John Kerr (governor-general)
Sir John Robert Kerr, (24 September 1914 – 24 March 1991) was the 18th Governor-General of Australia. He dismissed the Labor government of Gough Whitlam on 11 November 1975, marking the climax of the most significant constitutional crisis in Australian history. He had previously been the 13th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
John Kerr (governor-general)
Kerr was appointed Chief Justice of New South Wales in 1972. Sir Paul Hasluck was due to retire as Governor-General in July 1974, and the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, needed to find a suitable replacement. His first choice, Ken Myer, declined; he then offered the post to Mr Justice Kerr (as he then was), who accepted on condition that he could expect to have ten years in the office, and that he could represent Australia overseas as head of state. These discussions commenced in September 1973. Kerr was announced as Governor-General-designate on 27 February 1974, by which time he had become Sir John Kerr. He been knighted in the New Year's Honours of 1974, on the advice of the Premier of New South Wales, Sir Robert Askin, after Whitlam had declined to endorse his predecessor William McMahon's recommendation for that honour, which Hasluck had wisely held back pending the outcome of the December 1972 election. Kerr did not know Whitlam well, although they had shared legal chambers some years earlier, but he had remained friends with several ministers in Whitlam's government, such as Jim McClelland and Joe Riordan. Kerr's wife Peggy was a fellow student of Margaret Whitlam during university days. Whitlam seems to have believed that, because of Kerr's former membership in the Labor Party, he was still politically "reliable", without realising that Kerr's political views had changed and that he had come to see the role of Governor-General differently from Whitlam.