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The Federalization of the Australian Cabinet, 1901–39*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
Extract
During the debates in the Australian federation conventions of 1891 and 1897–8, Canadian experience was usually cited to indicate practices to be avoided rather than emulated. J. W. Hackett, addressing the 1891 convention as a representative of Western Australia, which was then the least populous of the Australian colonies, stressed the need of a strong senate whose function it would be to convert the popular will into the federal will. From the viewpoint of a defender of the interest of the smaller colonies, the weakening of the prestige of the senate, through the cabinet's being responsible in practice to the lower house, made responsible government a threat which Hackett was ready to attack. He questioned whether responsible government could be successful under any conditions. The experiment of the Canadian Dominion was hardly a success. “It was begun … in bribery and is continued by subsidies.” Pointing to the agitation for home rule in Ireland, he suggested that responsible government was a failure in Britain itself. “If that is the responsible government which they wish to graft into our federation,” he asserted, “there will be one of two alternatives—either responsible government will kill federation, or federation, in the form in which we shall, I hope, be prepared to accept it, will kill responsible government.” Responsible government has, in fact, proved rather deadly to Hackett's idea of federalism. Nevertheless, in Australia, as in Canada, the cabinet itself has been federalized, although the process in Australia has not been recognized by the quantity of academic and popular commentary which has marked its Canadian counterpart.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , May 1957 , pp. 216 - 226
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1957
Footnotes
*
Much of the research upon which this article is based was done while I served as Research Fellow in Australian History at the Australian National University, Canberra. I wish to acknowledge the assistance of Mr. L. F. Fitzhardinge, Reader in Sources of Australian History at that University, and of his research assistant, Mrs. Wardle, in tracing newspaper references for me after my return to this continent.
References
1 National Australasian Convention, Official Record of the Proceedings and Debates (Sydney, 1891), 134.Google Scholar
2 Ibid., 135.
3 Ibid., 136. Cf.: “And the plain truth is that the federal system is simply inconsistent with the first principles which must prevail in a properly organized British responsible central government.” Dunkin, C. in Province of Canada, Confederation Debates (Quebec, 1865), 503.Google Scholar
4 The academic commentary includes: Rogers, N. McL., “Federal Influences on the Canadian Constitution,” Canadian Bar Review, XI, 02, 1933, 103–21Google Scholar; and “Evolution and Reform of the Canadian Cabinet,” ibid., April, 1933, 227–44; and Dawson, R. MacG., “The Cabinet—Position and Personnel,” this Journal, XII, no. 3, 08, 1946, 261–81.Google Scholar
5 Wm. Lyne, New South Wales; Sir George Turner, Victoria; C. C. Kingston, South Australia; Sir James Dickson, Queensland; and Sir John Forrest, Western Australia. Lyne, as Premier of the senior colony, was the first person whom Lord Hopetoun, the newly appointed Governor General, commissioned to attempt to form a government. As Lyne had been a consistent opponent of the federation scheme, the choice was singularly inappropriate, and after he reported his failure, the Governor General turned to Barton, the leading advocate of federation and “Leader of the Convention” in the assemblies of 1897–8. The three members of Barton's cabinet who were not premiers were himself, R. E. O'Connor from New South Wales, and Alfred Deakin from Victoria.
6 Launceston, Examiner, 12 31, 1900.Google Scholar
7 Forrest was Premier of Western Australia, 1890–1900; Postmaster General, Jan.–Feb., 1901; Minister for Defence, 1901–3; Minister for Home Affairs, 1903–4; Treasurer, 1905–7, 1909–10, 1913–14, 1917–18. Prime Minister W. M. Hughes relieved himself of this dangerously ambitious colleague by having him created Baron Forrest of Bunbury. He died on his way to London to take his seat in the House of Lords. Pearce was elected to the Senate in 1901 as a Labor supporter (he left the Labor Party with Hughes in 1916). He was Minister for Defence, 1908–9, 1910–13, 1914–21; Minister for Home and Territories, 1921–6; Vice-President of the Executive Council (while remaining leader of the Government in the Senate), 1926–9; Minister for Defence, 1932–4; Minister for External Affairs (with control of external territories), 1934–7. He was defeated in the general election of 1937 and retired from active political life.
8 Cf. first Macdonald administration in Great Britain, 1924. Higgins, a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Victoria, 1894–1900, and representative for Victoria in the federal conventions, 1897–8, entered the House of Representatives, 1901–6, generally following an independent liberal policy. He was Attorney General, 1904; Justice of the High Court of Australia, 1906–29; Chairman of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, 1907–21.
9 “Selected” was the term used in the resolution as originally drafted. The wording, though not its intent, was softened by amendment. McHenry, D., “Origins of Caucus Selection of Cabinet,” Historical Studies: Australia and New Zealand, no. 25, 11, 1955, 39.Google Scholar
10 The Melbourne Argus (Nov. 13, 1908) noted: “No regard has been paid to state representation.”
11 Adelaide, Advertiser, 11 13, 1908.Google Scholar
12 A member of the Liberal Opposition asked the state Premier, “Will the Government make a remonstrance against the injustice done to South Australia?” and, “Do you not think that this State should have one representative in the Federal Government?” The Premier made the type of non-committal reply required on such occasions. Adelaide, Advertiser, 10 28, 1915.Google Scholar
13 “The Reconstruction,” Brisbane Courier, 10 28, 1915.Google Scholar
14 Perth, West Australian, 08 18, 1904.Google Scholar The paper, a Government supporter, deprecated the suggestion editorially in a manner which suggested that it was a tender point.
15 “In the allocation of portfolios there has been a manifest desire to secure the widest representation compatible with strength” (editorial, “New Federal Ministry,” Brisbane, Courier, 06 3, 1909 Google Scholar). The same paper's Melbourne correspondent explained that the choice of the Queenslander, L. Groom, as Minister for External Affairs, and of the South Australian, M. Glynn, as Attorney General, was dictated by federal considerations, since the leading alternative candidates for both posts were Victorians.
16 There was no Tasmanian in the Bruce-Page cabinet immediately following the reorganization of February, 1928, but J. E. Ogden, a relatively recent convert from Labor, entered as honorary minister on November 29, 1928. Tasmania again lacked cabinet representation from April 7, 1939, when Joseph A. Lyons died, to October 7, 1942.
17 Launceston, Examiner, 10 23, 1929.Google Scholar
18 No Western Australian appeared on the list of cabinet appointments announced by Prime Minister Menzies on December 19, 1949. The pro-Government West Australian news story included the reassuring, but unfounded, suggestion that an assistant ministership would be granted to a newly elected member from the state.
19 In 1939 the Canadian Parliament contained 341 members (245 in the House of Commons, 96 in the Senate); the Australian Parliament 111 (75 in the House of Representatives, including one from the Northern Territories with limited voting rights, and 36 in the Senate).
20 The political implications of this situation are discussed in my article, “Geography and Federalism in Australia and Canada,” Australian Geographer, VI, no. 2, 03, 1953, 38–47.Google Scholar
21 Irvine: Premier of Victoria, 1902–4; elected to House of Representatives, 1906; Attorney General, 1913–14. Watt: Premier of Victoria, 1912–14; elected to House of Representatives, 1914; Minister for Works and Railways, 1917–18; Treasurer, 1918–20; acting Prime Minister, 1918–19. Theodore: Premier of Queensland, 1920–5; entered House of Representatives by manufactured by-election, 1927; deputy leader of the Opposition, 1929; Treasurer, 1929–30, and again in 1931. Lyons: Premier of Tasmania, 1923–8; elected to House of Representatives, 1929; Postmaster General, 1929–31; Prime Minister, 1931–9.
22 The Launceston Examiner admitted in its editorial (Nov. 12, 1925), that Crouch's experience in the Commonwealth Parliament as member for Corio, Vic., and his military career were respectable qualifications but then asked “… but why should he be in Tasmania aspiring for federal honours? Tasmania should be represented by Tasmanians.”
23 “The Transaustralian Railway Sleepers: How Tasmania was Treated,” May 10, 1913. O'Malley was born in Canada and publicly regretted this fact on all possible occasions, claiming that it deprived him of the opportunity of becoming president of the United States. Rejecting any lesser honour that the republic might offer, he emigrated to the other land of opportunity. He served in the South Australian assembly from 1896 to 1899. From 1901 to 1917 he sat in the House of Representatives for a Tasmanian constituency.
24 “The Federal Ministry,” Apr. 27, 1904.
25 “New Federal Ministry,” June 3, 1909. Cf. the Hobart, Mercury's attack (11 21, 1922)Google Scholar on a former cabinet minister who was guilty of being a “Big Australian” and taking a national view of an issue: “He put office first, or Mr. Hughes first, or Australia first. He did not put Tasmania first.”
26 Melbourne served as the temporary capital of the Commonwealth until a permanent site could be decided upon and facilities made available. Although the Commonwealth Parliament has been meeting in Canberra since 1927 the process of moving government offices to the new capital has not yet been completed.
27 Hackett, T. W. to James, Walter, 05 9, 1907, “The James Papers–Letters on Federation,” Australian Quarterly, XXI, no. 4, 12, 1949, 61.Google Scholar
28 Report of the Joint Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons Appointed to Consider the Petition of the State of Western Australia (H.C. 88/1935), published May 24, 1935.
29 Perth West Australian, June 24, 1935.
30 Sydney Morning Herald, Feb. 4, 1939.
31 Australia, House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates, 02 15, 1956, 40.Google Scholar