With the impeccable timing only senior vice-regal staff truly understand, former official secretary to various Australian Governors-General, Sir David Smith, sadly took his final bow this week.

For those old enough to remember, it was Smith who stood bravely on the front steps of Old Parliament House on November 11, 1975 to read the proclamation putting the disastrous Whitlam government to trial by ballot.

‘Now therefore I, Sir John Robert Kerr, the Governor-General of Australia, do by this, my proclamation, dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives.

‘God Save The Queen.’

Positioned ominously by Smith’s right shoulder, the towering (and now immediately former) Prime Minister Whitlam furiously declared:

‘Well may we say God Save the Queen because nothing will save the Governor-General.’

The results of the double-dissolution election on December 13 that year were a convincing Malcolm Fraser 1, Whitlam 0, umpire exonerated.

That Fraser then effectively squandered the conservative mandate given him is another story, but Labor revisionists and Whitlam acolytes have never let go of the myths surrounding that day or their plaintive mantra, ‘We wuz robbed!’

As Smith departed this life, the same chorus was in full cry over Scott Morrison’s assumption of several duplicate ministerial portfolios, and his faulty memory of what he did and when.

In government, Albanese’s minions were demonstrating what they are best at, opposition to conservative government, though that is a loose definition of much of the rabble under Morrison.

Morrison was closer philosophically to Whitlam than it might seem at first glance, a divine belief in a god-given right to rule and a deep suspicion of their subordinates.

In the first days of Whitlam’s ‘Terror in December’ 1972, the great man – at least according to his own vision – ruled with a duumvirate, himself and deputy Lance Barnard.

No one was spared his barbed tongue.

Whitlam had once referred to Barnard in Parliament as ‘a veteran of El Alamein where he was wounded… [pause for effect] …in the back!’

He insisted on being addressed as ‘Leader’ by his acolytes, which sounded obsequiously ominous.

Richard Butler was also ultimately seduced to accept a vice-regal role in an island state until dismissed for delusions of grandeur.

Much has been written of the events on November 11, 1975, very often erroneously tainted by Labor revisionists’ determination to portray Sir John Kerr as a lush.

Whatever personal foibles he possessed, which would have been widely canvassed in the social and professional sieve of New South Wales senior legal circles, he was, for whatever reason, Whitlam’s choice.

In that sense, he was no more or no less different from his legal cohort when the New South Wales senior judiciary were largely a Labor cabal.

Once in the vice-regal office, Kerr’s legal mind absorbed his responsibilities in the role rather than others’ expectations of his subservience to the assumed convenience of domestic politics.

On that incredible day he was required to attend public commemoration services at the Australian War Memorial.

He and Lady Kerr were also hosts for the day of three army young army captains, nominees for the next incumbent for then 12-month full-time appointment in that role.

According to those there, on return from the AWM, pre-prandial luncheon drinks were ordered when His Excellency excused himself, returning in time for luncheon.

He announced to his guests that as future potential historical participants, they were entitled to know what had occurred in his absence.

He had withdrawn the commission of one Prime Minister and appointed another to hold an election for the people to decide.

It had been an amazing, surgical coup, more so because no one had seen it coming, with the exception perhaps of Sir Garfield Barwick.

Luncheon was served.

Enter David Smith, whose duty it was to read the proclamation.

An averred monarchist and constitutionalist, Smith never entertained a doubt about the actions despite the personal abuse he thereafter endured.

He also believed the Governor-General as Australia’s de facto Head of State was not required to involve the Queen in his decisions, merely inform her.

According to the nonjudgmental ABC reporting on his death, ‘he was long critical of Gough Whitlam’ referring to him as a ‘failure’.

‘It’s time he said sorry to his party for being such a failure as leader,’ Sir David told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2004.

‘It’s time he said sorry to the Australian people for being such a failure as Prime Minister and for giving us the most incompetent government we have ever had, and it’s time that he told the truth about the events of 1975.’

Of course, if you read it in Granny, it had to be true.

This brings us back to Albanese’s faux outrage over Morrison’s multiplicity of ministerial positions. 

Indeed it was stupid, it was the act of a control freak and he was duplicitous about telling those who had duplicated what he had done or why. 

Time and his party will judge him, history is the prerogative of the victors.

Even our current timid governor general, busily spruiking the vice-regal conjugal resumes as he faces relevance deprivation had to admit Morrison’s actions were ‘constitutional’.

His surprise Morrison didn’t signal his intentions is a bit rich coming from a former CDF who observed a strict ‘need to know’ rule in that role.

The best advice to Albanese, Marles, and co is to stop obsessing with ‘the worst government ever leaving 10 years of neglect and massive debt’ (their message), get on with governing and honouring the assurances you made in opposition, if you still believe in them in government.

Karma is subservient to no gender or ideology, and has a habit of coming back to bite you on your collective, moralising arses.

It’s all in the timing.

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