Gough Whitlam dismissal 50 years later: Keating reveals advice to Whitlam hours after ejection

Paul Keating would have put the governor-general who sacked the Whitlam government under police arrest, the former prime minister has revealed, 50 years on from the “destructive” dismissal that defined Australian politics.

Former prime minister Gough Whitlam was dismissed on the front steps of Old Parliament House on November 11, 1975, over a deadlock which could have seen Australia run out of money for crucial services.

Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser had refused to pass Mr Whitlam’s budget, leading to a constitutional crisis Governor-General Sir John Kerr resolved by firing the prime minister and appointing Mr Fraser to the role.

Mr Keating said he told Mr Whitlam in the aftermath of the dismissal he should have gone directly to Queen Elizabeth II to have Mr Kerr sacked.

“In the event that Kerr resisted, I said to Gough he should be put under police arrest,” Mr Keating told journalist Niki Savva in an interview played inside that same building on Tuesday.

“That is certainly what I would have done if I was prime minister.”

Mr Keating, who was the minister for northern Australia in 1975, was with Mr Whitlam and Sir John in the days before the fateful event.

He said he saw the pair laughing together in a meeting, which added to the deceit surrounding the sacking just four days later.

After the meeting, Mr Keating recalled Mr Whitlam getting into a Mercedes before saying, “Well, he seems alright … he’s entirely proper, he’ll do the right thing”.

This was how Mr Kerr lulled Mr Whitlam into a false sense of security, the former prime minister said.

“It was the brutality and malevolence of it all, really, which was so striking but not immediately apparent on the day,” Mr Keating said.

“It was destructive.”

The Coalition won the subsequent election in a landslide, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that result should not be seen as an endorsement of Mr Kerr’s actions.

“Being all the various schemes and subplots … lies an overt refusal to respect the mandate or even acknowledge the legitimacy of a Labor government that has secured a majority in two consecutive federal elections inside three years,” Mr Albanese said in a speech at Old Parliament House on Monday night.

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard, who was a junior member of the Fraser opposition in the lead-up to the dismissal, said Mr Whitlam didn’t handle the politics of the saga well.

“I think he just assumed that Kerr was his man and would do his bidding, and that was a terrible mistake,” he told AAP.

“He should have worked out for himself that Kerr might exercise the reserve power and dismiss him.”

Mr Howard said Labor had appeared to be in a hurry to introduce major reforms because it had been in opposition for more than two decades before returning to power.

“He was very much in a rush,” Mr Howard said.

“But you can be in a rush towards the wrong objective,” he added, saying increased spending and a larger public service were some of the Whitlam government’s flawed plans.