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Sir John Robert Kerr (24 September 1914 – 24 March 1991) was the 18th Governor-General of Australia. He dismissed the Labor government of Gough Whitlam on 11 November 1975, marking the climax of the most significant constitutional crisis in Australian history. He had previously been the 13th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. ==Career== Kerr was born in Balmain, a working-class suburb of Sydney, where his father was a boilermaker. He entered the Fort Street Boys' High School, and later won scholarships to the University of Sydney, where he graduated in law with first class honours and the University Medal, before being called to the New South Wales bar in 1938. At Fort Street he met H. V. Evatt, who later became Leader of the Australian Labor Party and then a judge of the High Court of Australia, and became a protege of Evatt for many years. In 1938 Kerr married Alison "Peggy" Worstead,〔(Jenny Hocking, ''Gough Whitlam: His Time'', p. 135 ); Retrieved 7 August 2013〕 with whom he had three children. He spent World War II working for an Australian intelligence organisation, the Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs, a fact that later gave rise to speculation about an intelligence role in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government. In 1946 he became principal of the Australian School of Pacific Administration and the first Secretary-General of the South Pacific Commission. Kerr returned to the bar in 1948, becoming a prominent lawyer representing trade union clients and a member of the Australian Labor Party.〔Sir John Kerr, ''Matters for Judgment'', Macmillan Australia 1978〕 He intended to seek Labor endorsement for a parliamentary seat at the 1951 election, but withdrew in favour of another candidate.〔 After the Labor split of 1955, however, he became disillusioned with party politics. He disliked what he saw as the leftward trend of the Australian Labor Party under Evatt's leadership, but was not attracted to the breakaway group, the Democratic Labor Party.〔 During the decade of the 1950s, he joined the anti-communist advocacy group established by the United States' CIA, the Association for Cultural Freedom, joining its Executive Board in 1957.〔2003: ''Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II'', revised edition, London:Zed Books/Claremont, South Africa:Spearhead ISBN 1-56751-252-6〕 In the 1960s Kerr became one of Sydney's leading industrial lawyers. In the 1950s he had become a QC.〔 In 1964 he was one of a group of lawyers (which also included future NSW Premier Neville Wran) who lent their expertise to the defence of the publishers of the satirical magazine ''Oz'' when they were prosecuted for obscenity. In 1966 Kerr was appointed a judge of the Commonwealth Industrial Court and, later, to several other judicial positions.〔 During this period his political views became more conservative. He became a friend of Sir Garfield Barwick, the Liberal Attorney-General who became Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia in 1964. Kerr was the first chairman of the Law Association for Asia and the Western Pacific (LawAsia), founded by Justice Paul Toose and John Bruce Piggot in 1966. Kerr served as chairman of that organisation until 1970.〔 Kerr was appointed Chief Justice of New South Wales in 1972. Sir Paul Hasluck was due to retire as Governor-General in July 1974, and the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, needed to find a suitable replacement. His first choice, Ken Myer, declined; he then offered the post to Mr Justice Kerr (as he then was), who accepted on condition that he could expect to have ten years in the office, and that he could represent Australia overseas as Head of State.〔Barry Jones, ''A Thinking Reed'', p. 200〕 These discussions commenced in September 1973.〔 Kerr was announced as Governor-General-designate on 27 February 1974,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Virtual Reading Room )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Museum of Australian Democracy )〕 by which time he had become Sir John Kerr. He been knighted in the New Year's Honours of 1974, on the advice of the Premier of New South Wales, Sir Robert Askin, after Whitlam had declined to endorse his predecessor William McMahon's recommendation for that honour, which Hasluck had wisely held back pending the outcome of the December 1972 election.〔 Kerr did not know Whitlam well, although they had shared legal chambers some years earlier, but he had remained friends with several ministers in Whitlam's government, such as Jim McClelland and Joe Riordan. Kerr's wife Peggy was a fellow student of Margaret Whitlam during university days.〔 Whitlam seems to have believed that, because of Kerr's former membership in the Labor Party, he was still politically "reliable", without realising that Kerr's political views had changed and that he had come to see the role of Governor-General differently from Whitlam. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Kerr (governor-general)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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