Australia's Attitude to British Commonwealth Relations

Abstract

when England was at war, and the Prime Minister announced the fact in a national broadcast without considering it necessary to submit a declaration of war to Parliament, though Parliament was in session at the time and would normally have met two days after his broadcast. Whfcn Japan made her attack in the Pacific at the end of 1941, Australia entered the war against Japan by separate and independent action, the King acting in this matter on the advice of his Australian ministers. Though Australia had exercised her right on many matters to take independent action in foreign affairs, the method by which *she entered the war against Japan marked a new stage in the development of her ideas of dominion status. Canada and South Africa had already acted in this way, and Australia was only in fact following a precedent set by them, and readily agreed to by the United Kingdom. From that time on Australia took a much more positive part, not only in the affairs of the British Commonwealth, but also in foreign affairs generally, and in particular in the problems of the Pacific region in which she has special interests. The Australian Parliament adopted the Statute of Westminster in 1942, and this was a logical development from the step taken at the end of 1941 in respect of the declaration of war against Japan. The events of early 1942, when Australia was under threat of invasion, brought considerable changes in the status of Australia as a member of the British Commonwealth and of the Allies engaged in the war. There was, for example, the special appeal which the Prime Minister of the day made to the United States for aid in January of 1942. In February Australia became a member of the Pacific Council to co-ordinate the Allied war effort and to consider