Managing the Australian Foreign Affairs Department

Abstract

The Commonwealth of Australia came into being as a single, federal political entity on 1 January 1901 through an act of the British parliament. The constitution embodied in that act granted to the new central parliament power over 'External Affairs' and 'Relations of the Commonwealth with the Islands of the Pacific' (section 51 (xxix and xxx)). A Department of External Affairs was established, under charge of the prime minister. For the first ten years this department handled the administrative aspects of the prime minister's office both domestically and externally, although external matters included little that could be called 'foreign' relations. The Australian government still saw itself as a British colony, and 'external affairs' as primarily concerned with relations with the British government, formal communications passing via the governor general. The department also handled migration, naturalization, the administration of the territory of Papua (in New Guinea), relations with Pacific islands, and some functional co-operation with other countries. A separate Prime Minister's Department was created in 1911, but despite variations in administrative organization and nomenclature, external affairs remained under the control of the prime minister until the early 1930s.1