in this they were aided and abetted by Whitlam and his former ministers. The remainder of the electorate, consisting of habitual Coalition supporters and those in the middle, were grateful for the opportunity of voting out what they regarded as the most incompetent government Australia had had, at least since World War II.
Once an election had been called, debate about the merits or otherwise of the Governor-General’s actions receded into the background, except for those who would resentfully feed on this for the rest of their political lives. The election became a referendum on the performance of the Whitlam Government, and once this was the case, Fraser’s victory was assured.
Naturally Malcolm Fraser and Phillip Lynch were unanimously re-elected to their respective positions at the start of the Liberal Party meeting following our victory. It was an amazing gathering, full of elation, with a sizeable chunk of the party room comprised of people I had never met before. Not only were our ranks swollen by people who had won seats from Labor, but also by those replacing a number of former members who had retired voluntarily.
As a shadow minister, I had some hope of becoming a very junior minister in the new government. I guess, like all other shadow ministers, I had done all sorts of calculations in my head about my prospects, and I knew that Fraser wanted a smaller cabinet than the 32 or 33 which made up the shadow ministry. So I was not overly optimistic.
Just after the meeting ended, John Bourchier, the chief whip, said that the Prime Minister wanted to see me in his office, and I got the clear impression that Bourchier knew I was to become a minister. I felt a keen sense of anticipation and my best hopes were realised when, a short while later, in the Prime Minister’s office, Malcolm Fraser told me that he wanted me to become Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs. I was tremendously excited and couldn’t wait to tell Janette.
Whilst I thought that I had done a good job as a shadow minister, I knew that it was a fine judgement for a leader when choosing younger members in a new ministry. Malcolm Fraser and I have had our differences over the years and our relationship became very distant after I became Prime Minister, but