Edward Gough Whitlam
November 11, 1975: Sir John Kerr, the Governor-General of Australia, dismisses the country's Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, from office. It is the only time in the history of the office, which dates to 1901, that its holder has been dismissed, rather than losing the office through death, resignation or an election defeat.
Australia is an unusual country in many ways, including the fact that its leading conservative party is named the Liberal Party. Its leading liberal party is named the Australian Labor Party. (There's another thing that's unusual: They use the American spelling, "Labor," rather than the British spelling, "Labour.")
Edward Gough Whitlam, who dropped his first name, became Prime Minister on December 5, 1972, having led the Labor Party to victory in the elections for the House of Representatives (not "House of Commons," as in Britain and Canada), with a small majority. However, the Liberals still held control of the Senate. Another election, in 1974, changed hardly any seats in either house of Parliament.
As a result, while Whitlam was able to get some reforms passed, others were stalled in the Senate. He tried to get a budget passed in October 1975, but the Liberals refused to pass a budget until Whitlam called another election. He tried to bypass this, calling for a "half-election" in the Senate, which he had the authority to do.
But to get permission, he had to go to the Governor-General. Since many nations in the British Commonwealth, formerly the British Empire, their head of state, the British monarch, appoints a representative, a Governor-General, to act as a "sub-king" for the country. Ordinarily, the G-G has very little power. But this person does have the power to call new elections and to dismiss the Prime Minister, even if that person has rightly won an election -- or, in Whitlam's case, two of them.
On November 11, 1975, Whitlam went to the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, and asked him to call a half-election for the Senate. Instead, Kerr saw this as a power play on Whitlam's part, and dismissed him from office. The Prime Minister was fired. What's more, Kerr appointed the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Liberal Party, Malcolm Fraser, as a caretaker Prime Minister.
John Kerr
It should be noted that this had never happened before in Australia. Nor had it ever happened in the United Kingdom, or in Canada, or in Australia's neighbor, New Zealand. Nor has it happened in any of those countries since.
It was a counter-power play. It was a coup d'etat. And it got worse. This was before social media, and before the rise of mobile phones. Fraser quickly gathered his allies and formed a new Cabinet, they wrote new appropriation bills, and got Parliament to pass them, faster than Labour could even make sure all of its members knew what had happened. Kerr then dissolved Parliament and called a new election.
It should be noted that Kerr was not the head of state. He was the representative of the head of state, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. This was Kerr's decision, not the Queen's. Whitlam had to get Kerr's permission to do what he wanted. Kerr should have gotten the Queen's permission before doing what he wanted. It was certainly possible by that point to make a telephone call from Canberra to Buckingham Palace, or to Windsor Castle, or to wherever the Queen was at this point.
Kerr didn't get the Queen's permission. He didn't even try to contact her. He acted completely on his own. Did the Queen punish him for this? No, she took no action at all. That was seen as a royal endorsement.
That, and the fact that there was now action on the budget, convinced Australians that this constitutional crisis might not have been so bad. On December 13, the Liberals gained 30 seats in the snap election, and Fraser remained Prime Minister for 7 years.
Malcolm Fraser
Whitlam, cast into Opposition, remained Labor's Leader until 1977, losing another election and then stepping down. After Fraser was defeated by Bob Hawke in the 1983 election, Hawke appointed Whitlam an Ambassador to the United Nations.
Whitlam may have lost the office and the subsequent elections, but he won the historical argument. Not only has no Governor-General fired a Prime Minister again, but while Kerr got the result he wanted, and Fraser got the support of the people, Kerr did not: They turned on him, and he resigned as Governor-General in December 1977, a few days before Whitlam resigned as Leader of the Opposition. Kerr died in 1991, Whitlam in 2014, Fraser in 2015.
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November 11, 1975 was a Tuesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 6 games played in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks lost to the Phoenix Suns, 112-81.
* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Boston Celtics, 100-91 at the Boston Garden. The Celtics went on to win the 1976 NBA Championship, anyway.
* The Washington Bullets beat the Buffalo Braves, 105-90 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.
* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 108-81 at the Milwaukee Exposition and Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA.
* The Golden State Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 103-98 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.
* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the New Orleans Jazz, 106-104 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.
And there were 2 games played in the American Basketball Association:
* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Virginia Squires, 128-106 at Freedom Hall in Louisville.
* And the Denver Nuggets beat the Indiana Pacers, 126-117 at the McNichols Arena.
There were 4 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers lost to the St. Louis Blues, 5-3 at the Checkerdome, as the St. Louis Arena was known from 1973 to 1980. The Broadway Blueshirts, in the wake of the Eddie Giacomin fiasco and the Phil Esposito for Jean Ratelle and Brad Park trade, blew leads of 1-0, 2-1 (on a shorthanded goal) and 3-2.
* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Minnesota North Stars, 6-0 at the Montreal Forum.
* The California Golden Seals beat the Los Angeles Kings, 3-2 at The Forum outside in Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.
* And the Vancouver Canucks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-2 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.
There were 4 games played in the World Hockey Association:
* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 8-6 at the Colisee de Quebec.
* The Cleveland Crusaders beat the Winnipeg Jets, 3-2 at the Winnipeg Arena.
* The Houston Aeros beat the Toronto Toros, 5-4 at The Summit in Houston.
* And the Calgary Cowboys beat the Edmonton Oilers, 6-5 at the Stampede Corral in Calgary.