What Happened To ...
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday November 4, 1995
SIR JOHN KERR is remembered largely through popular history's cartoonists' caricature: a pompous, rather ridiculous figure with a whisky nose and a top hat perched on top of a shock of white hair.
Yet he had been a diverse, brilliant character: as a young law student, he had won or shared virtually every prize and scholarship available.
He was an intelligence officer during the war, helped formulate Australia's Pacific policy, became a judge of Industrial and Supreme courts from Canberra to Darwin and Sydney. He was showered with honours both in Australia and overseas and became Chief Justice of NSW.
But in the end, he is famed for just two events - his dismissal of the Whitlam Government on November 11, 1975, and his drunken appearance at the Melbourne Cup of 1977. He was reviled for both.
Perhaps no Australian so polarised the community: after the dismissal, a poll found 49 per cent believed his action was wrong; 48 per cent believed he had been right and only 3 per cent had no opinion.
Another poll in 1991 - the year of his death - found the rage had not been maintained: 43 per cent said he had been right, 34 per cent felt he'd been wrong and a huge 23 per cent had no view at all.
But when Sir John Kerr died, Gough Whitlam could not bring himself to attend the State memorial service.
Instead, Whitlam went to the wedding of the son of his old deputy, Lance Barnard. Sir John Kerr has never been forgiven by the man who wooed him to the Governor-Generalship in 1974.
© 1995 Sydney Morning Herald