A very well written and (to me) convincing piece.

Given that "the dismissal" still evokes strong emotions and is politically divisive, I am sure there are many that will disagree.

the great south lands..van die mens land
are governed* by the Governor-GENERAL*..

as all british/tish tish COLONIES are lorded over by
heh despiote herself being mearly a tokenistic dopple ganger
yet ,the one to whom our various armed forces swear loyalty..,not the pm nor govt constitution or even the australia con-institution act..etc

the australia ACt,..ratified by the brits further complicates
or rather muddies the fact's..and might is right

govt has no authority to tax wages
but can tax income*..income is that earned via no wage value adding componant..like fees fines revenue raising..yet the silence from our defacto goveners..60%..of whom are or were lawyers,..verges on treason..

almost as much as hrh 'coin'..content ..has become..DEBASED cupra/nickle..when tradition requires gold/silver ..and the mint and fed gifted by treason..to money lenders..conmpiounds the treason

but heck no one is watching
so the law..IS DO AS YOUR MASTERS TELL YOU
or we send in the rum corpus coruptus...just dont try to interrupt us.

Part One: A common failing in articles about the 1975 crisis is the inability of the authors to see beyond their own political interests. Mr Smith’s article is a text book example. He approaches the issue in the same partisan manner which he criticises Mr Evans for adopting. These people who are like punch-drunk fighters who want to continue the fight, rather than thinking through a way of avoiding such fights in the future.

There is a key distinction between the Senate having power over money bills and the Senate using that power to remove a Government. If the 1975 Senate had disagreed with the proposed budget, it would have moved amendments, then upon rejection of the amendments it would have rejected the bills. The Government would then have submitted an amended budget.

The Senate blocked supply for one reason only. It wanted to remove the Government. The minority which lost the last election deliberately contrived the crisis in order to remove the majority which won. This was blatantly undemocratic.

Kerr had a choice. He could have adopted the democratic approach and said, initially privately and then publicly if necessary, that ‘While the Government holds a majority in the House, it is entitled to govern, and I will not curtail its right to govern.’ The Senate would have been unable to secure its objective. It would have backed down. Crisis over; democracy preserved.

Instead, he chose the undemocratic option and allowed the minority which lost the last election to throw out the majority which won. Calling an election was not ‘referring the dispute to the people’. It was giving one side in a political dispute exactly what it wanted - an election when it wasn’t entitled to one, and when its chances were good. Will supporters of his action be so supportive if in future this happens to a Liberal Government?

Part Two: It is wrong though to focus on the failings of individuals. Humans will always let us down. We should focus on principles instead. Build a system rigorously based on democratic principle, and then individual failings will be unable to bring it down.

Concentrating on principle, the absurdity of current arrangements becomes apparent. The unelected representative of a foreign queen should not have power to force the elected Government from office. We have representatives who can do that. There have been many occasions where a change in support within the House has lead to a change of Government.

Democratic principle requires the power to choose Government be passed to the House of our Representatives. That will ensure that the majority is entitled to govern. This is the approach of the Advancing Democracy model - see www.advancingdemocracy.info.

Advancing Democracy should be of interest to anyone who wants to develop a better system. If you remain obsessed with justifying what ‘your side’ did in 1975, we will never make progress.

(quote)
He described Sir John's tenure as "catastrophic", but I doubt that the vast majority of the Australian people who so decisively and comprehensively rejected Gough Whitlam and his Government in landslide defeats at the 1975 and 1977 national elections would agree with him
(end quote)

Sadly David Smith does not see that the political popularity (or not) of the Whitlam government has (or should have) no bearing whatever on the correctness or appropriateness of the Governor-General's action.

(quote)
Whitlam attempted to give the Governor-General the stupidest piece of advice imaginable. That was the day when Whitlam intended to advise the Governor-General to order a half Senate election to be held on 13 December. One can hardly imagine that Whitlam could have believed that the election of Senators who would not have taken their seats in the Senate until 1 July 1976 – six and a half month later – would have solved the nation's immediate financial and economic crisis caused by the Government having already started to run out of money.
(end quote)

So what is the correct advice in such a situation? To advise a House of Representatives election? Wouldn't that be just as stupid, since it doesn't change the composition of the Senate? (I understand that, if I'm not mistaken, in this case an immediate double dissolution election was possible - but it normally wouldn't be, so that's clearly not the correct solution intended by the Consititution).