The High Court decides 6-1 in favour of Professor Jenny Hocking’s bid to have 211 personal letters between our Head of State and Governor-General John Kerr released. The Court decided that the photocopies of the correspondence were Commonwealth property and, therefore, subject to the National Archives Act 1986. The originals and the official copies are still locked up in the Royal Archives at Windsor. where Australians can’t access them. This is an important decision – not just in Australia – and chips away more of the power and secrecy of the British monarch over our affairs. WfaAR has followed the “Palace Letters” case through three court cases and crowd-funding for legal costs that started in 2010. For more information see our News Items of 18 January and 5 February 2020. Republican and historian Jenny Hocking is also currently a member of ARM’s National Council. A week after the decision, the NAA informed Jenny that she would have to wait another 90 days for release procedures to be completed including decisions on exemptions. On 18 June, she gave a videocast to ARM members talking about what she expected to find in the letters. So we wait and see. Professor Anne Twomey from Sydney University discusses the complicated in’s and out’s of the case and the implications of the decision on the link below [“High Court ruling on ‘Palace letters’ case paves way to learn more about The Dismissal – and our Constitution” by Anne Twomey, The Conversation online 29 May 2020]
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
