The Shot that Defined the Dismissal

Capturing the moment 

Channel 7 camera operator Bob Wilesmith caught lightning that day. Through his lens, the Dismissal found its defining image: Whitlam on the steps, voice rising, defiance against a grey Canberra sky. 

In later interviews for the NFSA, Wilesmith recalled the strange calm of that morning. Working from Channel 7’s Parliament House bureau, he sensed unease spreading through the press gallery as the Whitlam Government’s supply crisis edged toward breaking point. Everyone knew the day would not run to script. 

That morning’s routine of door-stop interviews, a wreath-laying at the War Memorial and the measured rhythm of Remembrance Day masked the tension. Then came a whisper: the Governor-General had dismissed the Prime Minister. 

When the news spread, Wilesmith’s crew was at lunch. He didn’t hesitate. Grabbing his camera, he ran for the front steps, drawn to the heart of the unfolding drama. As he arrived, Malcolm Fraser, newly sworn in as caretaker Prime Minister, was emerging. 

In that footage, disbelief ripples through the crowd. Boos and shouts rise as microphones strain to catch the sound of protest. 

Elsewhere, Wilesmith recorded quieter signs of upheaval: aides moving quickly along the House of Representatives side, filing cabinets carried from Whitlam’s office to waiting vans. Even drawers and papers show power changing hands. 

Colour television was new to Australia that year. Portable video recorders were still years away. Crews worked with 16mm reversal film – beautiful, temperamental and easily lost. Each reel had to be rushed across Canberra for processing, spliced by hand, then couriered to Sydney or Melbourne.  

Comic relief in a constitutional crisis

On those same steps stood Norman Gunston, Garry McDonald’s hapless alter ego, microphone and notebook in hand. Amid the chaos, he delivered mock-serious coverage of the crisis, mixing absurdity with sharp satire and unmistakably Australian humour. His awkward, self-aware interviews with Whitlam, Bob Hawke and others turned national shock into comic reflection. 

Preserving film and sound  

Wilesmith’s film is the only surviving original reel of the Dismissal speech. Channel 7’s bulletin was wiped, the ABC’s footage disappeared and Ron Ashmore’s Channel 9 material remains untraced. 

Other recordings survive only on videotape, copies of copies. Among them is an Eyewitness News special produced by Network Ten, featuring rare footage of David Smith, the Governor-General’s official secretary, reading the proclamation dissolving Parliament; Whitlam addressing the crowd through a megaphone; and a glimpse of Malcolm Fraser – composed yet visibly tense – filmed by camera operator Phil Lorant. 

For all its cultural weight, film is fragile. One scratch or misplaced canister and history can disappear. Celluloid decays; reels warp and lose image and sound. That’s why Wilesmith’s decision to send his reels to Sydney, and the Seven Network’s later donation to the NFSA, matters so deeply. What survives today has been digitally preserved, rescued from chemical decay and slow erosion. 

Listen closely to Whitlam’s speech and the recording carries the trace of a worn sound head on Wilesmith’s CP-16 camera. NFSA’s Audio Services softened the rasp and cleaned clicks and thumps, preserving the humanity while minimising flaws. 

Visually, the film was overscanned to capture every detail, then cleaned and graded before being recombined with the restored audio, sprocket holes and all. 

Read more about the preservation of the film 

Cultural echoes 

Replayed in the mini-series The Dismissal (1983), the surviving reel returned as both archive and echo. Less than a decade after the events, the series revisited the turbulence of the Whitlam years – oil shocks, scandals and the parliamentary deadlock that brought government to a halt. 

A Kennedy Miller production, The Dismissal marked the company’s first step into television after the success of Mad Max. At $2.6 million, it was then Australia’s most expensive TV production, featuring a major cast and leading directors. 

The NFSA collection also holds other reflections on that day, including recollections from Margaret Whitlam. The 'Kerr's Cur' speech has been inducted into the Sounds of Australia registry, recognised as one of the nation’s most significant audiovisual artefacts. 

Fifty years later 

Half a century on, the surviving film still captures a turning point in Australian democracy. Thanks to the networks that covered the event and the NFSA’s preservation work, the sounds and images of that day remain – not as legend, but as record. 

Dr John Milner completed his PhD at the ANU School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics in 2017. His research spans history, politics and the culture of sport, alongside explorations of film, music and visual art. He has published widely across these fields, and his work is used as a teaching resource in universities and cultural institutions across Australia and internationally. 

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Main image: A frame grab from the surviving film footage of Gough Whitlam on the steps of Parliament House, 11 November 1975. Courtesy: Seven Network.