Overview
- Speaking at Old Parliament House, the prime minister said conservative forces engineered a partisan ambush in 1975 and announced plans for a Gough Whitlam statue at the site.
- Governor-General Sam Mostyn said she would never say never to using reserve powers in extreme circumstances and defended their availability to safeguard national stability.
- The anniversary has renewed focus on unresolved questions from the 1975 supply crisis, when Sir John Kerr dismissed Whitlam and appointed Malcolm Fraser as caretaker before the December election.
- Historian Jenny Hocking urged fuller access to still-closed files despite the 2020 release of palace letters, as the National Archives cited about 13,000 Whitlam-related records with more than 8,700 public.
- Former prime minister John Howard argued Whitlam erred in assuming Kerr would not act and said voter discontent preceded the dismissal.