SYDNEY: Queen Elizabeth's representative in Australia fired a prime minister without warning the palace: or the prime minister: because "under the constitution the responsibility is mine", according to archived letters released on Tuesday (Jul 14).

In a Nov 11, 1975 dispatch, Governor-General John Kerr told the Queen's private secretary he took the unprecedented step to sack Prime Minister Gough Whitlam as Whitlam prepared to end a months-long budget standoff by calling a partial Senate election.