What role did the queen play in governor-general Sir John Kerr’s plans to dismiss prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1975, unleashing one of the most divisive episodes in Australia’s political history? And why weren’t we told?Under the cover of being designated as private correspondence, the letters between the queen and the governor-general about the dismissal have been locked away for decades in the National Archives of Australia, and embargoed by the queen—potentia...

A political betrayal.A constitutional crisis.A hidden correspondence.Gough Whitlam was a progressive prime minister whose reign from 1972 proved tumultuous after 23 years of conservative government in Australia. After a second election victory in May 1974, when a hostile Senate refused to vote on his 1975 budget, the political deadlock that ensued culminated in Whitlam’s unexpected and deeply controversial dismissal b...

'The changes we have made will remain like all great Labor legislation permanent landmarks in our history.' Gough WhitlamThe Whitlam government propelled Australia out of the presumptions and certainties of twenty-three years of conservative government and changed it irrevocably. It passed a record number of bills into law and became the most successful reformist government in Australia's history. This book brings to light aspects of Whitlam's ambitious reform agenda that ...