The Dismissal, 11/11/1975

Gough Whitlam: Ladies and gentlemen, well may we say ‘God save the Queen’, because nothing will save the Governor-General. National Museum Australia photo.

By CHARLIE CARTER

As the 50th anniversary looms next week, those of us old enough remember the day. It was one of those "where were you" moments.

I was a part time teaching fellow, and graduate student in the Botany Dept, at Sydney University. It was a fairly left leaning department, although there were a few conservatives.

My supervisor and mentor Professor SmithWhite had been “named” as a communist in Federal Parliament in the McCarthy era, although he was coy as to whether he had actually been a party member. His wife certainly had been.

As a geneticist he cut any ties with the party over the Soviet orthodoxy of Lysenkoism (Inheritance of acquired characteristics) which he knew to be incorrect.

And Prof Charles Birch in Zoology was an outspoken anti war anti conscription Christian activist.

Interestingly the Anglican Archbishop Loane of Sydney was a “kill a commie for Christ” conservative, and his son was a student in Botany.

Marches against the Vietnam war and conscription drew a fair bit of support, from the besuited, conservative, Methodist lecturer Dr Newman, to the barefoot longhaired larrikin (yours truly).

We had been following the threat to block supply imbroglio for weeks and it had been a lively topic in the tearoom.

When rumours of the dismissal started to circulate we clustered around the radio in the tearoom, with outrage at the dismissal, cautious elation when the House passed the vote of confidence in Whitlam, and then despair and disgust when Cur skulked in the back room of Government House and refused to meet the Speaker.

All of which has been endlessly analysed over the decades as the skulduggery has been slowly exposed partly due to the relentless digging of Prof Jenny Hocking.

But it is still a vivid memory.

ED – I was in the newsroom of the Murdoch Centralian Advocate, now defunct. Its office was at the base of Billygoat Hill. I was one of the reporters. The editor, who shall be nameless, came in to tell us the news. He was full of glee.

Erwin Chlanda.