Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Forty years ago, as has been written, on this date Australia was plunged into a singular Australian crisis. It is a date seared into the soul of every Australian living at the time. It was a constitutional crisis that no-one could have imagined or could ever imagine happening again. The democratically elected Whitlam government, which had sought and won two elections on its program within three years, was deliberately and maliciously blocked from carrying out its mandate by a conservatively controlled Senate. Through a conspiracy engineered by the Liberal-National opposition, an unelected, unaccountable representative wielded unwritten power to sack a Prime Minister. That decision, that disrespect for the democratic rights of the Australian people, will rightly stand condemned for all Australians.

But what I do want to do on the 40th anniversary of the Dismissal is congratulate the current Leader of the Liberal Party, the chief spokesman of the Liberal Party, for acknowledging on behalf of the Liberal Party that Sir John Kerr should not have behaved in the way he behaved. I thank Malcolm Turnbull for finally, on behalf of the Liberal Party, acknowledging the inappropriate conduct of what happened that day. In the sense of our Constitution, it failed a fundamental test that day, and this will live forever in the memory of this nation.

See this speech in context