Australian National Archives release Loans Affair documents

The National Archives of Australia have, as part of their standard

document release cycle, released thirty year old documents from the

Whitlam government.

The centre piece of the 1974 archives are a series of documents from

the Australian Cabinet and the Treasury pertaining to the attempt to

obtain a $US4 billion loan by the Whitlam government from the Middle

East. The obtaining of these loans and the scandal generated became

collectively known as the "Loans Affair," and contributed

significantly towards the dismissal of the Whitlam government by Sir

John Kerr the following year.

The documents from Treasury, which include descriptions of both the

loan itself and the people involved in arranging them, are scathing.

The "Points that might be made" document of December 13, 1974 clearly

states that Treasury believed the distinct possibility that the loans

might be part of "a confidence trick of major proportions". Minutes

from another meeting five days later state the "incredulity" on the

part of the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

regarding the viability of the loan.

Those documents now available comprise the beginning of the Loans

Affair, from the initial offers to the end of 1974. The remainder of

the Loans Affair documents, as well as everything else from 1975 will

be released on January 1, 2006.