Or to put it another way, an unelected appointee of the British Empire had just overturned the will of millions of Australian voters. Ouch. But hold on—the story doesn’t end there.
The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week.9th November 2025.
Happy Sunday! If my maths is correct, the 2025 United States federal government shutdown has now entered its 40th day, officially the longest since shutdowns became a reality back in 1980 under President Ronald Reagan.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has been passing resolutions to fund the government since the start of October. Over in the Senate, the Democrats have other ideas. With only 53 of the 100 seats, Republicans can’t scrape together the 60 votes needed to push the legislation through.
Stalemate.
The longest previous shutdown in the United States lasted 35 days, also on Donald Trump’s watch during his first term as President.
But before Americans start polishing their award for unrivalled constitutional mayhem, a word about the competition.
Of course, the British have been collecting constitutional howlers for centuries, the most recent of which has to be the ‘B’ word we’re all still too traumatised to say out loud. (Brexit—damn, I said it.)
However, I propose a far more worthy candidate. In 1975, Australia delivered what must be the most bizarre political overthrow in democratic history. It was a Shakespearean tragedy that not even Shakespeare could have written.
May I present the ‘1975 Australian Constitutional Crisis’. Admittedly, the title has all the appeal of a dentist's appointment, but don’t let the name fool you; this is a story of double-crossing, treachery, imperial meddling, conspiracy theories and a series of slapstick events so absurd that surely they could never be repeated.
And it began with exactly the same problem facing the United States today—someone turned off the money supply.
To understand how this farce came about, we need to consider the peculiar relationship between Australia and Britain that had evolved up to 1975.
Back in 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia was born. The six existing colonies merged to form a single federated entity. However, the new country was still under British control. It was only in 1986 that the final paperwork was completed to declare Australia fully independent from the United Kingdom.
Democratic nations around the world celebrated the Federation of Australia in 1901. This photo shows the United States’ Federation Arch, a temporary structure which was organised, built and funded by members of American expatriate and business communities in Sydney.
While the British breakup with America had involved revolution and war, Australia’s drift away from the mother country was rather like a lazy river—an amicable divorce conducted in slow motion. Both sides knew where things were heading, but nobody was in any particular hurry.
The Australian approach to independence was nothing if not pragmatic. Their proposition was this: We want our own country, flag, anthem and—most importantly—our own cold beer. In addition, we want complete independence and a unique Australian identity... but we’d quite like to keep the Queen.
What could possibly go wrong?
Protagonist No. 1: Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam was born in July 1916 in Melbourne and won his first parliamentary seat in 1952. By 1967, he had become leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
Whitlam was a large, imposing man, with the presence of an international statesman. He was cosmopolitan, intellectual and charismatic. He could quote Shakespeare and draw on the Ancient Greek classics. In other words, Whitlam wasn’t your typical Labor parliamentarian.
The nation was tired of 23 years of Liberal-Country coalition, and so was Whitlam. He wanted to drag Australia into the new world. So he first set about modernising the Labor Party with the enthusiasm of a property developer eyeing a condemned building.
Five years later, Whitlam got his shot at the top job. He took it.
In October 1972, Prime Minister William McMahon called for an election. The Labor Party’s campaign slogan was 'IT’S TIME'. On 2 December 1972, Australian voters agreed. Gough Whitlam became the 21st Prime Minister of Australia.
Gough Whitlam delivering the 1972 election policy speech at the Blacktown Civic Centre in Sydney, 1972.
How the Australian Parliament works Before diving into this chaotic story, a quick primer on the basics of the Australian parliamentary system might be useful. As a starter, think of it as a blend of British and American models.
Australia is a constitutional monarchy, so it has a head of state (currently King Charles III) represented in country by the governor-general who, in turn, is chosen by the Australian Prime Minister.
As a federal entity, Australia’s Parliament has a House of Representatives (151 members) and a Senate (76 members). All legislation must pass through both houses. The Prime Minister is responsible to Parliament and can be removed by a parliamentary vote of no confidence.
While the House of Representatives holds the real power in Australian politics, the Senate can block supply. In other words, it has the power to turn off the money supply that funds the machinery of government.
This superpower was designed as a check on executive power. It had never been used to bring down a government.
Until 1975.
What followed was the most frantic three years in Australian political history. It was a blitzkrieg reformation.
Even before his government was fully sworn in, the new Prime Minister had abolished conscription, withdrawn the last Australian troops from the Vietnam War, released draft dodgers from prison and opened the path towards universal health insurance.
Then Whitlam really got going.
Indigenous land rights were finally recognised, divorce laws propelled into the twentieth century and university fees abolished, while the arts received a long-overdue financial lifeline.
It was a fun ride if you supported the changes, terrifying if you didn’t.
Whitlam’s reforms were expensive. In October 1973, his luck ran out. The world oil crisis erupted. Oil prices quadrupled, inflation rocketed and unemployment followed right behind.
By May 1974, the Senate was twitching. Whitlam didn’t control the upper house, meaning that the Liberals could block supply—cut off the cash.
Sure enough, at the first opportunity, the Liberals pounced. The Senate voted to block the money supply. Whitlam’s reforms were put on hold. Public servants wouldn’t be paid, schools and hospitals would shut down, and pensioners would go hungry.
Whitlam was under pressure.
To try and break the impasse, he convinced the governor-general—who we’ll come to in a minute—to call a double-dissolution election. All seats in the House of Representatives and Senate were up for grabs.
On 18 May 1974, Whitlam held on to power with an even thinner majority. Worse, the Liberals were still blocking the money supply.
Protagonist No. 2: Malcom Fraser
Malcolm Fraser was as conservative as they come. He was born in 1930 in Toorak, Melbourne, into a wealthy family. His critics despised him because he was a ‘squatter’, the pejorative Australian term for wealthy, rural landowners.
In March 1975 he became leader of the Liberal Party, hence he would be Gough Whitlam's chief adversary.
Malcolm Fraser, 1975.
Out of Curiosity The ‘squattocracy’ was Australia’s 19th-century version of the British aristocracy. Free settlers, often middle and upper-class English and Scottish, used their connections and wealth to help themselves to vast tracts of Australia’s most fertile land, laying claim simply by settling on it.
In the government’s scramble for cash, things had gone decidedly sideways. They attempted to borrow today’s equivalent of US$25 billion from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq—which was showing the early signs of being run by a homicidal maniac. Not content with this masterstroke of foreign policy, they also tapped Hussein for a US$500,000 donation to the Labor Party.
Not surprisingly, the deal collapsed. The ALP were outed.
Fraser smelled blood. He denounced the Labor government’s reprehensible behaviour and demanded yet another election. No election, no money.
An unstoppable force had come up against an immovable object. The machinery of state was grinding to a halt.
Protagonist No. 3: Sir John Kerr
The British monarchy’s representative in Australia is the governor-general. Whitlam had appointed the incumbent, Sir John Kerr, in 1974. He figured that a man with a history of association with the trade unions should be favourable to Labor and thus a useful ally.
Governor-general Sir John Kerr, 1974.
Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. JULIUS CAESAR: Caesar speaks to Mark Antony
Whitlam had overlooked a few small details. Firstly, he’d tried to block Kerr’s knighthood the year before. Then, Kerr found out that he had been Whitlam’s fifth choice for governor-general—not even second or third… but fifth. And finally, Kerr had left the Labor Party, adopting a decidedly more conservative outlook.
In other words, Whitlam had appointed a man nursing multiple grudges and conservative sympathies. It was a masterclass in misjudgement.
Sir John Kerr had been watching proceedings from the sidelines with growing alarm. He was more used to cutting ribbons at school fêtes and hosting garden parties.
So why was he alarmed?
Well, buried in the Constitution were reserve powers that had never been tested. One of them was the power to dismiss a Prime Minister under Section 64 of the Constitution.
Kerr could sense his moment approaching.
Old Parliament House, Canberra.
Fifty years ago this Tuesday, on the morning of 11 November 1975, Fraser made his move. It was Remembrance Day and this was going to be a day Australians would certainly remember.
While Whitlam was preparing to see Sir John Kerr to ask for a half-Senate election to break the deadlock, Fraser was covertly paying the governor-general a visit himself with a proposition.
At 1:00pm, Whitlam arrived at Government House, the governor-general's official residence. However, before he had a chance to speak, Kerr handed him a letter. It informed his guest that his commission as Prime Minister was terminated.
Whitlam had been sacked.
Moments later, Kerr appointed Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister.
Let’s just pause for a moment. Australia was—and is—a constitutional monarchy with republicanism bubbling just under the surface. The Queen was only head of state because nobody had bothered to suggest an alternative.
Sir John Kerr, acting on behalf of the Queen, had just fired Australia’s democratically elected Prime Minister. Or to put it another way, an unelected appointee of the British Empire had just overturned the will of millions of Australian voters.
Ouch.
But hold on—the story doesn’t end there. What happened next was total comedy caper.
What would any self-respecting former Prime Minister do the moment he had been unceremoniously dumped? How about a spot of lunch?
Still reeling, Whitlam had gone for lunch without broadcasting news of his downfall. With no mobile phones or social media to spread the word, few people were aware of the unfolding drama.
At 2:00pm, the Senate was voting on yet another Labor motion to pass the supply bills. Unaware that their government had fallen, Labor senators dutifully voted in favour.
However, just prior to the vote, the slippery eel Fraser had spotted an opening. Discreetly, he hurried to the Senate to instruct the Liberal senators to support the supply bills—the same bills they’d been blocking since mid-October.
In a flash of political opportunism, the deadlock had vanished. Crisis solved, prime ministership secured—all before anyone could blink.
Fraser had out-Machiavellied Machiavelli.
Australian Senate chamber, Old Parliament House, Canberra.
Once the truth came out, all hell let loose. Old Parliament House was in panic. People were running around ‘like headless chooks’ according to one parliamentarian at the time, it was 'a real shamozzle'.
The governor-general’s official secretary, David Smith, had the dubious honour of reading a proclamation on the front steps of Parliament House confirming that the government had been dismissed. He ended with the words, “God save the Queen.”
By this time, Whitlam was standing over Smith’s shoulder, glowering. As soon as the proclamation had been read, Whitlam grabbed the microphone and delivered the immortal line….
Well may we say God save the Queen—because nothing will save the governor-general”.
You can check it out here. (I'd suggest watching betweeen 2:15 and 3:00)
The crowd that had gathered outside Parliament was apoplectic. Their democratically elected Prime Minister had been fired by an unelected British official in a morning coat. The fury directed at Fraser and Kerr was white-hot, raw and deeply personal.
For certain generations in the United States, a common question at a social gathering might be “Where were you when Kennedy was assassinated?” In Australia, the question would be “Where were you when Whitlam was sacked?”
Spontaneous protest occupying the width of George Street, Sydney, outside the Sydney Town Hall, about 6.45 p.m. on 11 November, 1975, the afternoon of the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor Government by the govenor-general, Sir John Kerr.
Out of Curiosity
In March 2023, I was lucky enough to interview Australian historian Barry York, who talked me through the extraordinary story of the 1975 Australian Constitutional Crisis. If you have twenty minutes to spare, check out Barry's entertaining account in the BattingtheBreeze.com episode - Gough Whitlam was Out to Lunch.
The 1975 Australian Constitutional Crisis stands as Australia’s most explosive political moment. It laid bare the absurdity of a system claiming independence while retaining the British Crown.
The wounds didn’t heal quickly. Politicians refused to speak to each other—they just glared across the chamber with genuine hatred. A pall of distrust hung over Parliament House for years.
Epilogue
A month later in December, the Australian electorate had a chance to express their feelings through another general election. Among the many ironies of this story was the fact that the pantomime villain Malcolm Fraser won the election by a landslide.
Another rather touching irony was that later in life, Whitlam and Fraser became good friends. Fraser said that Whitlam was an entertaining dinner companion: warm, jovial, witty and, pertinently, a man without animosity.
As for Sir John Kerr, he became the most reviled figure in Australian public life. Eventually, he fled to England to escape the hostility. The former governor-general died from a brain tumour in 1991, having never escaped the shadow of that November day.
Having led Labor to another defeat in 1977, Whitlam retired from politics. He spent his remaining years as a respected elder statesman. His reforms—particularly universal healthcare and free university education—had become so embedded in Australian life that even conservative governments dared not touch them.
Gough Whitlam was deeply mourned upon his death at the age of 98. Despite the passing of years, Whitlam had retained an enduring fondness among the Australian people—even from many of his former adversaries in parliament. Thousands attended his state funeral on 5 November 2014.
Gough Whitlam’s memorial service, Town Hall, Sydney, 5 November 2014.
The 1975 Australian Constitutional Crisis was a mad moment in Australian political history; double-crossing, miscommunication, conspiracy theories, a mature world democracy without a government—a country in crisis.
And all because Gough Whitlam was out to lunch.
Dates with History
Monday...
In the late 1940s, as anti-Communist hysteria gripped America, Hollywood became a focal point. Tinseltown was hunting down potential subversives.
Eighty-five years ago tomorrow, 10 November 1940, none other than Walt Disney himself walked into the Los Angeles FBI office to offer his services as an informant.
His animators had gone on strike a few weeks earlier, demanding higher pay and improved working conditions. Disney was convinced that Communist sympathisers were stirring up trouble.
Walt Disney reported to the FBI for the next two decades until his death in 1966. His contribution was only revealed to the public in 1993 after FBI documents became available under the Freedom of Information Act.
Tuesday…
The infamous Australian outlaw, Ned Kelly, was hanged at Melbourne Gaol 145 years ago this Tuesday, 11 November 1880.
The Kelly Gang represented the flip side of the Australian squattocracy I mentioned earlier. They were the have-nots left with the scraps—rocky, sandy, infertile land that was either too dry or too wet to grow crops, let alone turn a profit.
As a result, they took to stealing cattle, ambushing stagecoaches and robbing the occasional bank. Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne were eventually captured after a shootout outside the Glenrowan Inn in the north of Victoria.
The judge who passed sentence on Ned Kelly died 12 days after he was hanged.
Wanted poster for up to £2,500 reward for the information leading to the capture of Ned Kelly and his gang, 30th October 1878.
By the Way
By the late 18th century, Paris was suffocating under the weight of its own dead. The ancient Cimetière des Innocents in the heart of Paris had become a public health disaster.
For nearly a thousand years, Parisians had been buried there, layer upon layer, until the ground itself was saturated with decomposing remains.
One day in the Spring of 1780, one of the cemetery walls collapsed, spilling corpses into neighbouring properties. The stench was unbearable. Disease was rampant.
Something had to be done.
Two hundred and forty years ago today, 9 November 1785, the Paris municipal authorities agreed to use the limestone quarries beneath the city as an official ossuary—a final resting place for human remains, typically reinterred from their original, overcrowded burial sites.
These vast underground chambers would house the bones of millions. Over the next two years, workers transported the remains of six million Parisians through the streets at night to their new resting place beneath the city. Priests chanted burial rites as the macabre processions wound their way through the darkness.
The Catacombs of Paris, a city of the dead, now lie peacefully beneath the City of Light.
The Catacombs of Paris hold the remains of six to seven million people, with skulls and femurs meticulously arranged into striking patterns and shapes, including pillars, crosses, and heart motifs. The arrangement seen in this photo is characteristic of the 175 miles of tunnels that weave beneath much of southern Paris.
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Question of the Week
In 1928, the author D.H. Lawrence wrote a book about an aristocratic woman’s passionate affair with her gamekeeper. It was privately published in Florence, Italy, in 1928 and released publicly in Paris in 1929. However, it wasn’t released in the United Kingdom until 1960.
What was the name of the book?
And Finally…
Cnut the Great ruled over England from 1016 to 1035, having conquered the kingdom in his mid-20s. The Viking warrior, son of Sweyn Forkbeard, had united England, Denmark and Norway under his crown, creating a North Sea empire.
As impressive as this achievement was, this isn’t what King Cnut is usually remembered for today.
History remembers Cnut for something rather different: that is... sitting on his throne by the seashore, commanding the incoming tide to halt. The story positions him as spectacularly arrogant—a king who genuinely believed the ocean would take orders.
However, the reality is quite the opposite.
King Cnut had actually become frustrated by the sycophancy of his nobles. Their flattery was suffocating him. When their claims of his greatness suggested that he could control nature, he decided to teach them a lesson.
Some time in 1028, Cnut ordered that his throne be placed at the ocean’s edge—most likely somewhere on the West Sussex coast. He sat down and waited.
King Cnut proving to his courtiers that he had no power to hold back the elements.
As the tide rolled in, Cnut demanded that the waves retreat. They didn’t. The English Channel kept coming. Within minutes, the king’s robes were sodden, and seawater was sloshing around his feet.
Cnut turned to his equally drenched courtiers and made his point: only God could command the elements.
That sorted that.
Cnut the Great died 990 years ago this Wednesday, 12 November 1035.
Thank you for joining me. Have a great week!
Steve
HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER
P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.
D.H. Lawrence’s 1928 book about an aristocratic woman’s passionate affair with her gamekeeper was Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Although a heavily censored version was published in the UK in 1932, the British authorities refused to allow publication of the uncensored version. It was too fruity. A bit like serving Christmas pudding without the brandy butter.
Thirty years after Lawrence’s death, Penguin Books stood in the dock at the Old Bailey, London. They intended to publish the unexpurgated version, naughty bits and all.
David Herbert Lawrence with his future wife, Frieda von Richthofen, 1914.
The prosecution’s Mervyn Griffith-Jones posed what he thought was a clinching question: “Is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?”
The 1960s British jury, few of whom likely kept gamekeepers or servants on the payroll, wondered how this could possibly be the pressing social question of the age.
After three hours, they delivered their verdict: Not Guilty.
A week later, sixty-five years ago tomorrow, 10 November 1960, 200,000 uncensored copies of Lady Chatterley’s Lover went on sale in the UK.
The books vanished from shelves faster than you could say “slap-and-tickle”.
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