1975 Australian constitutional crisis

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The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, also called the Dismissal, culminated with the dismissal of the prime minister, Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), by Sir John Kerr, the governor-general of Australia, on 11 November 1975. Kerr then commissioned the leader of the opposition, Malcolm Fraser of the Liberal Party, as prime minister on the condition that he advise a new election. It has been described as the greatest political and constitutional crisis in Australian history. The Labor Party under Whitlam came to power in the 1972 federal election, ending 23 consecutive years of Liberal–Country Coalition government. Labor won a majority in the House of Representatives of 67 seats to the Coalition's 58 seats, but faced a hostile Senate. In May 1974, after the Senate voted to reject six of Labor's bills, Whitlam advised governor-general Sir Paul Hasluck to call a double dissolution election. The election saw Labor re-elected, with its House of Representatives majority...

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