Hey can anyone explain me about why was the whitlam dismissal was so important to australia?please!?

Question

Hey can anyone explain me about why was the whitlam dismissal was so important to australia?please!?

Answer 1

It 1975 Australian constitutional crisis claiming financial mismanagement, Opposition senators declined to vote on the passage of the Government's budget. They maintained that, having lost the support of Parliament, the Prime Minister was obliged to resign and to advise the Governor-General to call an election. These Events culminated with the removal of Australia's then Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam by Governor-General Sir John Kerr and appointing the Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister. It has been described as the greatest political and constitutional crisis in Australia's history. Gough Whitlam had a low regard for the status of the Senate. It had been long-standing Labor policy (implemented in Queensland) to abolish upper houses as they were considered anti-democratic. He adamantly insisted that the upper house had no power to dictate terms for the election of the directly-elected lower house. The lower house, the 'house of the people', was more democratic and representative than 'the house of the states' and thus, in a modern democracy, had to be supreme. Whitlam emphasised the long-established principle of the Westminster system that, as long as a government has a majority in the lower house, it is entitled to stay in office and serve its full term. Paul Kelly, in his book November 1975, stated that Whitlam viewed the crisis as a chance not only to force Fraser into a humiliating back-down, but also to permanently and definitively establish the supremacy of the lower house. This prompted Kerr to seek advice from the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Sir Garfield Barwick. Barwick advised Kerr that the Governor General did have the constitutional power to remove Whitlam from office. At this point, it appears that Kerr made up his mind to dismiss Whitlam.  He then formally terminated Whitlam's commission.

The crisis is significant in analyzing Westminster systems for the large number of conventions that were involved. Constitutional texts cannot cover every conceivable reality, and the political process almost always relies to some extent on custom and convention in operation. The Australian Constitution, drafted by those steeped in the British tradition of an unwritten constitution, relies on established unwritten customs to determine and guide the application of what appears in the Constitutional text. Some have seen expressed in the 1975 crisis a fundamental contradiction deriving from the Australian Constitution's melding of the principles of the Westminster system, with a dominant lower house that determines the government, and United States-style federalism, with a "states' chamber" (the Senate) with powers very nearly equal to those of the House of Representatives.

The Australian crisis illustrates how unwritten conventions can operate flexibly during a crisis, seen by some as a benefit, while being used by others as an argument for the codification of the reserve powers. The latter view is not accepted by many prominent Australian constitutional scholars, who argue that the flexibility is needed, and would be lost in codification. It is argued that in a system where the Houses have equal power, a head of state with wide reserve powers is required to serve as umpire. Codification of powers essentially eliminates the vice-regal ability to use discretion in their exercise, and these scholars argue this discretion is necessary in order to resolve unforeseen difficulties.