Born 3 August Melbourne, Victoria. Died 7 October Melbourne, Victoria. Partner Pattie Deakin. Party Commonwealth Liberal. Milestones Commerce Act The Commerce Trade Descriptions Act passed on 8 December provides the Commonwealth with power to enforce the descriptive labelling of goods and packaging being imported into the country or exported. Fisheries Director appointed Harald Dannevig, a fisheries scientist from Norway, is appointed as the first Commonwealth Director of Fisheries on 15 May Invalid and Old Age Pensions Act On 10 June the Invalid and Old Age Pensions Act is passed to provide for a national system of old age pensions, subject to a means test based on income and property.
Herbert Robinson Brookes and Alfred Deakin on horseback, I was as a generally useful citizen able to do a good deal with and through others Display as: List Grid. Article 19 Sep Audio 18 Sep Event 12 Sep Article 19 Jun Article 28 Feb Article 2 Dec Event 22 Feb Article 22 Sep Article 14 Sep He participated actively in convention debates but performed his main role beyond the conference hall, talking round anti-federationist delegates to appreciate the need for federal government.
The compelling pro-federation speeches Deakin made around Victoria in and did much to turn public opinion in favour of federation. On 3—4 June a referendum was held to approve the draft constitution. Voters in each colony approved the amended Constitution Bill by the required majority. Deakin and Barton, by now close friends, performed outstandingly in a series of conferences with Secretary for Colonies Joseph Chamberlain.
Deakin won the seat of Ballarat, Victoria, at the first federal general election on 29 March , and held it through the next three general elections. As Attorney-General, Deakin was responsible for formulating legislation which guided the federal government up until the First World War. The federal government developed policy and legislation on matters including financial relations between Commonwealth and states, the Immigration Restriction Act which became the basis of the White Australia policy , establishment of an Australian navy, and founding of the High Court of Australia.
Deakin took over as prime minister, leading a Protectionist government, on 24 September when Barton quit politics to become a judge of the newly instituted High Court. Deakin retained government at the second general election on 16 December but had to rely on Labor support.
He held power for another four months, until 27 April , when his government was defeated in parliament over a Labor amendment to the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill. Deakin became prime minister for the second time on 5 July when George Reid resigned.
He retained power at the third general election on 12 December , again with Labor support. The new grouping was known as the Fusion. Deakin was commissioned to form his third government, and Cook became his deputy. Despite relatively short and discontinuous periods in office, his governments were responsible for much policy and legislation giving shape to the Commonwealth during its first decade.
Andrew Fisher took office as Prime Minister for the second time on 29 April In opposition again, Deakin began unifying the main elements among anti-Labor groups into a more formal arrangement than the Fusion. The result was the formation of the Liberal Party and the emergence of the two-party system during the period — Other non-Labor parliamentarians used other names, including Protectionist and Free Trader, to describe their affiliations.
By 20 January , when Deakin resigned as Opposition Leader, most members of the Opposition were calling themselves Liberals. In ill health, Deakin resigned as Opposition Leader on 20 January He retired from politics when the fourth parliament expired on May Labor came in third and declared its tactics of support-in-return-for-concessions, which in practice meant giving general support to the Barton government.
Free Traders outnumbered Protectionists in the Senate, and Labor surprised even itself by winning the balance of nearly a quarter of the seats. Deakin won handsomely in Ballarat, which he held until he retired in Federal parliament opened in May and the Barton ministry in general, and Deakin in particular, faced daunting tasks.
As leader of the House Deakin was frequently in charge of parliamentary business, and as attorney-general he headed a department which drafted bills for foundation machinery and policies, and provided advice and opinions on points of law for other ministers. While Sir Robert Garran , his energetic departmental secretary, was indispensable, Deakin was an active attorney-general, especially in preparing opinions and drafting bills for the public service, arbitration and the High Court.
On the immigration restriction bill he supported Barton against Labor, who wanted more direct methods of exclusion than the dictation test. His famous second reading speech on the bill lacked the vicious racism of many others, but his claim that Japanese must be kept out because of their good qualities, not their bad, neither pleased nor placated them. He took no part in interminable debates on the tariff, but his diplomacy in September averted possible deadlock between the Senate and House, and secured the measure which set the Commonwealth on the path to financial independence.
By this time he was acting prime minister, a post he filled for six months while Barton attended the coronation and the Colonial Conference. White Australia legislation was never in real danger and a uniform tariff had to be passed, but the Judiciary Act of needed all Deakin's negotiating skills.
The Constitution provided for a High Court, but it set down no mandatory timetable for its creation and the bill met unexpected hostility. Inside Federal parliament Sir George Reid , Opposition leader, played politics, blaming the government both for undue haste and improper delay: many Protectionists were uneasy.
Outside, State politicians, newspapers and the public condemned the proposal on State-rights grounds and with telling charges of Federal extravagance. Deakin's masterful second reading speech in March was widely regarded as a supreme example of parliamentary advocacy.
In the end, passage of the bill probably owed less to the speech than to personal loyalty to 'affable Alfred' and hints of his possible resignation. While the bill to found the High Court was Deakin's most 'cherished' measure, according to the anonymous correspondent, the conciliation and arbitration bill was Kingston's. Kingston, pioneer of compulsory arbitration, became its first Federal casualty when, in July , he resigned over cabinet's refusal to extend the bill's scope to all seamen engaged in coastal trade.
Deakin took charge of the measure. Most members agreed with the principle of arbitration, but disagreement arose on detail. Labor's Andrew Fisher , assisted by the Opposition, amended the bill to include State railway-workers. Deakin abandoned the bill for the time being. When Barton retired to the High Court in September Deakin succeeded him as prime minister and minister of external affairs.
Deakin retained office in the December election, which produced three almost equal parties in the House, with informal Labor support. His government was short lived. He reintroduced the arbitration bill in March , but Labor amended the bill to apply it to State public servants, a move he believed unconstitutional. He treated the defeat as a matter of no confidence and advised Lord Northcote , governor-general, to send for John Watson , Labor leader.
Watson had less chance of keeping office than Deakin, who promised him 'fair play' provided he acquired a 'constitutional' majority. Labor, however, took office in April without making overtures to radical Protectionists such as Lyne and Sir Isaac Isaacs. In May Deakin urged his party to accept Reid's terms for a working alliance though he himself would not serve in any coalition with Reid, whom he disliked and mistrusted.
A divided Protectionist Party refused the offer and Watson's belated overtures. Labor pressed on with the arbitration bill until halted by Sir James McCay who, with Deakin's concurrence, later moved against its recommittal. Watson resigned in August after two days of bitter debate. Deakin's role in the affair marred his reputation and he lost much goodwill in parliament. Nevertheless, his own unexpected resignation, which forced Labor to accept responsibility for its actions, was a shrewd tactic.
Labor's short, barren period of government curbed its irresponsible conduct and made it wary of taking office. Deakin declined to join the Reid-McLean coalition of conservative Free Traders and Protectionists, but an opportunity for a return to office arose during the long parliamentary recess.
The campaigns in New South Wales of anti-socialist leagues, which seemed much like old free trade bodies under new guise, and ideas of forming similar ones in Victoria, made Protectionists suspicious of Reid's motives. Multifarious pressure mounted to depose Reid before he called a premature election designed, the argument ran, to advantage Free Traders by prolonging the fiscal truce. Deakin warned that the anticipated reports of the tariff commission, appointed in December , would inevitably disturb the truce.
His speech at Ballarat in June just before parliament reassembled was regarded as a 'Notice to Quit'. Northcote's speech mentioned only one bill, and Deakin carried an amendment to the address-in-reply.
Northcote refused a dissolution and called upon Deakin, who had Watson's assurance of 'cordial and generous support' for the remainder of the parliament. Reid's charges of treachery were to be expected, but Deakin's seemingly shabby treatment of the four Protectionists in the coalition, especially of Turner, lost him further goodwill and respect. The second Deakin ministry, July —November , was remarkably productive. Many national policies and much practical legislation were placed on the statute books or would soon become law after the government's fall.
Measures fixed the capital site, authorized the survey of a trans-continental railway-route, and provided for Australian statistics, meteorology, wireless telegraphy and copyright.
The Contract Immigrants Act of established stringent procedures and safeguards for admitting contract labour, and the Commonwealth assumed full control of the former British New Guinea. The first protective Federal tariff was passed. The Surplus Revenue Act of set the Commonwealth on the path to financial independence and dominance. Naval and military defence innovations were under way. Old-age pensions were introduced. But Deakin selected his colleagues and he led and kept in office a cabinet wherein he was manifestly not merely first among equals.
Many were consensus policies favoured by members of all parties. Old-age pensions, for example, was a common cause. New Protection was neither a subtle scheme devised by Deakin to convert Labor to protection nor a Labor concession forced from Deakin, but an evolutionary policy sought by Free Traders, Protectionists and Laborites alike: none were more determined than Free Traders that if there was to be a system of protection it must take the new form.
Conservative opponents of Deakin and some Labor politicians claimed that he was under Labor's thumb, the one to deny him credit, the other to claim it for themselves.
Labor, however, was in a weak tactical position. Watson could not bargain or negotiate with Reid, now anti-socialist leader, and play him off against Deakin, and Labor's own brief spell of office in showed it was unlikely to govern effectively on its own. Labor support for Deakin was vital, but it is doubtful if he conceded much in return.
Though the platforms of the two parties had much in common, some policies were peculiarly Labor. None of them were implemented by Deakin, or Barton.
The Immigration Restriction Act retained its indirect method of exclusion, and Deakin refused preference to unionists in his arbitration bill; there was no referendum on the tariff as favoured by Labor, no land tax or nationalization of monopolies. If anyone held the balance in parliament it was Deakin, between Labor and 'socialism' on the left and free trade or anti-socialism on the right. His negotiating skills, personal qualities and good relations with Watson enabled the Protectionist Party to retain office even after it emerged from the election of as the smallest of the three elevens.
He provided stability of government enabling the passing of constructive legislation, and at the time only he seemed able to do that. Deakin, by inclination and by virtue of his position as prime minister and minister of external affairs, was closely concerned with the related fields of 'foreign' policy, Imperial relations and defence. He took direct interest in Papua, where a faction-ridden administration limped on. In August he appointed a royal commission, which recommended the removal of the administrator, Captain F.
Barton, and the sacking of some principal officers. In November he named Sir Hubert Murray , then chief judicial officer and acting administrator, as lieutenant-governor, an appointment Labor confirmed, and the thirty-year reign of the benevolent paternalist began. Deakin resumed old battles with the Imperial government over the future of the New Hebrides, urging that France be induced to accept British annexation.
Apparent British ineptitude and the secretive nature of Anglo-French negotiations confirmed his low opinion of the Colonial Office. In the end, fearful of German activity in the islands, he perforce pressed for the immediate proclamation of the joint protectorate.
In March Deakin left for the Imperial Conference in London with three main aims: to reform Imperial organization, to advance the cause of Imperial preference and to revise the naval agreement.
He was the most active and outspoken colonial premier on the theme that the Empire must draw closer together lest it fall apart. His proposal for a permanent Imperial secretariat to give self-governing dominions an effective voice in foreign policy, defence and economic co-operation, received a cold reception.
The Colonial Office saw it as an attempt to undermine its authority, doubts about ministerial control arose and the idea lacked definition and practicality.
Lord Elgin's creation of a dominions division of the Colonial Office was not much more than a change of name. Deakin's pleas for Imperial preference as a means of strengthening the Empire politically and economically met with little support from colonial premiers and outright opposition from the British government.
Neither, for domestic reasons, wanted further Imperial entanglements. Deakin's public campaign on the question touched sensitive issues in British politics. To conservative newspapers and Tories he was a hero, to their liberal counterparts a villain. Asquith and Lloyd George remained implacably opposed. The Admiralty was more sympathetic to the notion of an Australian naval force, but differences on the naval agreement were not resolved. Deakin had disliked the naval agreement since its inception in , and his sustained efforts to implement Australian naval aspirations began several years before the Imperial Conference.
He had also long believed in the virtues of universal military service; by December , when he introduced the first bill to embrace such a scheme, Labor was about to adopt the idea and parliamentarians and the public at large had already been converted.
Naval affairs, a more complex issue, inevitably involved the British government, the Admiralty, naval tactics and grand strategy, and from mid to early the subject absorbed him. He attacked the agreement and the Admiralty, and the rebuffs and insensitive denials of Australian naval ambitions merely spurred him on.
Late in he announced an intended purchase of destroyers, but at the Imperial Conference the first lord, Tweedmouth, recommended submarines. In Deakin placed further pressure on the Colonial Office and the Admiralty with his timely invitation to the American 'Great White Fleet' to visit Australian ports. Eventually, after the naval scare of , when Deakin played the opportunist by joining the cry for the gift of a dreadnought to Britain, the Admiralty suggested a powerful Australian fleet unit.
For Deakin, the type of vessels and strategic questions such as those arising from the Russo-Japanese War of were secondary issues. The Commonwealth's defence power provided him with a means to two related ends, one external the other internal. An Australia prepared to share Britain's defence burden by being more self-reliant, particularly in naval defence, would earn a voice in Imperial policy.
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