The Red Bandana Man Kerrtsies to Professor Jenny Hocking

Recently,  Peter FitzSimons wrote an article titled "Monarchists can't pretend the royals are just a symbol" and which was published in the Brisbane Times on 16 October 2017.

FitzSimons stated "As revealed by The Herald,  after extraordinary sleuthing in the bowels of the British archives, Professor Hocking describes how Sir Michael Palliser, who was the incoming permanent under-secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, turned up in Canberra four weeks before the Dismissal to meet Sir John Kerr and the British High Commissioner, Sir Morris James."

It is true that on Friday, 17 October 1975  both gentlemen did in fact call on the Governor-General. Those with some Vice-Regal nous would refer to these people as "callers" and part of some days would be set aside for such meetings - it's quite a normal procedure for the Governor-General and each of the State Governors. On that morning, Palliser and James were hotly followed by the High Commissioner for Canada,  the Ambassador of Ireland and a Mr Lang, head of the West Europe section of the Department of Foreign Affairs (see below).

Government House Vice-Regal Notes  for Friday, 17 October 1975

These meetings would have be relatively short, and apart from the Governor-General himself and those he spoke with, others would not be aware of what was said in any of those meetings.

It would be an extremely long bow to draw to suggest that Palliser and James discussed such matters as detailed above and outlined by FitzSimons.

FitzSimons further stated "Here we have two unelected Brits, discussing with one unelected Australian, the fate of Australia's duly elected government."

How would he know what was discussed at that meeting?

In his book Monarchy and the end of Empire, The House of Windsor, The British Government, and the post war Commonwealth, Philip Murphy writes:

"Kerr took the decision to dismiss Whitlam without consulting the Queen, and only informed the Palace retrospectively. In the early hours of 11 November, Sir William Heseltine, the Queen's assistant private secretary, received a telephone call in London from Kerr's private secretary, David Smith, informing him of the news.  Heseltine attempted to rouse Martin Charteris without success, and he decided against waking the Queen. Before Heseltine had the opportunity to pass on the news, Charteris took a call from Whitlam, and greeted him as 'Prime Minister'. Although initially irritated at having been caught out in this way, Charteris later agreed with Heseltine when they spoke for the first time at about 8.00am, that his innocent mistake might actually have proved helpful in demonstrating to Whitlam that the Palace was not engaged in plotting the downfall of the Labor government. Heseltine and Charteris then went and jointly conveyed the news to the Queen so that she would not learn about the matter from the morning's news."

Given that and given that there was no universal outrage around Australia as a result of FitzSimons' assertions, it can only be said that this was another of those red bandana wet blanket moments!