I’ve heard this story passed around during the previous government shutdown that basically went “Australia had a shutdown in 1975. The Queen subsequently fired all of parliament after they did that.” However, today I saw some comments from Australians on reddit saying that that narrative is terrible, and the event was more equivalent to something like watergate. I looked into it more, and it seemed very interesting (some people even described the crisis as an actual coup). So, I was wondering if someone here could give a rundown on the events surrounding the shutdown to a complete outsider, and how it affected Australia in general?
Australia has two Houses of Parliament: the House of Representatives, with members elected by locality, which originates legislation. The other is the Senate, with each state having an equal quota of Senators, which 'reviews' legislation and has to approve it. This includes approving the Budget to ensure 'supply' (of money). Government is formed by winning a majority of Reps members.
In practice, the Senate is rarely controlled thanks to independents and it's slower rate of change (only half is elected at one time). Additionally, while if a Reps members leaves there is an election in that area, a departing Senator is replaced by the government of that state.
Okay, that's the structure, which was important in what unfolded.
In 1972 Australia ended decades of conservative government and elected a Labor Government with a fairly radical policy agenda (universal health care, public libraries, withdrawing from Vietnam, ending conscription, building regional cities). The government pursued this agenda with enthusiasm, but it was very expensive, at a time when oil prices were slowing Western economies. Union dominance saw massive wage rises, and consequent inflation of serious proportions.
But there was an ideological rift: after years in government, the conservatives were greatly threatened by all this, and having finally secured government, the Labor Party was determined to push its agenda through. The government was also threatening to the US-Australia alliance, as Labor was opposed to militarism and Cold War paranoia (The Prime Minister went to China before Nixon), and ambivalent about nuclear weapons and the alliance generally, Vietnam being a fresh and ongoing issue and many Labor members sympathising with the communists.
So, a few years in and Labor lost two Senators. By convention before and since, the relevant state government would appoint the next in line from that party. But the Queensland government, which had the characteristics of a corrupt deep-south US regime and ultimately was brought down by scandals, was not amenable to convention and replaced the departing Labor men with conservatives (or 'Liberals' as they're called here from their free trade background). Labor lost its slim majority and, given the strength of political feeling prevailing, soon found itself in the position of being unable to finance its program by conventional methods. Indeed, it was dubious fundraising that was behind the loss of Senators.
Adding to the throwing aside of convention to take Senate control, the Liberal Party blocked the passage of Labor's Budget, and thus blocked supply and 'shut down the government'. This has not happened before or since despite ruling parties seldom having Senate control. The Labor government did not call an election, which it was likely to lose, considering they had the right, by convention, to govern for their term and be judged at the end of it.
The impasse brought into effect a clause in the Australian Constitution whereby the Governor-General, as the representative of the Crown, can dismiss the government. The GG is historically a nice, revered figure that opens buildings, attends ceremonies and makes speeches.... much like the Queen herself. It is very unlikely that authorities in England had much to do with it, but the GG, John Kerr, a former friend of the Prime Minister, sacked the government and ordered elections, appointing the Liberal leader as caretaker Prime Minister. The Liberals easily won the subsequent election, due to inflation, strikes and the chaos and division of the Labor Party between its more mainstream and radical sections.
For a generation there was enduring hatred of the Liberal Party by dedicated Labor supporters and in particular of its leader, Malcolm Fraser, who was seen as an engineer of The Dismissal (as the affair is known). The abuse of precedent and take-power-at-all-costs mentality implied by the method of the government's removal epitomised, to Labor supporters, the born-to-rule attitude of the conservative side. A minority saw the Dismissal as the result of CIA-Liberal party collusion.
Subsequently, Fraser proved unequal to the economic challenges of the time and Labor won easily in 1983, holding power for over ten years. But Labor had learnt its lesson, and the government was characterised by political/economic reforms that coincided with neoliberal ideas (ending trade barriers, selling off government assets, curbing union power). These changes underpinned Australia's subsequent prosperity and success.
Fraser, hated by many in the 1980s, is today seen as a humanitarian. He accepted many refugees from Vietnam and he is a vocal critic of the Liberal Party's proudly-held policies of refugee detention on remote Pacific Islands, and general exploitation of racist sympathies.
u/PantsTime has posted a reasonable background summary of what happened. The issue was complicated but what happened was nothing like a coup in that there were Australian Constitutional rules to be followed and they were followed. It is also nothing like Watergate, although there were both sexual and financial scandals dogging the government at the time. For a contentious discussion of what happened you might want to read this earlier thread from 3 years ago.