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.

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Thylacine cranium

Nowland’s mail coach, 1880s

Flinders St. 1854, by Samuel Thomas Gill

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

A cane toad in Litchfield National Park, Northern Territory

A display of wheat samples

A dung beetle rolling dung

A glimpse from within the cavern of the Mertz Glacier, Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911–1914

A group of Overland Telegraph line workers

A heap of about 600 rats caught in Sydney during the bubonic plague

A man in protective clothing at Maralinga

A map of New South Wales, 1825

A member of the dung beetle family

A page from Joseph Banks’ Endeavour journal, August 1770

A scientist and an Aboriginal ranger collect a sample of Gwion Gwion rock art for dating, Northern Kimberley

A scientist studies rock art in the Drysdale River region in the Northern Kimberley