events
October 16, 1975
The Australian Coalition sparks a constitutional crisis when they vote to defer funding for the government's annual budget.
1975 Australian constitutional crisis
The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, also known simply as the Dismissal, culminated on 11 November 1975 with the dismissal from office of the prime minister, Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), by Sir John Kerr, the governor-general who then commissioned the leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Fraser of the Liberal Party, as prime minister to hold a new election. It has been described as the greatest political and constitutional crisis in Australian history.