Born in 1975

If you were born in 1975, you arrived in the year Australia came as close to a constitutional crisis as it ever had. Gough Whitlam's Labor government was sacked by Governor-General John Kerr on November 11th — Remembrance Day, of all days — the first and only time an Australian prime minister had been dismissed in this way. The shock was genuine: people who had never been political found themselves furious, or relieved, or bewildered.

"Well may we say God Save the Queen," Whitlam told the crowd from the steps of Parliament House, "because nothing will save the Governor-General." The line entered the language immediately. Malcolm Fraser, who had deliberately blocked supply in the Senate, became caretaker prime minister and won the subsequent election decisively.

The arguments about the Dismissal have never entirely stopped. Before all that, the year had its ordinary pleasures: *Countdown* was in full swing, ABBA was on every radio, Skyhooks were making Melbourne proud, and the pub rock scene was a genuinely world-class thing. The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, the summer cricket, the footy, the beach — the rhythms of Australian life continued around the politics.

But November 11, 1975 lodged itself in the national memory permanently.