An original account of the 1975 constitutional crisis and its continuing relevance for informal constitutional change in contemporary Australian law.

Brendan Lim is a barrister at the New South Wales Bar, practising principally in public and commercial law, and a fellow at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney. He was previously Counsel Assisting the Commonwealth Solicitor-General and a Judge's Associate at the High Court and the Federal Court of Australia.

Part 1. Introduction: I. New questions; II. The plan; Part 2. Informal Constitutional Change: I. The possibility of informal change; II. The identification of informal change; III. The legitimacy of informal change; Part 3. The Whitlam Dismissal: I. The standard narrative; II. The dismissal and the constitutional canon; III. The higher law narrative; IV. Conclusion; Part 4. The Murphy Affair: I. Events of 1975-86; II. Murphy and the standard narrative; III. Murphy and the higher law narrative; IV. Conclusion; Part 5. The Mason Court: I. Internal point of view; II. Dixon's orthodoxy; III. Popular sovereignty foreshadowed: 1962-86; IV. Popular sovereignty ascendant: 1987-95; V. Parliamentary supremacy returns: 1996-; VI. Conclusion; Part 6. The Howard Referendum: I. Constitutional law and identity; II. Whitlam and Republicanism; III. Republicanism reinvented; IV. Clash of grammars; V. Conclusion; Part 7. Conclusion.