Australia Change and Adaptation in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Abstract

Although the erstwhile colonies in Australia came together in 1901 to create the Federation that it is today, ‘(a)t the time of Munich Australia … had no diplomatic missions in any foreign country’, unlike other comparable dominions, Canada and South Africa.2 There had been an external affairs division of the prime minister’s department from 1921 but, except in a limited form from 1901 to 1916,3 a stand alone foreign ministry was not established until 1935 and the first diplomatic mission in a foreign country was that of Australian Minister to Washington in 1940. Essentially, until World War II — and in many respects for a period after then — Australia was content to let Britain speak for what was then the British Empire. Dependence on Britain was only partially diminished during World War II and the early postwar years, with the wartime reliance on the USA and the increased importance of that relationship, and the recognition of the growth in the economic and ultimately strategic significance of Asia.