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Never mind Trump: our coup succeeded The Palace Letters by Jenny Hocking, Scribe Publications 2020
T
here are no ifs and buts, no grey areas, no partisan refuges to hide in. The dismissal of Gough Whitlam’s Labor government in 1975 was a coup d’état, conceived and executed by Sir John Kerr, and enthusiastically assisted by a handful of smarmy, selfentitled toffs, who regarded themselves as above the law and the Constitution. Until Professor Jenny Hocking finally succeeded Jenny Hocking. Photo www.crikey.com.au in her High Court action to have the letters between Governor keeping Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser General Kerr and the Queen’s secretary in another room at Yarralumla, ready to Sir Martin Charteris released from the be sworn in as prime minister. National Archives, it was possible to doubt that there had been a conspiracy. Encouraged by the palace At first conservative fellow travellers It was a clever coup, not requiring praised Kerr for his courage and the use of tanks or troops, just a few wisdom in acting alone. Later, when the well-placed monarchists with a cult-like stupidity and corruption of the man was dedication to preserving the power of plain for all to see, they simply asserted the throne above those pesky colonials. that he acted alone. The Queen, Prince Charles and the He did not. British Foreign Office knew what was going on, and through the palace Kerr’s secret meetings & lies secretary, encouraged it. As Hocking’s book The Palace Letters No wonder there was such a makes clear, Kerr was conducting concerted effort to prevent the facts urgent research into the Governor of the dismissal from coming to light. General’s so-called ‘reserve powers’ The National Archives and the current months before any political crisis was government used every trick to protect on the horizon, and discussing them the reputation of a foreign power at in secret with Sir Anthony Mason, who the expense of a true understanding of would later become Chief Justice. Australian history. Kerr was also corresponding with The Palace Letters reads like a Charteris, who massaged his ego and page-turning thriller as one by one pointed him to a Canadian constitutional Hocking’s pro bono legal team dispose expert known for recommending the of the obstacles thrown in the way by a use of reserve powers. desperate establishment, and gradually All this time Kerr told Whitlam close in on the documents that would nothing, and even lied to him about his finally explain those dramatic days of intentions at the very moment he was November 1975.
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14 The Byron Shire Echo 'ĕĈĕŔćĕſ Ǩǭǽ ǩǧǩǧ
Ten year quest for the letters
David Lovejoy
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Recently a packed house at the Byron Community Centre Theatre heard Professor Hocking discuss her ten-year quest for the letters with Kerry O’Brien. One question not raised in the book is the involvement of the CIA, which was known to be furious with Whitlam for his threat to expose the Pine Gap spy bases. Although the mechanics of the coup belong to Kerr and the palace, there may have been secondary motivations of placating America. O’Brien made the observation that President Jimmy Carter later sent a State Department official to apologise to Whitlam, and to promise that the USA would never again meddle in Australian affairs.
Limits of power This book clarifies a period of our history that for nearly half a century has been deliberately made murky by dishonest politicians and their obedient media trolls. It should be read by every Australian, even though, no doubt, there will be other more detailed examinations of the letters themselves in the future. Near the end of the saga comes one more amusing example of Kerr’s overweening egotism. By late 1976 the drunken and unsalvageable Governor General has fallen out with the prime minister he appointed. Malcolm Fraser is seeking an early election and Kerr floats the idea to Charteris that the reserve powers might be used again to deny Fraser’s plan. Just to show who is really in charge. Needless to say, that was one step too far for the palace.
CHESS by Ian Rogers Nigel Short’s one man campaign to have Iran banned from world chess has been derailed this week after the world body FIDE passed an innocuous ‘compromise’ motion at their General Assembly this week. Short, a Vice President of FIDE, had become agitated about Iran’s unspoken ban on their players competing against Israeli athletes, a policy which began in 1983 and which was shared, on and off, by other countries in the Middle East. Since the Cold War FIDE had adopted a ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ attitude to all boycotts between feuding countries, avoiding pairing them in team events whenever possible. Short, despite finishing with egg on his face after falsely accusing Saudi Arabia of banning chess, decided that this would be his new campaign and last December ‘outed’ two teenage Iranian Grandmasters who had unknowingly played against an Israeli at a blitz tournament in Spain. (Short did not care that Iranian players would face punishment for competing against Israelis.) The two juniors were indeed severely reprimanded on their return to Iran and Short ploughed ahead, proposing that if the Iranian Chess Federation does not explicitly allow its players to compete against Israelis then it should be thrown out of FIDE.
Short’s motion, supported by the English Chess Federation, made its way onto the agenda for the December General Assembly. However, when the item came up, the delegates found themselves looking at a much more anodyne proposal, tabled by FIDE President Arkadiy Dvorkovich: ‘The FIDE General Assembly calls upon the Chess Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran as well as all other national chess federations to instruct all their registered players to respect the principles of the Olympic movement and FIDE Charter.’ Dvorkovich’s motion did mention ‘targeted punishments’ for future boycotts or unsavoury comments by Iran, and ‘the same applies to all national chess federations, officials and players without exemptions and reservations.’ Essentially the status quo remains. Nonetheless, Short’s campaign has brought the Iranian federation to the attention of the national government. As a result, it withdrew its players from a number of tournaments where there was no longer any chance of disobeying government rules on the quiet. Iran’s top player, 17-year-old world #18 Alireza Firouzja, preemptively relocated to France and gave up Iranian representation to avoid any FIDE ban on Iran. Such has been the disruption to Iranian chess by Short’s campaign that few new Firouzjas are likely to emerge in the near future.
North Coast news daily in Echonetdaily www.echo.net.au