OPINION: Bjelke-Petersen ever the opportunist

And as some will no doubt have been drawn to conclude as a result of the release of the so-called Palace Letters last week - it's not the Queen's then private secretary Sir Martin Charteris.

For the man who arguably made it all possible was none other than the then premier of Queensland - the subsequently disgraced Johannes Bjelke-Petersen.

The story goes like this.

At the end of June 1975, Queensland Labor senator Bertie Milliner suddenly died in office - in fact in his office.

Back then - but not for long as it turned out - there was only a convention that when a casual vacancy for a senator occurred they would be replaced by someone of the same party.

Bjelke-Petersen seized the moment.

Knowing that there was no chance that the ALP would agree to it, he demanded that three names be presented to him to replace Milliner.

Labor declined, presenting only a single name - that of Malcolm Colston who as it turns out in this whole crazy story eventually became a massive thorn in the side of the ALP for other reasons.

This was exactly the stand-off Sir Joh was looking for.

He refused to put Colston's name to the Queensland parliament for ratification and instead went on a search for a Labor Party branch member who if appointed might do his bidding.

He was successful.

Enter stage right Albert Patrick Field - a french polisher who worked for the Queensland Education Department.

He made his distaste for Gough Whitlam and his government known to Bjelke-Petersen.

With the then recently renamed National Party's domination in the Queensland Parliament, Field was appointed to fill the vacancy - immediately changing the fine balance of power in the Senate.

As it happens, Bjelke-Petersen's plan was not an original idea - but it was way more effective than that on which it was most probably based.

Early that year when controversial New South Wales Labor senator Lionel Murphy was appointed to the High Court, that state's premier Tom Lewis had gone one step further.

After originally brazenly planning to appoint a Liberal to replace Murphy, in the face of opposition even from within his party, Lewis came up with a Plan B.

Unlike Bjelke-Petersen later on, Lewis did not even engage in the charade of looking for a disgruntled ALP member.

He instead nominated and obtained parliamentary approval for a conservative independent - Albury mayor Cleaver Bunton.

But in this case, it was a failed ploy - with Bunton turning out to be a truly independent and a man of integrity.

Whilst his vote on legislation throughout his short term changed from one side to the other, he never voted to delay supply to Whitlam.

He thought it an abuse of power.

Questions over his eligibility meant that Field hardly ever attended a Senate sitting but with the Liberals refusing a pair the imbalance meant that Malcolm Fraser's tactic of delaying supply worked.

In other words - if Milliner hadn't died or if he had been replaced conventionally, there would have been no deadlock.

And Kerr would have had no role to play.

Whilst much has been written and said that the collective decision of the Australian people at the 1975 federal election vindicated Kerr's decision, much less has been expressed about their more explicit disdain for the actions of Lewis and Bjelke-Petersen.

It is widely acknowledged that Australians are extremely reluctant to change the country's constitution.

Indeed on the 44 occasions since federation when proposals have been presented only eight have succeeded.

Making this task much harder is the requirement not only that a majority of Australians must support the change but that it must also be so supported in at least four of the six states.

Yet when in April 1977, less than 18 months after Whitlam's dismissal, a referendum was presented to enshrine the replacement convention in the constitution it was massively supported by 73 per cent of voters with a majority in every state.

By comparison, the victorious Fraser government in the December 1975 election had just under 56 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.

It's thus reasonable to advance that the voters' contempt for Lewis and Bjelke-Petersen was much greater than their view of the failings of Whitlam and his government.

Whitlam had exalted the people to maintain the rage.

Perhaps that was reflected by the relatively fast return to a Labor government in 1983.

But certainly, it was the case in terms of changing the constitution to ensure that the root cause of the Whitlam demise could never be repeated.