A federal Department of Post-War Reconstruction formed in 1942. Its existence represented a resolve to master economic conditions in peacetime, and its deliberations produced many of the policies and techniques to do so. Full employment became both an aim in itself, in a heartfelt reaction against the miseries of the Depression, and the key to fully employing all other resources, in accord with the Keynesian economic assumptions that reaction to the Depression had turned into orthodoxy. A federal Department of Immigration existed for the first time in 1945, and a revived and vastly enhanced program of immigration became central to a moderate level of labour planning. Activities like housing and vehicle-building that employed many people, and that had strong linkages through their inputs or their outputs with other industries, became central to a kind of industry policy. The federal government expanded its patronage of applied research and began its involvement in both technical and university education. By the end of the 1940s, when European countries were still trying to repair the destruction of war, and unemployment in the United States was rising again towards 10 per cent, Australia seemed to be about the most successful economy in the world.