The queen had, and almost certainly still has, interests in Australia - as in financial interests, and Whitlam wanted to buy back the farm, and shirt was going down re Vietnam. Personally, individuals, including the Queen, have a right to uphold and at least attempt to defend their interests. But, speaking as an Australian, when "our" British monarch/ the Queen, a) has been stripped of or has abdicated any relevant political power, and b) is not useful for the protection of basic human freedoms, for a recent example the matter of the Assange case, then it's hard not to ask "well what use is the Crown/ the Queen, to us?" There's nothing inherently wrong with at least some powers being vested with a Monarch or dictator, just so long as that authority is actually benevolent, and so long as we the people are with sufficient awareness and authority and will to hold any and all such authority to the required standard of benevolence, and with sufficient authority and power to remove such an authority from power should they fail to uphold benevolence, righteous justice, etc. (Most folks these days can see glaringly devolving and apparently structural compromise in our so called "democratic' system.) There is wisdom in having the hierarchy of power and authority be distributed so to speak - a balance of powers, and in our present system technically (though perhaps no longer practically) the Crown holds only one remaining formal power in Australia - the power to declare or veto war. Such power OUGHT be used as a check and balance against the corporations and bankers who lust for the econmic windfalls of war, and when this check and balance no longer exists, then again, on this point, the Crown loses its relevance to the rest of us, the King or Queen of the day little more than an attractively presented financial burden upon us. A lot of folks get caught up in envy of the wealth of another, and we must be absolutely diligent in casting aside such base, petty and demeaning (of ourselves no less!) such envy and implied 'negative' aspersions (e.g. "that person has a lot of wealth, they must be a bad person"). What we MUST uphold, is our individual and collective human rights, and dignity. Although the Crown ought in general be held to higher standards of principles, the Queen is no less deserving of dignity than anyone else. That said, the issues surrounding Vietnam, Pine Gap and other matters, may or may not be scandalous - but we the Australian people have the right to make our own assessments of past events such as the sacking of our democratically elected prime minister Gough Whitlam in that Vietnam era. With the letters and much of the behind the scenes of the events hopefully to be soon disclosed (see below), we might be able to meaningfully comment further, but as a principle, there's a chance Gough Whitlam missed the JFK memo - it's not a good idea to be the lone hero for all, that just makes you an individual target. Instead, better to speak to the people, be public on a daily basis, and stick to fundamental principles of human rights, fairness, and legitimate interests of individuals, groups and especially allies (so far as they are actually allies). Allies don't demean, allies don't enslave, allies don't deny justice, most especially that founded in righteousness (Julian Assange is today's prime example). Let's aim to (re)build Australia's dignity on the world stage, which for starters demands that we treat all nations, and all people, with dignity and respect. And to those who would consider themselves Australia's allies - yes, it can be scary to have to -actually- trust an ally, but surmounting that fear is the price for a truly strong relationship, which can of course never properly exist on a foundation of lack of trust. Hopefully our politicians will begin to get the memo. ---- Forwarded message from Gil May ----- From: Gil May Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2020 08:23:37 +1000 Subject: Fwd: ASIO & Palace Letters *ASIO & Palace Letters:* As you read this remember that Whitlam wanted to bring in a law to prevent foriegn ownership of Australian assets, that all had to be at least 51% Australian owned. The iportance of this today is very relevent where China and others hold massive investments of our assets. He wanted all mineral assets to be Australian, think of the billion$ in opposition that caused, his raid on ASIO and Pine Gap that was opperating without any knowledge of what it's operations were and the US refusal to advise the government of such. IF as we were told Whitlam was a danger to Australia and all the terrible things he was suposed to have done, THEN WHY weren't all his law changed when the LNP came to power???????????? His laws still stand today. I told Lionel Murphy, The Attorney General, to tell Whitlam to call Malcolm Fraser in and tell him if he does not passs the Budget Bill, you will break the 'Book of Pairs' and would have given him a majority of one, and that would be the end of the Westminister sytem of government forever, but Whiltlam a stickler for traditional proceedures would not do it. GM I am sure you will remember these events clearly, so the following may interest you. . --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: citizensparty.org.au https://cec.enudgemail.com.au/securl.php?nudge=y84zpr11221&link=3671&email=ricco61@bigpond.com *Will ASIO stop Australians from seeing the ‘palace letters’?* The 29 May High Court judgement that the “palace letters” between Queen Elizabeth II and Governor-General John Kerr in the Whitlam dismissal should not remain secret is a significant step in the fight for Australian sovereignty. It’s not a foregone conclusion, however, as the Director-General of the National Archives who has a say in what is released, David Fricker, is a former Deputy Director-General of spy agency ASIO. This is a massive conflict of interests, as ASIO was up to its neck in the intrigues against Whitlam, not least because Whitlam’s Attorney-General Lionel Murphy raided the agency he was supposed to be in charge of, but which withheld terrorism-related information from him. ASIO then, as now, operated under what is now known as the “Five Eyes”, dominated by US and British intelligence, which regarded Whitlam as a threat; indeed, ASIO is effectively the Australian subsidiary of Britain’s Security Service MI5, whose assistant director in the 1970s, Peter Wright revealed in his book *Spycatcher* that MI5 saw its loyalty as to the Queen personally, not to the elected government. Monash University historian Professor Jennifer Hocking, who initiated the case to have the letters released, has already indicated she is having trouble in her negotiations with Fricker, and Fricker told ABC News that releasing the palace letters won’t be simple, and that some records may not be released as exemptions for things like national security still apply. “We are not like a library or a museum”, Fricker said. “I am required to diligently go through those things and just make sure that our release of these records is responsible, it’s ethical and it complies with the law.” This is unacceptable, and Australians should demand their release in full. If they are released in full, Australians may soon discover secret details of the Queen’s role in the 1975 coup to overthrow Gough Whitlam, a democratically elected Prime Minister. Buckingham Palace has to date intervened to ensure the palace letters remain secret, a clear indicator that much is at stake, including the role of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and British Intelligence Services (MI5, SIS and GCHQ), the latter of which have since 2011 been overseen by Prince Charles in his capacity of Royal Patron of the Intelligence Services. Prof. Hocking’s four-year legal battle to access the palace letters has met enormous resistance. Sir Edward Young, the queen’s private secretary, has indicated the release “could damage not only international relations but also the trusting relationship between Her Majesty and her representatives overseas”. The 211 palace letters were placed in the custody of Australian Archives on 26 August 1978 by the then Official Secretary to the Governor-General, David Smith. The letters comprise 116 from Kerr to the Queen, mostly through the official secretary; and 95 letters from the Queen, all of them through her private secretary. At the time, Smith wrote to the Australian Archives in a letter of deposit: “This package contains the *personal* and confidential correspondence between the Right Honourable Sir John Kerr, AK, GCMG, GCVO, K St J, QC, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia from 11 April 1974 until 8 December 1977, and Her Majesty the Queen.” (Emphasis added.) Smith declared the letters would remain closed until 8 December 2037 and thereafter subject to further caveat at the whim of the British Crown. The Australian Archives has continued to argue that the palace letters were “personal correspondence” and therefore should remain private. Prof. Hocking explains otherwise. “Before lodging them in the Archives, the letters had been kept by Smith in the Government House ‘strong room under absolute security’ again in an official capacity, which scarcely suggested the letters were ‘personal’”, wrote Hocking in a 1 June article https://cec.enudgemail.com.au/securl.php?nudge=y84zpr11221&link=3672&email=ricco61@bigpond.com at Pearls and Irritations, the blog run by retired public servant John Menadue, who was head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Whitlam at the time of the dismissal. “It is surely an unusual position for the National Archives, which describes itself as a ‘pro-disclosure organisation’, to contest this action at significant expense—initially of almost one million dollars—at a time of severe budget and staff cuts”, Prof. Hocking wrote. Fortunately for Hocking the High Court has ordered the Australian Archives to pay her legal costs. The latest High Court ruling makes clear that the palace letters were not “personal” at all, but “constitute Commonwealth records within the meaning of the *Archives Act 1983*”. The court “ordered that a writ of mandamus issue to compel the Director-General of the National Archives of Australia to reconsider Professor Hocking’s request for access to the deposited correspondence”, and so overruled the previous Federal Court ruling against Prof. Hocking. *What is at stake?* In a 16 April article https://cec.enudgemail.com.au/securl.php?nudge=y84zpr11221&link=3673&email=ricco61@bigpond.com at Pearls and Irritations, Prof. Hocking had said that the more than two hundred letters is simply a “staggering number”, and “should they be released the ‘Palace letters’ will be the most important record of the inner workings of the vice-regal relationship during a time of political crisis that we have ever seen”. Veteran journalist John Pilger indicated what is at stake in a 1 June article https://cec.enudgemail.com.au/securl.php?nudge=y84zpr11221&link=3674&email=ricco61@bigpond.com for Consortium News. “There is an historical amnesia among Australia’s polite society about the catastrophic events of 1975”, he wrote. “An Anglo-American coup overthrew a democratically elected ally in a demeaning scandal in which sections of the Australian elite colluded. This is largely unmentionable.” Pilger explained how the Whitlam government provided significant opposition to Vietnam war crimes and threatened to close the secretive US-run intelligence facility at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs: “Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, ‘This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House … a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion.’” And the role of British intelligence cannot be overstated: “In 1975, Whitlam discovered that MI6 was operating against his government. ‘The Brits were actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office’, he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, ‘We knew MI6 was bugging Cabinet meetings for the Americans’.” Whitlam’s plans to control Australia’s mineral wealth for the benefit of all Australians clearly displeased the Queen, who was long the largest individual shareholder of minerals giant Rio Tinto. This plan to “buy back the farm” so Australians would own our nation clearly ran against the British imperial agenda, and the City of London and Wall Street banking interests. Will the released papers convince Australians to abandon the fairy tale that the Queen is above politics and merely plays a ceremonial role? Will we now fight for sovereignty? ----- End forwarded message -----