London, 6 May 1974
Confidential
Australian States’ Honours
1. When both the Commonwealth Government and States’ Governments were recommending for honours, States’ Governors sent to the Governor-General copies of their recommendations for honours (though they maintained that this was a courtesy, not a constitutional obligation). The object of this arrangement was that the Governor-General could withdraw certain States’ recommendations if he considered that they were in excess of the States’ reasonable allocation within the overall Australia quota or had some reason to suppose that a given candidate was unsuitable. The Governor-General has from time to time in recent years withdrawn candidates on quota grounds. Our practice has been simply to inform the States’ Governors concerned that their recommendations have been informally approved ‘with the exception of …’. On one occasion, by an aberration, we told the Governor of Victoria that a name had been withdrawn on the Governor-General’s advice: the Premier made a constitutional fuss, saying that he had always understood that the decisions were taken in London, but nothing seems to have come of this.
2. When Mr Whitlam ceased to recommend for honours, we were faced with the prospect that, in the event of States’ Governors opening their mouths too wide or recommending unsuitable people, HMG would have to take awkward decisions as between Australians unless the Governor-General could be persuaded to continue his personal ‘policing’ of States’ recommendations. This he agreed to do, on the understanding that in view of Mr Whitlam’s position he should no longer ‘support’ recommendations but that he would be prepared to comment if reasonable allocations were exceeded. For the first two lists after Commonwealth recommendations ceased, we therefore sent the Governor-General a telegram saying we would go ahead with the informal submission of States’ recommendations unless we received comment by a given date: no comments were received.
3. For Birthday 1974, New South Wales recommended inter alia 5 knighthoods. On receipt of their recommendation in February, we telegraphed for confirmation that they had copied their list to the Governor-General: the Governor replied that the list would be so copied.
4. In mid-April we sent our usual telegram to the Governor-General, to which he replied on 26 April that he had not received New South Wales’ list but could not support more than 3 knighthoods for New South Wales and might have reservations about recommendations from Victoria in the light of New South Wales’ recommendations. We telegraphed to New South Wales for urgent confirmation that their list had now been copied to the Governor-General, to which they replied that it had not been copied but that this was out of courtesy and not a constitutional requirement. The Governor-General, in his telegram of which a copy is attached,2 suggested the deletion of 2 knighthoods proposed by New South Wales and one proposed by Victoria, taking the last recommendation in each class (these not being in alphabetical order).
Problem
5. What do we do next?
6. The possible courses of action are:
(a) to telegraph the Governors of New South Wales and Victoria to the effect that British Ministers think that their recommendations for K’s are too numerous and to ask them for confirmation that, if their lists have to be pruned, those shown at the end of each class are their last preference.
The objection to this course of action is that it leaves British Ministers open to argument about what should be the suitable allocation for each State. This has never been a matter for us. We have simply said what the overall Australian quota should be for each quinquennium and have left it to the Australians themselves to work out how many should be for the Commonwealth and how many for the States (this has been roughly 50/50). The Governor-General is ‘policing’ on the assumption that the Commonwealth quota is dormant (though for this list Mr Whitlam has in fact made some recommendations for Papua/New Guinea) and that the States should recommend roughly within their previous allocations. It is important that we should avoid having to rule on States’ recommendations.
(b) To inform States’ Governors that names have been withdrawn from their list on the advice of the Governor-General. This was done once, in pre-Whitlam days, and caused a fuss by the State Premier concerned. It might cause a worse fuss now, since New South Wales in particular would probably maintain that, whatever the Governor-General might do when there was a danger of the overall Australian quota being exceeded, it would not be constitutional for him to prune their lists when owing to the paucity of Commonwealth recommendations this question did not arise. As the Governor-General acts in this respect as The Queen’s Personal Representative and not on Mr Whitlam’s advice, it would be very much better not to get into constitutional argument.
(c) As before, (except in one instance) simply to tell them that their lists, with named exceptions, have been informally approved. This procedure has not, in recent years, led to any come-back from States Premiers. If in present circumstances, they or States’ Governors should enquire why and by whom names recommended by them had been deleted, the reply should be only that it is the constitutional responsibility of the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and (for the awards in question) the Prime Minister to submit names to The Queen for Her Majesty’s informal approval and that it is not customary to go into the reason why names are included or withheld. We could leave it to the Governor-General’s discretion in present circumstances whether he should give any explanation to States’ Governors. (It appears that in pre-Whitlam days he sometimes but not always did so.)
7. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office recommend course (c) as being least likely to have embarrassing consequences for British Ministers.
1 J.N.O. Curle, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Head of Protocol and Conference Department, who sent this memorandum with a covering note to Robert Armstrong, Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, explaining that it represented the Commonwealth Office’s view about honours for the Australian states.
2 Not published.
[UKNA: FCO 57/601]