[new article] #Exclusive: 45yrs after Gough Whitlam’s dismissal I spoke to surviving ministers - Paul Keating, Bill Hayden, Doug McClelland, Moss Cass - who have mixed feelings about that dramatic day but they do not implicate the Queen @australian #auspol https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/dismissal-poison-lingers-45-years-on/news-story/4170b7981a26a3a611b031b2ffeee0e6

Paul Keating says Malcolm Fraser’s actions in 1975 - blocking supply to force an election - injected a poison into the political bloodstream and it has never been the same since. It also weaponised the Senate as a potentially “obstructionist force” in our politics. #auspol

Bill Hayden recalled telling Gough Whitlam five days before the dismissal that it was his “copper’s instinct” that John Kerr might dismiss the government. Whitlam ignored the warning signs. “He wouldn’t have the guts,” Whitlam told Hayden. #auspol

In the Senate Doug McClelland thought Labor had achieved a great victory when the Coalition passed the budget. Whitlam did not tell them he had been dismissed. McClelland says there was a conspiracy and blames John Kerr, Malcolm Fraser, Anthony Mason and Garfield Barwick. #auspol