‘The Dismissal’: An all-singing, all-dancing reimagining of the constitutional crisis

The Monthly

Left

High Factuality

‘The Dismissal’: An all-singing, all-dancing reimagining of the constitutional crisis

Imagine gonzo journalist Norman Gunston as the host of this country’s great constitutional crisis: before, during and beyond. The “little Aussie bleeder” as a time traveller able to be present at cataclysmic national moments feels entirely plausible, considering Gunston wielded a microphone on the steps of Old Parliament House on November 11, 1975, just as prime minister Gough Whitlam emerged to rail against the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, …