Prime Minister John Howard says it would be a “constitutional earthquake” to sack a Governor-General.
Howard made the comment in an interview on A Current Affair about his defence of Dr. Peter Hollingworth at a press conference today.
Howard said he did not believe there was a case for dismissing the Governor-General.
Transcript of Prime Minister John Howard’s interview with Mike Munro on Channel 9’s A Current Affair.
MUNRO: Mr Howard, thanks for your time. You certainly surprised a lot of people today.
PRIME MINISTER: Well I did what I thought was right. I didn’t feel that the grounds existed to sack the Governor General because that’s really what it amounted to. I read his statement and having read it I couldn’t bring myself, having examined my conscience, to remove the man from office when I knew that he’d done nothing wrong as Governor General. There was no evidence of any criminal behaviour, no evidence of any moral lapses on his part, and at worst a number of errors of judgement and who amongst us have not been guilty of errors of judgement.