Despite her early childhood in England skipping through a host of golden daffodils (true) guest columnist Tess Lawrence is an impatient and noisy Republican, ditto the Treaty and The Voice, an unholy trinity that exposes the weeping canker left upon the flesh of this Great Southern Land by the brain dead British Empire, kept on life support by a monarchy that has wantonly, in Trumpian audacity, not only meddled in our political affairs but also jettisoned a prime minister from office through coercive control and exquisitely devious political stratagems that even Scott Morrison couldn’t confect.
Content warning: This article mentions Tampons, the Republic and something else that I can’t remember.
First, the warrior historian Jenny Hocking both humiliated and infuriated Queen Elizabeth with her sensational The Palace Letters coup.
Now she’s aimed her bespoke sling shot at Lizzie’s first born, the tampon romantic, King Charles, for decades his Mama’s loyal spaniel in a kennel of corgis.
Hocking calls for King Charles to apologise for Dismissal role
The diminutive, feisty Professor Hocking is calling for the King of Oz to apologize for his role in the notorious dismissal of Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in November 1975.
Many Australians may be unaware of the King’s (previously known as Prince) blatant fraternising and sneaky facilitating in the political scandal known simply as ‘The Dismissal.’ The improper Charley was also a go-between to Her Majesty and her man in Australia. Please read on.
In Pearls and Irritations, founder John Menadue, himself a former private secretary to Gough Whitlam when Opposition Leader, quotes from the warrior historian’s publication, The Dismissal Dossier:
John Kerr sidles up to Prince Charles in PNG
‘In the heat of early spring 1975 in the New Guinea highlands, the Governor General, Sir John Kerr sidled up to Prince Charles and suggested a quiet chat. Their topic? The possible dismissal of the Prime Minister whose guest at the Papua New Guinea Independence Day celebrations they both were. Kerr’s prime concern in confiding this exceptional matter of state to the Prince was, as ever, his own job security. … In Kerr’s own mind he and Prince Charles went way back – to at least the previous year when Kerr had been blessed with a startlingly frank discussion about the Prince’s endless wait to ascend to the throne. His royal ennui, a sort of privileged loose end that the Governor General had been only too willing to help tie up. … John Kerr also discussed with Prince Charles the suggestion that he might one day come to Australia as Governor General.’
The King’s outrageous, unconstitutional interference in Australian politics when he was a mere prince, has yet to be publicly addressed by Charles. (Like Mama, like son.) But at least Madge was a Queen. Charles was merely the heir, loitering with intent. And intent on loitering. That didn’t stop him having his two florins worth, but.
The Dismissal: most egregious royal interference
The take away from this is that the King was privy to what his mother was up to.
And if there is any greater egregious proof/example of collective royal interference in contemporary Australia politics, then I do not know of it.
And if you’d like French fries with this, remember that the front man who did all the dirty work for Her Majesty in grooming and flattering our needy Governor-General Sir John Kerr, was her long-time courtier and bestie, none other than Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Michael Charles Charteris, Baron Charteris of Amisfield. And Charteris was like an uncle to Charles.
Queen Elizabeth weaponised the Monarchy
This is the precis of the coup d’etat in a gumnut shell:
Hocking wanted access to the secret archived letters between the Palace and that self-important pompous git, the Governor-General Sir John Kerr, that subsequently proved the above, that Palace Inc, the Queen and other members of the royal family and courtiers not only colluded with Kerr to dismiss Whitlam, but also desperately sought to cover up what can be fairly described as the weaponising of the monarchy.
In Hocking’s words from the Chuffed.org website:
There is one crucial part of Kerr’s papers that remains blocked to us – ‘the Palace letters’. These are the secret letters between Sir John Kerr and the Queen at the time of Kerr’s dismissal of Whitlam.
The National Archives of Australia is refusing to release these letters, claiming that they are ‘personal’ and not official Commonwealth records. The Palace letters are embargoed until at least 2027, with the Queen’s private secretary holding a final veto over their release even after that date. It is entirely possible that they will never be released.
National Archives accomplice to the Queen
It was a true battle royale between the Queen, aided and abetted by our shameless National Archives versus Hocking the individual. How could the Queen’s letters to her/our Governor-General possibly be deemed personal? Even if Lilibet and Kerr were lovers, their letters would still be deemed political. No question.
In a spectacular landmark case that turned the master key to all Commonwealth archives to some degree, Hocking and her pro bono legal team went on to successfully argue against such arrant nonsense and win the day after the long night’s fight for justice.
You would hope our National Archives would be the vanguard in releasing the ‘Palace Letters’ to the Australian people. But alas, it wasn’t.
Fricker tried to pulverize Hocking into submission
Instead, the then Director – General of the Archives, David Fricker, was Hocking’s histrionic combatant in the protracted legal stoush and spent hundreds of thousands of Archives dollars (taxpayer money) trying to pulverize citizen Hocking into legal submission.
From the ABC is this short grab of Fricker fronting Senate Estimates. Is he bowing his head in shame?
Fronting Senate Estimates today, the Archives’ director-general David Fricker said more than $1 million in taxpayer money had been spent defending the original decision to block access to the letters.
(NB: Fricker failed to do any such thing. His ridiculous attempt to prevent Hocking – and thus the Australian people – from access to its own history was surely an ignominious assault on the very raison d’etre of a national archive.)
Fricker hadn’t reckoned on Hocking’s tenacity
Like some of her critics, Fricker had not reckoned on Hocking’s tenacity or that of her legal team. Frail looking, fine boned and with her trademark glasses, she reminds one of Coco Chanel with her fringed bob and impeccable elegant appearance.
As well as being lauded by her peers as an historian, Hocking is also famous for her forensic investigations, research and analyses of political and social history. Her books, papers and lectures on terrorism, justice and intelligence agencies make salient reading and it is worth noting how her earlier works have proved to be disturbingly prophetic.
At times, it almost seemed that Fricker was more ardent than the Queen (read Palace) in fighting Hocking’s application.
Hocking paid heavy price for Australia
Hocking knew she would have to pay a heavy price on so many tiers, in the fight to legally force Fricker to release those palace letters from their imperial prison. Nonetheless, she was up for it.
For four long arduous years she fought a cause that is inextricably linked to our colonizing monarchy and yes, the notion of lese-majeste and all the privileges that have been greedily subsumed within the empire, along with the acquisition of entire nations including this very continent stolen from our First Nations peoples under the falsehood of terra nullius.
We ought not underestimate the accumulative physical, mental and financial toll this protracted and needless court case inflicted upon Hocking and inevitably her family circle and friends. In effect, she was a whistleblower and she was upsetting the Establishment and the status quid pro quo.
It was utterly preposterous that Australia had been denied access to its own historical legacy and documents. Let us put aside diplomatic platitudes.
Court case evidence of master-slave Australia to Britain
What remains manifest in that denial is evidence of the residue of a master-slave subservience and obeisance to the frayed remnants of the British Empire; the colonizer still attempting to inflict her will upon the colonised; remnants that lurk in our parliaments, courtrooms, laws, legislation, judicial system and constitutional mores and habits.
The Hocking case is a case in point and it’s good to know, for the sake of our own truth and storytelling, that a documentary series is being planned. Hopefully, the series will be cathartic for Hocking and all concerned.
Because inevitably in such cases, one becomes consumed with the task at hand. Although the big hand on the clock moves, the mind does not. Rather it is fixed on attempting to thwart legal tactics and argument and never-ending obfuscation.
Hocking copped a lot of shit
She copped a lot of shit and was regarded as a pariah by some. Her enemies lied to her and about her, even in public and even unto this day.
And where is the erstwhile Mr Fricker now? Well might you ask.
At the time of going to press, according to his Linked In page, he is now domicile in a Middle Eastern country in a place where secrecy is mandatory.
Fricker now in Abu Dhabi. Where else?
Where else would someone who abused public monies in a futile attempt to disallow citizens from accessing their own history in the ‘West’ find himself? Why, in Abu Dhabi of course! As special Advisor to the Director-General National Library and Archives of the UAE, no less.
Why am I not surprised?
Strangely, amongst all his listed qualifications, jobs and achievements on Linked In, there was nothing about the Hocking case debacle. Why not, I pondered?
Was it a career fail? Well yes, of course it was. Was it a monumental waste of public monies and court time? Well yes, it was. Was it all about tugging the fetlock as well as a forelock before the monarchy? Of course it was! And was it about serving conservative political masters? Yes, yes, yes!
Fricker’s loss to Hocking a career fail
But here’s Fricker’s hilarious killer punch. “Throughout my tenure I
worked hard to advocate for transparency and integrity in public administration.”
Fricker, as he can’t stop telling everyone, is a former Deputy-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and I sometimes wonder if Hocking’s writings on terrorism and our intelligence agencies have irked him. I feel as if he has a personal gripe with Hocking.
Whereas Fricker has been imbued with a tradition of secrecy, Hocking is a champion for transparency. And she revels in sharing information and history, as her books attest.
Her incisive journalism and ability to merge academe with literary flair has made her a compelling media commentator in print and on screen.
Little wonder then, that Hocking was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2023 Australian Honours for “significant service to the preservation of Australian political history.”
Hocking stars in The Scandal Mongers podcast
Or that the other week she starred in a near hour-long episode of the newish, naughty and fearless English podcast The Scandal Mongers featuring two names also well known to the Palace and especially His Royal Highness.
Ep.13 | 1975 An Australian Scandal… and a Royal Apology?
Lifelong cobbers Andrew Lownie and Phil Craig are wonderfully jovial, irreverent intellects and co-hosts. They are two sharp dudes.
Lownie and Hocking have much in common. Both are celebrated biographers. His subjects include John Buchan, Guy Burgess, the ‘Traitor King’ Edward V111- the Duke of Windsor. Both have fought the Establishment, powerful institutions, their respective governments and the Palace to gain access to royal papers.
In Lownie’s case, it was the Mountbatten papers bought with public monies by the University of Southhampton ostensibly to ensure public access to the archive. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
The university, the Cabinet Office and the Palace had other ideas. The ensuing court cases, despite ‘charity fees’ charged by Lownie’s legal team now leaves Lownie in debt to the dirge of more than five hundred thousand pounds (£500,000). Costs were awarded against him. Little wonder he has sleepless nights.
One would have thought the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the United Kingdom would have taken a pro-active role in Lownie’s case. The Office espouses its very existence is dedicated to empower people through information. Sure.
In what seems an act of utter malicious bastardry, after Lownie’s book on Mountbatten was published (without him gaining access to the papers) Southhampton University released the Mountbatten papers and plonked them into the public domain. So, what was their legal challenge really about?
Phil Craig knows Australia well. The Beeb was his alma mater and he brought those credentials with him to Australia’s ABC in October 2012 when he was appointed Head of Factual.
Among his responsibilities was the documentary series, Whitlam. And Hocking was a consultant to this series.
Given these happy coincidences and given the bald fact that the Whitlam dismissal was a right royal scandal, it was almost compulsive for the lads to interview their Antipodean counterpart for their 13th episode of The Scandal Mongers. He said what? He wrote what? He did what?
Charles stymied: minions in the dominions
The King was, I’m told by our palace meeces, furious with Hocking apparently accusing her of trying to put a spanner in the Coronation works.
The gathering of nuts and bolts for May 6th may well be stymied by his minions in the dominions.
But Charles was equally furious with the scandal mongers for giving Hocking a platform to “mouth orf” an expression that King Charles quite possibly picked up from his time in Orstralia.
Nightmare on Coronation Street
In fact, he thinks it’s all a pro republic plot. Not as in QAnon but as in KAnon, now that the Queen is dead, long live the King.
The story ricocheted around the world, and commonwealth countries in particular would have made note.
And we have the good oil that certain members of the British Press are primed to ask Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese if he will ask the King for an apology for sticking his royal proboscis where it doesn’t belong, when he goes to London for the Coronation. Governor-General David Hurley who’ll also be in attendance can expect questions on whether Charles should apologise and The Dismissal.
Should Charles apologise? Too right!
Furthermore, Charles can expect to be asked if he will apologise on behalf of the institution of the Monarchy, for the reprehensible interference of his mother, Queen Elizabeth in the 1975 constitutional crisis, an extrajudicial palace coup, by any measure an unfriendly act by Granny England as the Palace Letters attest.
And he should certainly be asked about apologising to our First Nations brothers and sisters and everyone who suffered the yoke of the British Empire. It comes with the territory.
Of course, during this time, Charles, PM Albanese and Governor-General Hurley will be quarantined from the press, but press conferences, if not pooled, can provide for a where journalists will throw away the script. After all, these questions are not only pertinent but also legitimate.
We owe Hocking and her legal team much and more than mere money. They restored our self-respect in this endeavour. Fricker and the Palace treated Australians like children seeking access to books for adults. I still find it difficult to fathom.
When Hocking turned that key in the lock of the royal vault, she also set a precedent that may well assist in other members of the Commonwealth in their own requests for pertinent papers.
The dismissal has long been a suppurating sore on the rump of our political history.
For years Hocking, the diminutive warrior historian fought Lilibet, Australia’s longest reigning Head of State and her obsequious collaborator, our National Archives, eventually succeeding after an arduous and torrid legal stoush, in gaining access to what are now known as ‘The Palace Papers‘ – that proved the Queen colluded with our supercilious Governor-General, Sir John Kerr in getting rid of his nemesis, Whitlam.
So it is with great pleasure we present for your amusement and enlightenment, Episode 13 of The Scandal Mongers podcast, entitled 1975 An Australian Scandal … and a Royal Apology? fast accumulating a cult following with the Royal Family and we of The Great Unwashed.
Through the miracle of the temple of Zoom, we bring you Aussie rock star historian Jenny Hocking mouthing ‘orf’ with those notorious scandal mongers, Andrew Lownie and Phil Craig.
Out with the popcorn and your favourite tipple, alcohol or no and settle down for some shocking fun … and it’s all true.
Fair dinkum.
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Tess Lawrence is Contributing editor-at-large for Independent Australia and her most recent article is The night Porter and allegation of rape.
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