On the steps of Parliament House on Remembrance Day, 11 November 1975, the Governor-General of Australia’s Official Secretary read a proclamation signed by Sir John Kerr dismissing Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s Labor government. When he had finished, Whitlam strode forward and delivered his response, the Dismissal Speech.

This is the opening paragraph from The Dismissal Paradox, a short story I shared on the Tall And True writers’ website in November 2024.

Please note: The Story Insight below contains spoilers.

Story Insight

I wrote a 500-word version of The Dismissal Paradox for the May 2024 Furious Fiction challenge, run by the Australian Writers’ Centre. Each story had to:

• Take place on an IMPORTANT DATE from the past 50 years – i.e. from May 1974 onwards
• Include a character who builds something
• Contain the words ENOUGH, CHASE and MISTAKE (longer words maintaining the original spelling were okay).

I chose the 1975 Dismissal of Gough Whitlam’s Labor government as my important date, and I created a character who builds a time machine and travels back to witness Gough’s Dismissal Speech.

Temporal Paradoxes

I am a Star Trek fan, and I’ve read many books — including Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder — and seen many films on time travel. So, I’m well-versed in temporal paradoxes.

But I wasn’t aware until I started writing the story and researching the Dismissal that Norman Gunston, the satirical alter-ego of actor and comedian Garry McDonald, was there on the steps of Parliament House on that famous day in Australian history (see this National Film and Sound Archive of Australia article link by Dan Ilic).

I wanted to create a temporal paradox for my time-travelling character, and Norma Gunston seemed the perfect twist. In the third last paragraph, I also laid a few hints when the time-traveller contemplates reassuring Gough that “the country would maintain its rage at the next general election and beyond and that the press would eventually reveal the conspiracy behind his sacking”.

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Disappointments

Like Norman instead of Norma, Australia did not maintain the rage in my temporal timeline and re-elect Gough. And despite the conspiracy theories, the press has not uncovered a CIA plot to overthrow Gough’s left-leaning Labor government … yet!

The Dismissal Paradox was not showcased or longlisted for May’s Furious Fiction. But I reworked it, adding more background for The Big Issue Fiction Edition, which has a more generous 500-3000 word count limit. Once again, the Big Issue didn’t select the story for publication, so I revisited it for a third time for The Best Australian Yarn.

Unfortunately, the saying about third time lucky didn’t come true for my story. But that’s okay because I finally shared The Dismissal Paradox on Tall And True and will include it in a forthcoming speculative fiction collection. Watch this space!

In the meantime, you might like to read about the microfiction anthology I published last year, Tall And True Microfiction.

© 2024 Robert Fairhead

N.B. I took the photo of Old Parliament House in Canberra on one of my many pilgrimages to the steps where Gough Whitlam delivered his Dismissal Speech.