Truth of the Matter: His powerful account of the Dismissal

By: Gough Whitlam

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Synopsis: Passionate, pithy, learned, witty, and vigorously combative, The Truth of the Matter tells the extraordinary political story of the only Prime Minister of Australia ever deposed from office. On Remembrance Day 1975 the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, sacked Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. The Dismissal was the culmination of almost three years of political conflict, as Whitlam's progressive Labor government rammed home legislative reform in the face of implacable and increasingly bitter conservative resistance. The focus of the Opposition's scheming was the Senate, where its leaders blocked supply in order to force a political crisis. Whitlam, famous for his 'crash through or crash' style, refused to compromise with his political enemies. At an election a month after the Dismissal, the conservatives were returned to office. Controversy and recrimination followed. Many Australians, including Whitlam himself, believed he had been the victim of a coup. In 1979 Whitlam published his own account of the events of 1975, The Truth of the Matter, an instant bestseller.