“Dear Governor-General: Here are our demands”

Apparently, such a sacking has been done before.

And therefore, according to the sophisticated constitutional analysis currently circulating online, it can obviously be done again.

Better still, some of these constitutional scholars have helpfully provided instructions for what should happen next: the Governor-General should sack Albanese and install Pauline Hanson as Prime Minister.

Because apparently Australia has reached the point where constitutional government can be conducted by Facebook comment.

There is only one minor problem.

No.

Not “no, because the Governor-General doesn’t like Pauline Hanson.”

Not “no, because Anthony Albanese happens to be Prime Minister.”

And not even “no, because somebody has forgotten to ask the Australian people.”

The problem is that the people demanding this appear to have a slightly hazy understanding of what actually happened in 1975.

The greatest misunderstanding of 1975

On 11 November 1975, Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed the Whitlam government and commissioned Opposition Leader Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister, pending an election.

It was an extraordinary constitutional crisis.

It was also half a century ago.

Yet every so often somebody on social media discovers this historical event and experiences the political equivalent of finding the missing link.

“THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL SACKED WHITLAM!” they announce. “SO WHY CAN’T HE SACK ALBANESE?”

And if history consisted entirely of isolated sentences written in capital letters, this would be an excellent argument.

Unfortunately, history comes with context.

And constitutions come with rather more than that.

The Governor-General isn’t Australia’s political referee

The Governor-General is not an alternative Prime Minister.

Nor is the office a constitutional complaints department where Australians can lodge an online petition because they don’t like the bloke currently occupying The Lodge.

You cannot simply announce:

“Dear Governor-General, I don’t like the government. Please remove it and appoint my preferred politician instead.”

And expect Government House to reply:

“Thanks for contacting us. Your request has been received. Your new Prime Minister is Pauline Hanson. Have a lovely afternoon.”

Australia is a parliamentary democracy.

Governments derive their authority from parliamentary confidence and, ultimately, from elections.

The Governor-General has important constitutional powers, including reserve powers, but those powers are not a convenient mechanism for bypassing the democratic process whenever somebody becomes sufficiently angry on Facebook.

And there is another little detail that appears to have escaped the social-media constitutional experts.

Fraser wasn’t Pauline Hanson

In 1975, Kerr commissioned Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister because Fraser was the Leader of the Opposition and had the parliamentary numbers necessary to form a government pending an election.

That is rather different from deciding that a particular minor-party leader should be handed the keys to The Lodge because somebody with a profile picture of an Australian flag has demanded it.

There was no election in 1975 before Fraser became caretaker Prime Minister.

There was, however, an election afterwards.

And Australians were then given the opportunity to decide what they thought of the whole extraordinary affair.

That’s an important distinction.

And then there’s the inconvenient part about the law

The 1975 crisis prompted decades of argument about Australia’s constitutional arrangements, including whether the Governor-General should possess such broad reserve powers and whether conventions surrounding their use should be changed or clarified.

But here’s the part that tends to spoil the social-media fantasy:

You can’t simply recreate 1975 because you remember that it happened.

The constitutional and legislative framework surrounding governments, elections and the exercise of executive power has developed considerably since then.

Most importantly, the Governor-General does not possess some magical constitutional power to dismiss a government and appoint whichever politician happens to be somebody’s favourite.

And even if we put all the constitutional arguments aside for a moment, there remains the small matter of parliamentary arithmetic.

A Prime Minister needs to be able to command the confidence of the House of Representatives.

Pauline Hanson does not become Prime Minister because somebody thinks she’d be good at it.

That’s not how the Westminster system works.

It would be rather like appointing yourself captain of the Australian cricket team because you once shouted good advice at the television.

“But it happened before!”

Yes.

It did.

So did decimal currency.

So did the Vietnam War.

So did the Sydney Harbour Bridge opening.

History contains many things that happened before.

That does not mean you can simply demand that they happen again.

The 1975 dismissal remains one of the most controversial and consequential events in Australian political history. Historians, constitutional scholars and politicians have spent decades debating what happened, why it happened and whether it was constitutionally proper.

It is perfectly legitimate to debate it.

It is perfectly legitimate to criticise Whitlam.

It is perfectly legitimate to criticise Kerr.

It is perfectly legitimate to criticise Fraser.

And it is perfectly legitimate to argue that Australia’s constitutional arrangements should be changed.

What is slightly less impressive is discovering that Australia once had a constitutional crisis and concluding:

“Excellent. Let’s do another one, but this time put Pauline in charge.”

Peak stupidity has apparently been reached

There is something wonderfully Australian about the whole proposition.

Forget parliamentary elections.

Forget constitutional conventions.

Forget parliamentary confidence.

Forget the fact that millions of Australians have already voted.

Just ring the Governor-General.

“G’day, Your Excellency. Bit of a favour. Could you sack Albanese and put Pauline Hanson in?”

The Governor-General might reasonably wonder whether the call has been placed by an adult.

The really remarkable thing is that many of the people making these demands are simultaneously furious about governments supposedly ignoring “the will of the people.”

Their solution?

Ignore the will of the people.

Don’t wait for an election.

Don’t persuade enough Australians to vote for your preferred candidate.

Just get the Governor-General to install her.

It is difficult to imagine a more efficient demonstration of the difference between wanting democracy and wanting the result you personally prefer.

So, for anyone contemplating another social-media post demanding that the Governor-General sack Anthony Albanese and appoint Pauline Hanson Prime Minister, I have a modest suggestion.

Before reaching for the keyboard, perhaps reach for a history book.

And after that, perhaps a civics textbook.

You might discover that 1975 was not a constitutional vending machine.

You can’t put fifty cents into the Governor-General, press the “SACK ALBANESE” button and wait for Pauline Hanson to drop into the Prime Ministerial slot.

Although, judging by some of the commentary on social media, I fear the vending machine may actually have a better understanding of Australia’s Constitution.