Whitlam's Dismissal
Arguments For
- The government was about to loose control of the countries finance by lack of funding from the senate.
- Australia could have been forced into a standstill resulting in a loss of many jobs, especially within the government.
- Despite being against custom, it was within the Governor General’s legal right to dismiss the government if he so chose.
- There had been numerous scandals within the government that implied an unorganized and controlled party
- Many were of the opinion that Whitlam was overspending the government’s budget in a too short space of time and would eventually land the nation bankrupt. If he had stayed on as Prime Minister he was likely to covet the bad public opinion in the end but trying to change the country too rapidly.
Arguments Against
- Kerr’s acts seen as undemocratic. The Australian public had voted that government in and so should be the ones to vote him out.
- Had in fact been voted in twice in a very short period of time and many think Whitlam was right not to agree to another election.
- Malcolm Fraser and his party should have been the ones punished or reprimanded for disallowing supply to come through, disenabling the Prime Minister to run the country. It was a very untraditional and somewhat sly way to get his own party into government.
- Liberal Party had already behaved in unfair ways by appointing their own candidates into the senate after the vacancies arrived giving them control of the senate. This was against custom to replace the spot with a member of the original party.
- Governor General is not an elected role and so it seems unjust they should have the power to dismiss a government voted in by millions of Australians. Kerr had been if office for under 12 months when he dismissed Whitlam.
- Fraser had tried to influence Kerr and a member of his party publicly announced it as within constitution for him to sack the PM.
