Hardly a day goes by on social media without somebody demanding that the Governor-General sack Anthony Albanese.
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.
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All arguments aside there is no escaping the fact that a properly elected people’s government was dismissed by the crown.
Worse, the electorate failed to recognise this and accepted the media and political gobbledygook!!
What they should have done was to re-elect Whitlam, as a people’s elected government is sacrosanct in a democracy.
Sadly, this could all occur again
@ jonangel: There is one line of thought that suggests that Whitlam was prepared to hold a separate half-Senate election to get the necessary joint House numbers to pass the necessary money bills.
Yes, the voters got swept up in the Murdochracy Media Manipulation Monopoly anti-Labor campaign without thinking. Rupert was at his prime best and reported as livid that he had been rejected for the Ambassadorship in Washington back in 1973.
But the electorate did not know about the political skulduggery around the Dismissal. The roles of the US State Department & CIA, Buck Palace acting against LABOR seemingly with Royal assent (hence the long cove-up), HCA Judge Anthony Mason being the fourth man providing Constitutional support for Garfield Barwick CJ HCA who would give the LIARBRAL$ whatever decision they wanted.
Jenny Hocking is the current long time researcher and recognised expert of the Dismissal. Other authors have recorded their role in the matter.
The 1975 coup taught me a few things about Australia. None of them good.
I was listening to Parliament that day. I will not forget that a Vote of No confidence in Malcolm Fraser was passed and Gareth Evans went to Yarralumla to tell Kerr, but was not allowed in
Sadly, the Whitlam Government was terminally undermined by mainstream newsrooms which intentionally falsified reportage on the government’s achievements.
Also sadly, the same is happening to the Albanese Government.
Did you know the financial year just ended is the first time since world war two that the jobless, inflation and interest rates have all been below 4.6% and GDP growth above 2.0% for a full year?
Never happened before.
The newsrooms didn’t report this?
I can remember an arrogant drongo claiming in a letter that only the Governor-General should be able to sack a PM after Tone the Botty was sacked as Liberal leader nearly 11 years ago. I pointed out in response to this drongo that if the Governor-General sacks a PM, they have to also remove the entire government, and that the Governor-General could not have installed Malcolm Turnbull as PM because he was unhappy with Tone the Botty. This drongo then proceeded, in a great intellectual response (sarcasm), to say that I was a nasty person.
Alan Austin,
macrotrends appears to disagree, are they undermining the Albanese government?
“Australia gdp growth rate for 2026 is 1.36%, a 0.01% increase from 2025.
Australia gdp growth rate for 2025 was 1.35%, a 0.02% decline from 2024.
Australia gdp growth rate for 2024 was 1.37%, a 2.21% decline from 2023.
Australia gdp growth rate for 2023 was 3.58%, a 0.67% decline from 2022.”
When was the last time the number of Australians living in poverty was 3.7 million?
When was the last time the number of Australian children living in poverty was over three quarters of a million?
The average poverty gap is $390/week, is that some kind of record?
When was the social housing waiting list last over a quarter of a million Australians?
Is 1.3 million Australians experiencing food insecurity a government achievement?
Is jobseeker being $205 below the poverty line a record?
Youth Allowance recipients living away from home are $279 per week below the poverty line; is that a record under Labor?
Or is ACOSS trying to undermine the Albanese government?
According to an Australia Institute report: “By June 2026, the level of real wages has risen a mere 1% since March 2023 – slower than even the pre-pandemic period.”
Is the Australia Institute trying to undermine the Albanese government?
How about the figures on hospital waiting times, home care package waitlists, aged-care waiting lists???
Unless macrotrends have got that gdp growth figure wrong, and I’m pretty sure they have it right, then “Never happened before.” would be more accurate as “Never happened.” Unless maybe 1963 ????
Roswell,
Sorry, a minor bone of contention in regard to your piece :”Fraser was the Leader of the Opposition and had the parliamentary numbers necessary to form a government pending an election”; if I remember rightly, Whitlam returned to the house of reps, moved a no-confidence in Fraser motion, which was carried – Whitlam still had the numbers.
The reason I raise this is because, if I remember rightly Kerr refused to see the person sent to inform him of the no-confidence motion, adding another layer of betrayal of the Australian people in his behavour.
I wasn’t aware of that, Thommo.
I can live with one bone of contention. The rest of the article – you will no doubt agree – is stupendous, outstanding, brilliant, fantasmagorical, witty, educational, Nobel worthy and simply biblical.
Dear Guv,
Sack all the politicians and put the, if there is one, the parliamentary cat in charge of the gubmint.
Yours sincerely,
Not A Cat.
Roswell,
happy to go with stupendous, outstanding, brilliant, fantasmagorical, witty, and educational. The Nobel prizes I no longer value, and biblical might draw comparisons with people living inside whales.
Thommo, I meant biblical in proportion.
And I disagree on the Nobel. I don’t have a problem with the Nobel prize for literature (probably because I know nothing about the winners or their works).
Alan Austin,
I went with the wrong source it would seem, the ABS has gdp growth through the year as at June at 2.1%. As you said above 2%. It is also below the OECD area average of 2.3%.
But the ABS also has gdp growth per capita at only 0.7, not exactly world beating. Is Labor relying on immigration to prop up gdp growth?
The government is being criticised on productivity. The ABS has gdp growth per hour worked as a measure of productivity and it is -0.2%.
Just using gdp growth doesn’t tell the whole story, when it comes to productivity.
How’s manufacturing going in Australia, Alan?
Should we count 0 politicians having an adverse finding by the NACC against them as a sign that integrity has improved under Labor?
Let’s not forget Labor’s record number of FOI rejections?
How has trade in weapons/parts with Israel going during a genocide? Whether one calls them ‘non-lethal’ in a ridiculous attempt to mislead or not, it would be a record for Labor, or the pro-Israel lobby, wouldn’t it?
What would the gdp growth figure look like if investment in AI data centres was taken out – AI data centre investment is basically worldwide, hardly a Labor initiative?
FLY IN THE OINTMENT – Hmmm… A MEATY MIGHTY BIG ONE AND ITS GROWING
To our dearest Governor General and all alas who sail with us –
There is a fly in the ointment but not so much the fly that has been eloquently argued in the emporium. Speaking of which I loved the historical argument, we had the Vietnam war so it could happen again. And no of course it couldn’t, nor wouldn’t and certainly shouldn’t, neither based on reason or politics, history or time travel, science or physics, and certainly not by lightning or chance, coercion or persuasion.
History does repeat itself particularly when we don’t pay attention, become indifferent, complacent, forget, ignore and leave it to someone else – a magical being… and most apparitional of all God, the unknown always absent alien floating in the sky.
This fly, as meaningless as it might be wouldn’t even be from the unhappy hordes of Facebook, since again as eloquently put, Facebook is not the Australian Constitution, has no such authority or merit, and does not act as some divine oracle on or on behalf of the Australian Constitution or get a vote. But it does have devious malicious players, bullies, influencers, foreign interference, algorithms, powers, owners who don’t pay their taxes, aren’t Australian citizens, don’t live in this country or exist – millions and much more who can’t or won’t keep their mouth shut. And let’s face it, there are a few who do live in this country, who are just as ridiculous, bogan, manipulative and maladjusted as Trump, including Pauline Hanson, Barnaby Joyce, one or two billionaires we all know about and a herd of other supposedly duly elected politicians.
This fly is a devious and most obvious bug of darkness, simply because the conditions both intrinsic and extrinsic still exist – we have our Constitution and we have more of the bastards who would run us through including fools as ever we had before. No shop or shop floor is flawless however much polish is lavished on it. Don’t believe the adverts and the sales.
There are no supply bills in Facebook just obnoxious windows, shop floor and algorithms, and many other shop floors just as toxic. We still have the Murdoch empire, News Corp and stagnant press – mainstream media. We now have Sky News who just apparently re-badged themselves as News24, flown undercover of darkness. And public surveillance is floating on a sea of steroids and one eyed monsters.
We now have AI and their data centre armouries threatening to suck up our land, power, water and mess with our heads and money supply. And we have our foreign powers in charge of it all – the USA and Israel, who have single handedly as the dark knight duo dismantled international rules and cooperation, violating international laws, making war and dishing out destruction on an industrial scale in a more chaotic evil fashion no less alarming than the two World Wars last century. War crimes and genocide just as before despite Nuremberg and International laws to prevent it, though no Nuremberg – Justice and trials have fallen silent in the modern era and the UN despite its voice of reason has been muzzled by the desperate few superpowers and megalomaniacs, two of whom are themselves perpetrators and serial offenders. Israel too, though they are not a superpower as much as they’d like to think they are or behave like one, but they are all the above and not the chosen people of an indubitable absent God.
Did I mention the evil all powerful global billionaires and corporates responsible for inflation, the cost of living crisis, climate change, the greedy self-righteous demons in our midst? Perhaps I didn’t when’s must I should.
So here we are, we still have our dear Governor General and we still have our humble Constitution, much has changed and yet magically precious little has. The floor is anything but clean and polished in the realm beyond our emporium.
Could it happen again? absolutely. Could we go to war in Vietnam again? Absurd of course and highly unlikely. That is not how history repeats itself, as far as fate or quantum tells me. But we could be forced to go to war again by a coercive power which still controls us. If anything we have let our sovereignty seriously decline in the interregnum since 1975. Two words, two trojan horses among them ‘AUKUS’ and ‘antisemitism’, but I’m sure we could all name many.
Is it a fly or a virus or just the colour of our collective DNA? Only fools and horses would ignore the charge.