Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston on 'The Truth of the Palace Letters’

The authors of 'The Truth of the Palace Letters: Deceit, Ambush and Dismissal in 1975' have a conversation on the implications of the Palace Letters for the Australian Constitution, democracy, and the debate on an Australian republic. This conversation was moderated by Alex Oliver, Director of Research at the Lowy Institute, and hosted as in-person event at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.

After a protracted legal battle, the ‘Palace Letters’ were released by the National Archives of Australia to the public in July 2020. In their latest book on the 1975 dismissal, Paul Kelly and Troy Bramston have delved into hundreds of the released documents, together with newly discovered archival material and interviews. The result is a revealing analysis of the workings of the constitutional monarchy, the complex web of relationships between the Queen in Buckingham Palace and the Governor-General in Canberra, and more broadly between Australia and the United Kingdom.

- About the speakers -

Paul Kelly is The Australian newspaper’s Editor at Large, and author of numerous books on Australian politics and history, including Howard’s Decade, a Lowy Institute Paper in 2006, and Triumph & Demise: The Broken Promise of a Labor Generation (2014). Present at Parliament House in Canberra on the day of the dismissal, Kelly has written several books on the subject, including The Dismissal: In the Queen's Name (2015) with Troy Bramston.

Troy Bramston is a senior writer and columnist with The Australian, and author or editor of nine books, including Paul Keating: The Big-picture Leader (2016); Robert Menzies: The Art of Politics (2019); and Rudd, Gillard and Beyond (2014). Bramston has discovered new archival documents and interviewed most of the key players in the dismissal. He co-authored The Dismissal: In the Queen's Name with Paul Kelly and is currently writing a biography of Bob Hawke.