Function and purpose

William McMahon held term as Prime Minister from March 1971 to October 1972.  This series documents Cabinet's response to submissions on major issues affecting the governing of Australia during McMahon’s Ministry.

Submissions were prepared, usually through the portfolio Department, on issues which required a decision from Cabinet and forwarded to Cabinet Office. Cabinet met to consider the submissions and agree on a course of action. On behalf of Cabinet, the Cabinet Secretariat produced a decision document for each submission, briefly outlining Cabinet's decision. Copies of the decision documents were distributed by the Secretariat to Ministers and their Departments

Sometimes Ministers presented oral submissions to Cabinet, particularly on urgent or important issues. A large number of decision documents in this series are on matters for which no written submission was prepared.

The decisions cover an extremely wide range of subjects and address many of the significant events and issues of the time. For example, this series includes Cabinet's response to submissions on Aboriginal land rights, drug abuse and relations with China, as well as ongoing matters such as budgets, tariffs, tax and legislative change.

Using the series

Physical characteristics

This series is housed in four brown visidex folders with blue spine labels bearing the title "First McMahon Ministry, Cabinet Decisions" and the range of decision numbers. 

The range of Decision numbers in each volume is as follows:

Volume 1:  Decision No 1 (dated 12 March 1971  to  Decision No 400 (dated 27 August 1971)

Volume 2:  Decision No 401 (dated 27 August 1971  to  Decision No 759(LEG) (dated 22 February 1972)

Volume 3:  Decision No 760(LEG) (dated 22 February 1972)  to  Decision No 1097(AD HOC) (dated 13 July 1972)

Volume 4:  Decision No 1100(M)  to  Decision No 1477(AD HOC) (dated 26 October 1972)

Copies of most Decisions in this series – if not all – are held for reference use in the Cabinet Room at Parliament House. These copies are housed in five folders, labelled in a similar way to the items of this series.

System of arrangement and control

Most Decisions consist of a single page only, though sometimes more, and occasionally including a supplementary note, or attachment.  Decisions are arranged in a single number sequence.  The title of each decision includes the number of the submission to which the decision refers.  The submission is numbered in an ongoing sequence when it is received in the Cabinet Office.  Because the sequence in which submissions were subsequently presented to cabinet for consideration was haphazard, the sequential numbering of the decisions does not parallel the numbering of the submissions.   (The sequence of the Decision numbers parallels the chronology of the Cabinet meetings.)

While the Decisions are described generically as ‘Cabinet Decisions’ there were in fact three distinct categories of meetings which gave rise to ‘Cabinet’ decisions during this ministry and a suffix was added to the decision number where required to distinguish between these three:

• The meetings of the normal Cabinet of selected Ministers who have been appointed Cabinet members.  Decisions from these meetings are standard Cabinet decisions and have no suffix attached to the number.
• ‘Cabinet’ meetings attended by the full ministry – that is, not just those ministers who were members of the Cabinet but all Ministers of the Government.  The decisions of these meetings had an ‘M’ suffix attached to the Decision number.
• Meetings of Cabinet committees – that is, specifically appointed groups of ministers who dealt with matters referred by Cabinet affecting their portfolios.  A common abbreviation for each of the committees is added to the decision number to identify their particular decisions, eg AA - Aboriginal Affairs Committee.
  Cabinet Committee abbreviations used in this series to denote committee decisions made were:

AA                   Aboriginal Affairs Committee

AD HOC         Ad Hoc Committee

BRE                 Budget, Revenue and Expenditure Committee

CW                  Construction and Works Committee

EX                   Ex-Servicemen's Committee

GA                   General Administrative Committee

HWC               Housing, Works and Construction Committee

LEG                 Legislation Committee (March to May 1971); Legislation and

Parliamentary Programming Committee (August 1971 - )

M                     Ministry

PNG                Papua New Guinea Committee

PP                    Government Purchasing Policy Committee

T                      Tariff Committee

TAX                Taxation Committee

There are many gaps in the sequence of Decision numbers.  Decision numbers 71, 72, 73, 160, 169, 268, 490, 500, 501, 633, 634, 654, 715, 824, 825, 841, 866, 899, 900, 901, 910, 911, 912, 939, 942, 950, 957, 964, 1015, 1045, 1098, 1099, 1188, 1213, 1242, 1278, 1279, 1280, 1412, 1448, 1470, 1471, and 1473 were not used and do not appear in this series.

All decision documents have been entered onto the item level database as at September 2001.

Relationships with other records

The decisions documents in this series were prepared in response to submissions held in series A5908.

Quantity in agency custody