Governor-General Sir John Kerr's dismissal of the elected Whitlam Government in 1975, more or less at the behest of the Liberal-Country Party Coalition led by Malcolm Fraser, was among the most momentous events in Australian political history. Born into a privileged life Whitlam joined the Australian Labor Party, rose to be its Parliamentary leader and took it into power after twenty-three years in the wilderness. But the pace of change scared too many people, and sudden changes in the world economic environment threw down challenges he just could not overcome. Nor could he overcome the local political challenges thrown down by the conservative forces,and he and his colleagues seemed determined to keep providing him with the ammunition they needed to shoot him down. On 11 November 1975, they did.