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Home / Events / Libraries / *Online* Jenny Hocking – The Palace Letters -7.30pm

*Online* Jenny Hocking – The Palace Letters -7.30pm

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Event Date: 4 February 2021
Author / Presenters: Jenny Hocking

The Queen, the Governor-General, and the plot to dismiss Gough Whitlam. A political betrayal. A constitutional crisis.

Professor Jenny Hocking waged a ten-year campaign and a four-year legal battle to force the National Archives of Australia to release the letters written by Governor General John Kerr to the Queen during one of the most divisive episodes in the nation’s history – the dismissal. In May 2020, despite being opposed by the Archives, Buckingham Palace, and the full resources of the federal government, she won her historic case in the High Court.

The Palace Letters is the ground-breaking account of her indomitable fight. Drawing on material from the Palace letters, Kerr’s archives, and her submissions to the courts, Hocking traces the collusion and deception behind the dismissal, and charts the secret role of High Court judges, the leader of the opposition, Malcolm Fraser, and the Queen’s private secretary in fostering and supporting Kerr’s actions.

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