Title: 1975 Australian constitutional crisis
Content: the Queen in politics. Seeking confirmation of his decision, he contacted Chief Justice Barwick, met with him and asked for his views of a dismissal of Whitlam. Barwick furnished him with written advice containing his view that a Governor-General could and should dismiss a Prime Minister who was unable to obtain supply. Barwick specified that the Prime Minister should also not have refused either to resign or to advise a general election, with which Kerr agreed. Another member of the High Court and a friend of Kerr, Sir Anthony Mason, gave Kerr similar advice privately on 9 November. But Mason

Title: 1975 Australian constitutional crisis
Content: 1975 Australian constitutional crisis The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, also known simply as the Dismissal, has been described as the greatest political and constitutional crisis in Australian history. It culminated on 11 November 1975 with the dismissal from office of the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), by Governor-General Sir John Kerr, who then commissioned the Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Fraser of the Liberal Party, as caretaker Prime Minister. Whitlam's Labor government had been elected in 1972 with a small majority in the House of Representatives, but with the Opposition controlling the Senate. The Whitlam

Title: John Kerr (governor-general)
Content: Hugh Robson QC, a New South Wales judge and former colleague of Kerr's. Through her, Kerr acquired two stepchildren. During 1975 the government was enveloped by a series of ministerial scandals (the "Loans Affair"), which resulted in the sacking of two senior ministers, Rex Connor and Deputy Prime Minister, Jim Cairns. The Liberal Opposition Leader, Malcolm Fraser, decided to use the Senate to block the government's budget bills, thus forcing an early election for the House of Representatives (this is called "blocking supply"). On paper, the Australian Constitution gave the Governor-General wide-ranging powers, including the power to appoint and dismiss

Title: Malcolm Fraser
Content: methods of obtaining supply funding outside the Parliament, the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, controversially dismissed Whitlam as prime minister on 11 November 1975. Fraser was immediately sworn in as caretaker prime minister on the condition that he end the political deadlock and call an immediate double dissolution election. On 19 November 1975, shortly after the election had been called, a letter bomb was sent to Fraser, but it was intercepted and defused before it reached him. Similar devices were sent to the governor-general and the Premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke-Petersen. At the 1975 election, Fraser led the Liberal-Country Party Coalition

Title: 1975 Australian constitutional crisis
Content: the crowd drowned him out, and concluded with the traditional "God save the Queen". Former Prime Minister Whitlam, who had been standing behind Smith, then addressed the crowd: The news that Whitlam had been dismissed spread across Australia during the afternoon, triggering immediate protest demonstrations. On 12 November, Scholes wrote to the Queen, asking her to restore Whitlam as Prime Minister. The reply from the Queen's Private Secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, dated 17 November 1975, stated: On 12 November 1975, the First Fraser Ministry was sworn in by Kerr. By some accounts, Kerr sought reassurance at that meeting that the

Question: Who was dismissed from office as Australian prime minister in 1975 after refusing to call a general election?
Answer: Gough Whitlam