WHITLAM

Was the Governor General right to argue that he had the constitutional authority to dismiss the Whitlam Government or was Whitlam correct in arguing that the principle of responsible government should prevail? On the 11th November 1975, the Australian Governor General, Sir John Kerr, dismissed the federal Government of Gough Whitlam and commissioned Opposition Leader Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister. The dismissal and the events leading to it clearly demonstrated the friction between constitutional authority and …

…the words of the text. The fact that some conventions are unwritten should not make them any less important. The Constitution can be manipulated if taken completely literally, creating results that are against the democracy it stands for, as was the case in the dismissal of Whitlam. The Governor General did have the Constitutional authority to dismiss the Whitlam Government. However responsible government and the democracy the Constitution stands for should not have allowed it.