David Smith (public servant)

David Smith died on 15 August 2022 at the age of 89.

After retiring from public service, Sir David became a member of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy and frequently gave addresses on constitutional matters. He has strongly defended Sir John Kerr and has been highly critical of Gough Whitlam. In 2005 Smith published an account of the events of 1975 and the other constitutional debates, Head of State, which was launched by former Governor-General Bill Hayden. Smith later published his opinion that the dismissal had been the culmination of a political and not a constitutional crisis.

In a lecture on “An Australian Head of State: An Historical and Contemporary Perspective”, published as Papers on Parliament No. 27, March 1996, Smith mentioned that, in a previous lecture, Senator Baden Teague had spoken of the Queen as Australia’s head of state and argued for her replacement by an Australian head of state, and that in his replies to questions after the lecture Teague had spoken of the Governor-General as “our head of state”. Smith remarked that the switch from Queen to Governor‑General was “entirely automatic and unselfconscious”, and that Teague was “not alone in his ambivalence”. After mentioning other public references made to the Governor-General as head of state, Smith opined “The fact is that under our Constitution we have two heads of state—a symbolic head of state in the Sovereign, and a constitutional head of state in the Governor-General”, and said that in his lecture he would discuss the roles of the Sovereign and of the Governor-General under the Australian Constitution, including some of the changes which had occurred in each of those roles since Federation. To conclude the lecture, Smith quoted the remarks of Sir Gerard Brennan, Chief Justice of Australia, on the oaths of allegiance and office:

After his retirement in 1992, Smith asserted in books and lectures that the governor-general carries out the duties of head of state in his or her own right and not as the Queen’s representative or surrogate.

Smith served as Official Secretary until 1990, serving Sir Zelman Cowen, Sir Ninian Stephen, and Bill Hayden. He was later appointed a Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Law at the Australian National University for 1998 and 1999, and was a member of the 1998 Constitutional Convention.

Smith held office at the time of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis when, on 11 November 1975, Kerr dismissed the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. Smith was required to read out the proclamation of the dissolution of parliament, in formal dress, on the steps of the then Parliament House. The dismissal was by then publicly known, and an angry crowd of Whitlam supporters had gathered, filling the steps and spilling over into the roadway and Parliament House itself. Smith was forced to enter Parliament House through a side door and make his way to the steps from the inside. He read the proclamation, although the crowd’s boos and chanting (“We want Gough!”) drowned him out. It ended:

In January 1973, Smith was appointed acting Official Secretary to Sir Paul Hasluck, and on 20 July was made permanent Official Secretary. He later became the first Secretary of the Order of Australia on its establishment in 1975. After Hasluck’s retirement, he served Sir John Kerr.

Smith began his career in the Australian Public Service in 1953, and was later appointed Private Secretary to the Minister for Interior and Works from 1958 until 1963. He was then appointed Secretary to the Federal Executive Council and head of the Government Branch, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, from 1971 to 1973.

Sir David Iser Smith KCVO AO (9 August 1933 – 15 August 2022) was an Australian public servant. He was the Official Secretary to the Governor-General of Australia between 1973 and 1990, in which capacity he served Sir Paul Hasluck, Sir John Kerr, Sir Zelman Cowen, Sir Ninian Stephen and Bill Hayden.