In the 32 years that Fred Daly was a member of Parliament, the Labor Party was in power for only three. On November 11, 1975, the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr dismissed the Labor government and installed the Liberal (actually conservative) Party in its place. Sir John Kerr was a drunken buffoon, selected by the Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in the most extraordinary act of naïvety in the history of Australian politics. After the dismissal, Fred Daly refused to succumb to bitterness though he did rename his dog Sir John.