Buckingham Palace issues rare statement on Whitlam letters

Buckingham Palace has released a statement insisting that the release of secret letters show that the Queen played "no part" in the plot to dismiss Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975.

The letters, which were released after 45 years and a battle in High Court, shows that Governor General Sir John Kerr did not let Buckingham know of his plan to sack the Prime Minister.

“At Her Majesty’s Coronation on 2 June, 1953, the Queen swore an oath to govern the Peoples of Australia “according to their respective laws and customs," the statement from Buckingham Palace reads.

Throughout her reign, Her Majesty has consistently demonstrated this support for Australia, the primacy of the Australian people, which the letters reflect,’’ the Palace statement said.

“While the royal household believes in the longstanding convention that all conversations between prime ministers, governor generals and the Queen are private, the release of the letters by the National Archives Australia confirms that neither Her Majesty nor the Royal Household had any part to play in Kerr’s decision to dismiss Whitlam.”

The newly released letters reveal that Palace officials discussed the Governor-General's powers to fire the Prime Minister.

“It is often argued that such powers no longer exist. I think those powers do exist, and the fact that they do, even if they are not used, affects the situation and the way people think and act,” the Queen’s private secretary Sir Martin Charteris wrote in 1975.

“But to use them is a heavy responsibility and it is only at the very end when there is demonstrably no other course that they should be used.”

The letters also reveal that Prince Charles could have been the Governor-General of Australia, but not until he had a "lady by his side" to do the job.

“I think the point we must all bear in mind is that I do not believe The Queen would look with favour on Prince Charles becoming Governor-General of Australia until such time as he has a settled married life,” Sir Martin wrote.

“No one will know better than you how important it is for a governor-general to have a lady by his side for the performance of his duties.

“The prospect, therefore, of The Prince of Wales becoming Governor-General of Australia must remain in the unforeseeable future.”

The 1,000 pages of letters confirm that Prince Charles was kept in the loop over the crisis and spoke to the Governor-General, General Sir John Kerr, about his fears that he would be fired by Gough Whitlam.

“I decided to take the step I took without informing the Palace in advance ... it was better for Her Majesty NOT to know,” Sir John Kerr’s letter states.

The Governor-General also wrote that he did not warn Gough Whitlam that he was considering firing him as it would put the Queen in an "impossible position".

“If in the period of 24 hours in which he was considering his position he advised the Queen that I should be immediately dismissed, the position would then have been that either I would be, in fact, trying to dismiss him while he was trying to dismiss me - an impossible position for the Queen,’’ Sir John Kerr wrote.

“I simply could not risk the outcome for the sake of the monarchy.”