Lack of security of tenure is regarded by some commentators as having contributed to the controversial decision of Australian governor-general Sir John Kerr to dismiss the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, in 1975. In the immediate aftermath of the dismissal critics, the Labor Party and much of the media criticised Kerr for not giving any advance indication that he intended to dismiss the prime minister. In systems where a head of state or representative of the head of state has security of tenure, both are in a position to exercise the third of Walter Bagehot's three maxims governing the rights of a head of state: the 'right to warn' that prime minister or government's actions or inactions are inadvisable and in breach either of constitutional law or constitutional conventions.