The Palace Letters by Jenny Hocking, and: The Truth of the Palace Letters: Deceit, Ambush and Dismissal in 1975 by Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston (review)

The background to these two books is fairly well known. Distinguished academic and Whitlam biographer, Professor Jenny Hocking, was forced to conduct a lengthy and expensive legal battle in order to secure the release from the Australian Archives of correspondence between Governor-General Sir John Kerr and Buckingham Palace relating to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in November 1975. In her book (which, irritatingly, lacks an index), Hocking outlines the legal contests involved – a drama in their own right – and then turns her attention to the letters in question, assessing whether these reveal the Crown acting impartially in its dealings with Kerr or breaching conventions of neutrality by siding with and encouraging him.

The legal battle that Hocking was forced to wage should not go uncommented on. It was frankly embarrassing that Australian citizens had to pursue legal avenues to access the historical records of their own nation and it was surely unacceptable that the Director-General of the National Archives of Australia could view his role as one of denial of access rather than facilitation. A cynic might suspect that his background in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) rendered him naturally more inclined to conceal rather than to reveal. The best line from the legal battlefront surely came from Justice Geoffrey Flick of the Federal Court, who responded to arguments advancing the relevance of the queen's view about the royal convention of secrecy with "But who cares what she thinks … who cares what Sir John thinks!" (134). Hear, hear.

In their account, Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston offer their interpretation of the Palace Letters and, while both books are critical of Kerr for his lack of candour with and effective deception of Whitlam, any consensus virtually ends there. It is worth noting that Kelly had a front row seat as a young Canberra press gallery journalist in 1975 and published a book on the crisis the following year.

Hocking highlights important points as background to Kerr's dealing with the crisis. First, his constitutional law experience had led him to an activist perception of the role of governor-general, convinced that the reserve powers were dormant, not dead. Secondly, he had failed to establish and maintain a frank and open relationship with Whitlam and, while this might be a mere irritant in normal times, the second half of 1975 was far from normal. It is also the case that, despite early career links with the labour movement, Kerr had, long before 1975, clearly pitched his tent on the non-Labor side of the river.

In Hocking's eyes, the content of the correspondence reveals significant breaches of the principle of royal neutrality. It also reveals what Malcolm Turnbull in the book's foreword describes as Kerr's "sycophantic grovelling," which he finds "stomach-churning" (xiii). Kerr maintained a voluminous correspondence with the queen's private secretary (Martin Charteris) before, during and indeed after the 1975 constitutional crisis, constantly seeking endorsement and affirmation, consistent with his craving for establishment approval. Hocking draws attention to Kerr's tendency from the outset of his letters to Charteris to offer disparaging comments about the government and of revealing some of his own inappropriate contacts with senior public servants. She sees this as clearly breaching political neutrality, a breach mirrored by Charteris in responding with patronising observations supportive of Kerr's thinking. At one point, he describes the Australian Labor Party as "a radical party" (182).

On matters germane to the dismissal, the Palace's responses also seem to be more encouraging than neutral, with three examples standing out. First, it was made clear that while the Queen would need to act on any advice from the Australian prime minister to dismiss Kerr, this would...