How the dismissal of Gough Whitlam's Labor government in 1975 was sealed by the Senate

A whispered warning, a stunned senator, and a nation transformed — the inside story of Gough Whitlam’s dramatic 1975 dismissal.

Peter Baume was sitting in the Senate's red leather backbenches when the bombshell hit.

"Don't let your expression change," the voice in front whispered, "but Gough has been sacked, Malcolm is prime minister, and we're getting the budget as quickly as we can".

Baume, one of the Liberal Party's newest federal representatives, absorbed the news poker-faced.

It was Remembrance Day, 1975. The junior Liberal was now one of the few people aware of the tremors that would, by the end of the day, become a full-blown earthquake. Across the chamber, just a few metres away in the shrunken Old Parliament House, the up-until-that-afternoon government senators had no idea th