Palace letters

From left to right: Queen Elizabeth II, Gough Whitlam, Sir John Kerr.

This article is part of a series about Gough Whitlam
Early life World War II service Member for Werriwa (1952–1978) Deputy Labor leadership Labor Party spills 1967 1968 1976 May 1977 Prime Minister of Australia Term of government (1972–1975) Vietnam War withdrawal National Sewerage Program Medibank Advance Australia Fair 1973 Murphy raids 1973 referendum Gair Affair 1974 referendum Loans affair Papua independence Family Law reform Racial Discrimination Act 1975 Australian constitutional crisis Palace letters Ministries First Second Third Elections 1969 1972 1974 1975 1977 Related It's Time Birthplace
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The Palace letters, sometimes labelled as the Palace papers, were letters between Queen Elizabeth II, through her Private Secretary Martin Charteris, and Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr around the time of the 1975 constitutional crisis, in which Kerr dismissed Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.^[1] The phrase 'Palace letters' originated in the work of Australian historian and Whitlam biographer Professor Jenny Hocking, who successfully overturned the Queen's embargo over these letters, as a reference to Buckingham Palace, the official residence of Elizabeth in London.^[2]

Kerr's copies of these letters are held by the National Archives of Australia, which would ordinarily have made them publicly accessible after 30 years as provided by the Archives Act. However, the letters arrived at the Archives as a voluntary deposit of personal papers and access was therefore subject to terms set down by Kerr, which meant that public access was denied according to an embargo placed over them by the Queen until at least 2027 and after that date until permitted by the Queen's private secretary.

In 2016, Professor Jenny Hocking, having been refused access to the letters, sued the National Archives for their release, arguing that the letters were 'Commonwealth records' not 'personal' and they should therefore be available for public access 31 years after their creation according to the provisions of the Archives Act 1983. In 2020, the High Court of Australia found in Hocking's favour in a 6-1 decision and ruled that these documents should be accessible to the Australian public as Commonwealth records, and ordered the Director-General of the National Archives to reconsider Hocking's request.^[3] The High Court also issued three cost orders against the National Archives directing it to pay Professor Hocking's costs.^[4] The National Archives had spent a total of $1.6 million unsuccessfully contesting Hocking's case seeking public access to the Palace letters.^[5] The letters were made public, in full and online, on 14 July 2020.^[6]