Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Meeting up w/Fodorites in Oz

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- - Meeting up w/Fodorites in Oz - attn Mucky, Pat, Margo! (https://www.fodors.com/community/australia-and-the-pacific/meeting-up-w-fodorites-in-oz-attn-mucky-pat-margo-652127/)

What, and spoil the fun, Liz? The Loans Affair was definitely foolish and the responsible minister's conduct inexcusably dodgy, the whole exacerbated by Whitlam's failure to exercise discipline on his cabinet. However, there's no evidence that anyone except the shady financier Khemlani stood to personally gain from it. That doesn't amount to "corruption".

While it's exciting to see people getting spitting mad over political events from more than thirty years ago, much as a certain type of old-school lefty in the US never really got over Nixon (and no doubt the Clinton-obsessors will still be equally exercised in 2028 and beyond), I'm going to have to drop out of this one.

Technically the discussion ended when Liz made a Godwin (comparing Whitlam to Hitler), which is supposed to end a thread.

My original point still stands: to an American the shocking thing isn't that Whitlam was or wasn't popular, or was or wasn't a terrific PM, but that some fellow who isn't even Australian could just say "all right, you, pack your bags, you've been removed", and everyone just sort of goes along.

I mean, like him or not, he held office legitimately.

Kerr, the Governor General IS/WAS an Australian fnarf: He was appointed Governor General by the then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. This history goes as such:
Kerr was appointed Chief Justice of New South Wales in 1972. When Sir Paul Hasluck retired as Governor-General in August 1973, the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, offered Sir John the post. Kerr did not know Whitlam well, but he had remained friends with several ministers in Whitlam's government. Whitlam seems to have believed that because of Kerr's former membership in the Labor Party he was still politically "reliable."
The Governor General of Australia is only the "Queen's representative" which really means that he is a "stand in" for the Queen at official functions and is normally appointed by the Government at the time if the post becomes available. Kerr had been a Judge of the High Court of Australia and had impecable qualifications.