On 11 November 1975 Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his Labor government became the first (and only) government in Australian history to be dismissed by the Governor-General. Sir John Kerr, who was earlier appointed Governor-General by Whitlam, justified his actions by arguing that the government couldn’t pass Bills, including its own Budget Bills, through the Senate. After the dismissal, an election was held and the Whitlam government was defeated. The dismissal was a controversial decision, and people still debate whether it was the correct thing for a Governor-General to do.

Aboriginal communities
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Ancient Australia
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Australia as a nation
Australian Quarantine Service
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Environment
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Geography
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Indigenous
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Indigenous Australia: Australia as a nation: Sport: Women
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Indigenous: Colonial
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Making a nation
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Migration
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Movement of Peoples
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Theme

Type

Gold cradle

‘Race to the Gold Diggings’ board game

Administering The Oath, Eureka Stockade, 1854

Diving for pearl-shell on the north-east coast

Eureka Stockade riot, Ballarat, 1854, by J.B. Henderson

Flinders St. 1854, by Samuel Thomas Gill

Gold Washing. Fitz Roy Bar, Ophir Diggings, 1851, by George Angas

Macassans at Victoria, Port Essington, drawn in 1845

Makasar Prau, by Birrikitji Gumana, 1966

Mother whale, by Narritjin Maymuru, 1978

Mr E.H. Hargraves returning the salute of the gold miners [5th] of the ensuing May, June 1851, by T.T. Balcombe

Onthophagus Gazella, one of the four species of dung beetles successfully introduced to Australia in 1968

Pearling in Torres Straits, artist unknown

South Sea Whalers boiling blubber / Boats preparing to get a Whale alongside, by Oswald W. Brierly, 1876

Swearing Allegiance to the Southern Cross, watercolour by Charles A Doudiet, 1 December 1854

The Prince at the Rabbit Warren, Barwon Park, engraving by Robert Bruce