Each portfolio of agencies of the Australian Government is presided over by a Minister who is an elected Member of the House of Representatives or of the Senate of the Government of the day. Senior Ministers of the Government form the Federal Cabinet. Meetings of the Cabinet make the major decisions affecting the government of Australia.
The development of a Cabinet Secretariat to provide all Cabinet and Cabinet Committee secretarial services took almost fifty years after Federation to evolve.
For the first two decades of the Commonwealth there was no regular procedure for recording the decisions of Cabinet. It was usual for ministers to take their own notes, and several Prime Ministers kept diaries. Records of Cabinet meetings were often pieced together from handwritten notes on the Prime Minister's copy of the Cabinet agenda.
In 1923, under Prime Minister Stanley Bruce, an 'honorary minister' (known as the Cabinet Secretary from 1925) was appointed to take minutes. In 1928 this position was joined by the Secretary of the Prime Minister's Department, and the two secretaries prepared the agenda in consultation. This was dropped by the Scullin Government (1929–31), but from 1932, under Prime Minister Joseph Lyons a secretarial system was re-introduced. With modifications and variations this system was continued until the World War II period where the decisions of Cabinet (along with those of the War Cabinet, Production Executive and other Cabinet bodies) were recorded by permanent officers of the Commonwealth Public Service appointed for that purpose. The Cabinet Secretariat structure now in use was put in place by Prime Minister Ben Chifley in 1949 and completed during the first term of the Menzies Government (1949–66).
An article on the development and workings of Cabinet was featured in the Annual Report of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet for 1983–84.
The main Cabinet records after 1919 are submissions (also referred to as agenda) and decisions (minutes). Submissions are proposals prepared by government departments that require a response from Cabinet. The resulting decision is filed with the submission it relates to, as well as being filed in a separate series of decisions. There is usually a separate series for each 'ministry'. These are listed in the table below.
Because there was no Cabinet secretariat structure before 1919 no separate Cabinet recordkeeping system existed. Submissions considered by Cabinet were generally returned to the department by the responsible minister annotated to show Cabinet’s decision. As these papers have been located in the correspondence files of key government departments and agencies the National Archives has placed copies into a separate series registered as A6006. This series also contains papers later than 1919 that are not included in the series of submissions.
From 1958 the Cabinet Office introduced the practice of creating a file as each Cabinet submission was received. These files contain background information to decisions Cabinet took on each submission.
| Ministry | Submissions and Decisions | Files | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Submissions | Decisions | Date | Series no. | |
| Ministries to 1960 | 1901–ongoing | A6006 | |||
| Hughes (1915–23) | 1919–22 | A2717 | |||
| Bruce (1923–29) | 1923–29 | A2718 | |||
| Scullin (1929–32) | 1929–31 | A3264 | |||
| Lyons (1932–39)
Page (1939) | 1932–39
1932–34 | A2694 A3259 | |||
| Menzies (1939–41)
Fadden (1941) | 1939–41 | A2697 | |||
Curtin (1941–45)
| 1941–49 | A2700 | |||
| Menzies (1949–66) | 1949–51 | A4639 | A4931 | 1949–66 | A4940 |
| 1951–54 | A4905 | A4909 | |||
| 1954–55 | A4906 | – | |||
| 1954–58 | – | A4910 | |||
| 1956–58 | A4926 | – | |||
| 1958–63 | – | A4943 | |||
| 1958–61 | A5818 | – | |||
| 1961–63 | A5819 | – | |||
| 1963–66 | A5827 | A5828 | |||
| Holt (1966–67)
McEwen (1967–68) | 1966
1966–68 | A5841 A5842 | A5839 A5840 | 1966–68 | A4940 |
| Gorton (1968–71) | 1968 | A5867 | A5871 | 1968–71 | A5882 |
| 1968–69 | A5868 | A5872 | |||
| 1969–71 | A5869 | A5873 | |||
| McMahon (1971–72) | 1971–72 | A5908 | A5909 | 1971–72 | A5882 |
| Whitlam (1972–75) | 1972–75 | A5915 | A5925 | 1972–75 | A5931 |
| Fraser (1975–83) | 1975 | A12908 | A13050 | 1975–83 | A10756 |
| 1975–83 | A12909 | A13075 | |||
Searches on the National Archives’ RecordSearch database using the series numbers listed above will provide details of the series contents. RecordSearch is availalbe online and in all Archives reading rooms. Digital copies of all Cabinet records from 1971 are available via RecordSearch. Additional information is also available on Fact Sheet 127 – War Cabinet records and Fact Sheet 128 – Cabinet notebooks. updated November 2008