Function and purpose

This series contains submissions considered by Cabinet during William McMahon’s term as Prime Minister from March 1971 to October 1972.

The submissions document the information, opinion and advice on which the government based major decisions in governing Australia.  They cover an extremely wide range of subjects and address significant issues of the time.  For example, this series contains submissions on Aboriginal land rights, relations with China, and drug abuse.  They also cover ongoing government responsibilities such as budgets, taxation and changes to legislation.

Attached to each submission is a memorandum or decision paper – a record of the course of action agreed on the matter by Cabinet.  During McMahon’s Ministry, Cabinet consisted of three types of decision-making bodies, the inner Cabinet, the full Ministry, and Cabinet committees. Each type of body had different responsibilities.

The Cabinet, consisting of senior Ministers specifically appointed as Cabinet members,  met to consider submissions on the most significant policy issues.  The full Ministry, comprised of Cabinet and non-Cabinet Ministers, was responsible for decisions on more wide ranging issues.  And smaller, specialised groups of Ministers sat on numerous standing and ad hoc Cabinet Committees to make judgements on submissions affecting their portfolios.

Using the series

Physical characteristics

Originally the records were housed in 42 brown, cardboard, visidex folders.  For preservation reasons, the National Archives has repackaged each individual submission in an archival folder in November 2001. 

System of arrangement and control

The submissions are controlled in a simple numerical sequence, allocated as the submission is received and registered in Cabinet office.  The register from which the numbers are allocated is series A5870.    (Since at the time of registration  there is no indication whether the submission might subsequently be considered by the Cabinet, full ministry or a Cabinet committee, there is no system of suffixes to the submission number as there is for the decision number.) 

The decision number, which appears in the title for the relevant submission in this series,  indicates which decision-making body considered the submission.  Decisions made at a normal meeting of Cabinet members have a number only – without any alpha suffix. Decisions made by the full Ministry or a Committee have an alphabetical suffix after the decision number. 

Eg. Submission 182 – Australian aid to the South Pacific – Decision 312(M)

The ‘M’ suffix after the Decision number indicates that the full Ministry considered the submission.

Decisions made by Cabinet Committee bear a variety of alpha suffixes to the Decision number, as follows:

AA                   Aboriginal Affairs Committee

AD HOC         A generic abbreviation used for a large number of ad hoc committees

formed to consider specific submissions

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

Note that the sequence of the Submission numbers reflects the chronology of the submissions’ being received and registered  in the Cabinet Office.  The sequence of the Decision numbers reflects the chronology of the meetings at which the submissions were subsequently considered.  Because there are many intervening factors that determine when a submission might actually be put before a meeting of cabinet, the two sequences of numbers are not parallel.

There are many gaps in the number sequence of the submission records in this series.  In many cases these are simply numbers that for one reason or another were not used.

No submissions were registered with the following numbers:  200, 226 to 239, 653, 789, 800 to 805. 

In other cases a gap indicates that a submission received by Cabinet Office and allocated a number in this series was subsequently withdrawn for various reasons (for example replaced by another submission or the matter was dealt with outside cabinet, etc) and there is consequently no record item in this series of this number.  However there will be a file on the submission in series A5882.  (When the records were transferred to the custody of the National Archives, these gaps were indicated in the volume by the presence of sheets of paper with informal annotations to the effect that the submission had been withdrawn, and sometimes the number of the relevant file in A5882.  These cross reference notes are deemed not to constitute items of this series and have been discarded.)

  Following is a summary of these cases:

Submission 69 - withdrawn - see file CO282

Submission 279 - replaced by submission 287 - see file CO397

Submission 283 - withdrawn and replaced by submission 289

Submission 371 - no circulation on this submission - see file CO70

Submission 409 - withdrawn - see file CO1195

Submission 426 - withdrawn (due to elections) - see file CO1179.

Submission 760 – withdrawn – see file CO 1560

Submission 768 – withdrawn – see file CO1451

Submission 797 – withdrawn – see file CO380

Submission 799 – withdrawn (due to elections) – see file CO1472

Submission 829 – withdrawn – see file CO1457

Submission 852 – withdrawn

In two cases, Submission numbers 559 and 615, the item in this series contains a copy of the relevant Decision record only – there is no copy of the submission itself present.  These can be found on the relevant CO file (A5882)

Submissions numbers 836 and 920 contain the submissions but do not have a copy of the relevant Decision as normal – the decisions can be seen in series A5909

All submissions were entered at the item level on the RecordSearch database in September 2001.

Relationships with other records

Although a copy of the decision paper relating to each submission is placed on file in this series, the Cabinet Secretariat also maintained a separate set of decision papers only.  Cabinet often made decisions on matters for which no written submission was prepared, particularly on urgent issues.  These Decisions without Submission for the McMahon Ministry can be found in series A5909 only.