Function and purpose

The Fifth Menzies Ministry held term from 11 May until 11 January 1956. This series documents Cabinet's response to submissions on major issued effecting the governing of Australia during the first half of the Fifth Ministry, from May 1951 to July 1954.

Ministers prepared submissions on issues which required a political or policy decision from Cabinet. 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 effected by the decision.

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. This series includes Cabinet's response to submission on Australia's involvement in the Korean War, atomic testing, immigration policy, industry assistance schemes as well as ongoing matters such as budgets, tariffs, tax and legislative change.

In July 1954, when Prime Minister Menzies reformed the Cabinet system and reduced the number of standing Cabinet committees, the Cabinet Secretariat also made changes to its recordkeeping procedures. This date marks the end of what is referred to as the first system used during the Fifth Menzies Ministry, and the beginning of the second system.

Before the change, the records of full Cabinet were accumulated separately from the records of standing and ad hoc Cabinet committees - this series contains the decisions of full Cabinet and A4933 contains records of standing and ad hoc committees. After the change, Cabinet committee records were included in the set of full Cabinet records - series A4910 contains committee decisions as well as full Cabinet decisions.

Using the series

Physical characteristics

The items are housed in binders, which is their original packaging.

System of arrangement and control

The decision documents are arranged in numerical order by decision number. When the Secretariat produced a decision document, they gave it a single running number, allocated from a register. Submissions were also give a single running number, but from a separate sequence. The submission, and the related decision, have the same title, but not the same number.

Eg. Decision 496 - Guaranteed return to cotton growers - Submission 328

Relationships with other records

Sometimes submissions that were prepared for Cabinet were referred by it to a standing or ad hoc Cabinet committee. Committee decision documents were filed with Committee records, not with the records of full Cabinet. A4933 contains submissions, decisions, minutes and agenda for Cabinet committees during the first half of the Fifth Menzies Ministry.