Today marks the 50th anniversary of The Dismissal of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister and the installation of Malcolm Fraser. Yes this was all put in place by a series of fortunate events for his political enemies, including the means to permanently block supply in the Senate (which is why this was enabled), and while the role of the Palace was eventually brought to light because of the work and ins insistence of historian Professor Jenny Hocking, they ultimately don't reveal an active hand from London.
Probably the most instrumental person (apart from Kerr himself) in this whole process, was Rupert Murdoch. As the inheritor of his father's political party, turning his hand to political manipulation was something that he realised that he actually could do with relative ease.
While the actions of Sir John Kerr as Governor General are somewhat easy to establish in an official capacity because the paperwork exists, trying to work out who he saw and when, from the other side of the fog of fifty years, is more difficult. Kerr is dead. The people who he spoke to are also likely dead. Mr Murdoch on the other hand, although not dead, would have always seen this as politically expedient because he got the job done.
The trigger for all of this was the 1974 Budget. In the 1974 budget, the Whitlam Government introduced free tertiary education, and publicly funded childcare, and publicly funded women’s services, and while he couldn't actually establish publicly funded healthcare which was still the domain of the states he did establish Medibank as a publicly owned and operated health insurance agency. I can not stress enough, how much this absolutely enraged the All Ordinaries companies and especially the funders and donors to the Liberal Party.
Something had to be done. The rich and powerful will only tolerate so much democracy before they want to smash it to pieces.
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/murdochs-role-in-the-dismissal-and-my-job-in-japan/
Murdoch often held soirees at Cavan with editors and managers at his rural retreat outside Canberra. On one of those soirees, 12 months before the dismissal, he invited Kerr. It was late in the afternoon and Kerr, as was his custom, had had a few drinks by the time he got to Cavan.
Ian Fitchett, the doyen of the press gallery and the chief correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, was present at that Cavan meeting in late 1974. Fitchett told me that Murdoch had asked Kerr to speculate on the possibilities if the Opposition refused Supply. This was then a topical issue as the Coalition had contemplated refusing supply in late 1974. But it backed off.
- John Menadue, 8th Nov 2025
This obviously had a longer time to slowly boil than I thought that it did. Although we almost certainly can not confirm recollections of what amounts to hearsay, I have come across enough of these kinds of stories which all point at the same kinds of thing.
Kerr and Murdoch were on good enough terms that Kerr went to Cavan (Rupert Murdoch's estate) on what appears to be multiple occasions between the Budget of 1974 and November 1975. There appears to be no visits after that date; presumably because as Rupert had got what he wanted, there wasn't no need for Kerr anymore.
The last of the visits made by Kerr to Cavan happened on the weekend of 4th and 5th of October 1975; I think that they likely gamed out the course of events which would follow. I don't know what exactly Murdoch had over Kerr but I suspect that it would have been ruinous to Kerr's life. As it was, Kerr was a professional drunkard and his only other notable event from this point onwards, was being to three sheets to the wind at the 1977 Melbourne Cup.
Herein lies the problem. The Palace Letters are fine but ultimately don't reveal much. The most important meetings happened without any public scrutiny and were essentially the actions of business running roughshod over democracy.
Fraser's Government which followed managed to do the impossible of double digit inflation and double digit unemployment. Real wages peaked in Q3 1977 if you compared AWOTE with CPI, and the economy has been redesigned since, so that capital is well and truly winning. Whitlam had to go because he upset capital.
In addition to meeting with Kerr, Rupert Murdoch met with Malcolm Fraser on numerous occasions, in the run up to the dismissal of the Whitlam government. Fraser leaked like a sieve and all kinds of official secrets and intelligence information found their way into Murdoch's various media publications.
Even after Whitlam was removed and Fraser installed, it was discovered in the files of the Attorney General's Office that there were records of a slew of recording exchanges of information between Mr Murdoch and the Fraser government.
The thing to remember about this whole thing is that the Constitution always laid out the powers of the Governor General to appoint and dismiss Ministers of the Crown, and that even in the face of what was otherwise weaponised corruption, this was all nice and legal; because of that, there were/are no grounds for any consequences whatsoever.
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