Although Peter O’Brien’s recent Spectator Australia article defending Sir John Kerr’s dismissal of the Whitlam government was essentially directed at the literary assassination of the Governor-General by Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston, it did manage to capture the Australian sentiment surrounding the November 1975 dismissal event.

While there were many factual matters to be considered to understand if the dismissal was justified, generally speaking, the public had been kept abreast of most of the relevant facts by local media who were happy to employ the wisdom of experts from different sides if only to reassure the people of their impartiality.