Edmund Barton

1. Edmund Barton Federation was Edmund Barton’s ‘one great thing’. One of the key architects of Australia’s Constitution, Barton became the new nation’s first Prime Minister at a grand ceremony in Centennial Park, Sydney, on 1 January 1901. ede Barton contested parliamentary elections in New South Wales for twenty years and two federal convention elections in 1891 and 1897. The first House of Representatives election, held in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia on 29 March and in Western Australia and Queensland on 30 March, was Barton’s only federal election. His private secretary, Arthur Hunt, managed Barton’s campaign for the seat of Hunter, which included the electorate from which he had resigned late in 1900. Barton was unopposed. His government took office with 31 Protectionists, 28 Free Trade Party and 14 Labor Party members comprising the first House of Representatives and 2 ‘others’, King O’Malley and Frank Tudor, who then joined the Labor Party. In the Senate only 11 of the 36 senators supported the government – 17 of Reid’s Free Trade supporters and 8 Labor senators were elected.

2. Alfred Deakin Alfred Deakin, Australia’s second Prime Minister, was also the fifth and the seventh. He was in office three times in the first ten years of Federation. Often referred to as ‘the constructor’, his work in building soundly on the nation’s constitutional foundations is evident a century later. Deakin was elected member for Ballaarat, one of 31 Protectionists returned to the 75-member House of Representatives, with 28 Free Trade, 14 Labor, and 2 ‘others’. In the Senate the Protectionists were outnumbered, with 11 seats to 17 Free Trade and 8 Labor seats. At this first federal election, 56.68 per cent of those enrolled cast their votes, with women voting only in Western Australia and South Australia. This general election was Deakin’s first as Prime Minister, an office he had held only three months. He was unopposed in his Ballaarat seat. The Protectionists won 26 seats, the Free Trade Party 25 and Labor 23, so the three parties were nearly equal. At this election, the first where women throughout the Commonwealth had the same legal right to vote as men, the proportion of voters dropped to 50.27 per cent

3. Chris Watson Australia’s first Labor Prime Minister held office for only four months in 1904, but his imprint on legislation extended through the first decade of the Australian parliament. John Christian Watson was a founder and one of the principal shapers of the Australian Labor Party. Watson won the seat of Bland in the first federal election, one of 14 Labor members elected to the 75-member House of Representatives. As Labor also won 8 of the 36 Senate seats, Edmund Barton’s Protectionist government needed Labor support in both Houses. Party affiliation was loose and political organisations were different in each State. Some candidates – such as Frank Tudor in Victoria and King O’Malley in Tasmania – did not contest the election for Labor, but joined the party after their election to parliament.