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PRIME MINISTER
FOR PRESS 19 DECEMBER 1977
THE NEW MINISTRY
The new Ministry will be sworn at Government House
tomorrow morning. His Excellency the Governor-General has
authorised me to announce details of the new Cabinet and
Ministry. The Ministers of State Act limits the total
number of Ministers to 27. Two Ministers in the present
Ministry, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Treasurer,
each have responsibility for two major Departments. I
propose to put to Parliament when it meets an amendment of
that Act to permit the appointment of one additional
Minister. If this is approved the full list and portfolios
of Ministers will be as follows:
2.
MINISTRY LIST
1. Prime Minister
2. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister
for Trade and Resources
Minister for
Minister for
Minister for
Minister for
Rel1at ions
Minister for
Treasurer
Minister for
Minister for
Minister for
Minister for
Minister for
Minister for
Minister for
Minister for
Affairs
Minister for
Minister for
Minister for
Minister for
Minister for Industry and Commerce
Primary Industry
Administrative Services
Employment and Industrial
Transport Education Foreign Affairs
Defence Social Security
Finance Aboriginal Affairs
Health Immigration and Ethnic
the Northern Territory
Construction
National Development
Science
Post and Telecommunications
22. Attorney-General
23. Minister for Productivity
24. Minister for Business'and Consumer
Affairs
Minister for Special Trade
Representations
26. Minister for Home Affairs and Minister
for the Capital Territory
27. Minister for Environment, Housing and
Community Development
28. Minister for Veterans' Affairs
3. 4. 6. 7. 8. 9. 11. 12. 13.
14. 16.
17. 18.
19. 21. Senator the Hon. G. Sheil
The Rt. Hon. Malcolm Fraser, C. H.,
M. P.
The Rt. Hon. J. D. Anthony, M. P.
The Rt. Hon. Phillip Lynch, M. P.
The Rt. Hon. Ian Sinclair, M. P.
Senator the Rt. Hon. R. G. Withers
The Hon. A. A. Street, M. P.
The Hon. P. J. Nixon, M. P.
The Hon. John Howard, M. P.
Senator the Hon. J. L. Carrick
The Hon. Andrew Peacock, M. P.
The Hon. D. J. Killen, M. P.
Senator the Hon. Margaret
Guil1foyle
The Hon. Eric Robinson, M. P.
The Hon. Ian Viner, M. P.
The Hon. Ralph J. Hunt, M. P,.
The Hon. M. J. R. MacKellar, M. P.
The Hon. Evan Adermann, M. P.
The Hon. John McLeay, M. P.
The Hon. Kevin Newman, M. P.
Senator the Hon. J. J. Webster
The Hon. A. A. Staley, M. P.
Senator the Hon. Peter Durack
The Hon. Ian Macphee, M. P.
The Hon. Wal Fife, M. P.
The Hon. R. V. Garland, M. P.
The Hon. R. J. Ellicott, M. P
The Hon. R. J. Groom, M. P.
The first 14 Ministers will comprise the Cabinet.
Pending amendment of the Ministers of State Act,
Mr Garland will be sworn as Minister for Veterans' Affairs
as well as Minister for Special Trade Representations.
Senator Sheil will be sworn as an Executive Councillor
tomorrow and will be sworn as Minister for Veterans' Affairs
as soon as the Act is amended.
The appointment of Ministers to assist the
Prime Minister or Ministers in major portfolios has worked
very well and I propose to continue along these lines.
The following Ministers will be appointed also as Ministers
Assisting: Minister Assisting the Prime Minister
( including Public Service Matters)
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister
in Federal Affairs
Minister Assisting the Minister for
Trade and Resources
Minister Assisting the Minister for
Defence
Minister Assisting the Minister for
Employment and Industrial Relations
Minister Assisting the Minister for
Primary Industry Mr Viner
Senator Carrick
Mr Garland
Mr McLeay
Mr Groom
Mr Adermann
The Minister for Primary Industry will be Leader
of the House. Senator Withers will be Vice-President of the
Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate.
I have known for some time that Senator Cotton,
the Minister for Industry and Commerce, has been
interested in serving his country in a different capacity.
He does not wish to join the new Ministry and we will be sorry
to lose his wide knowledge of industry and business, in Cabinet
and in Government. I have asked him to be Consul-General in
New York for a two-year period and in that capacity to develop
further the strong Australian contacts with United States
business interests. He will report to me on a wide range of
matters affecting our Australian interests. It is planned
that he will take up his new responsibilities towards the
middle of next year.
Mr Lynch will be sworn as Minister for Industry
and Commerce. He has asked to be moved from the arduous
position as Treasurer and to take this leading role in the
important development of industry policy. The Government
recognises the pressing need to co-ordinate its industry policy,
embracing the areas controlled by the Ministers for BACA and
Productivity. I have asked Mr Lynch to undertake an overriding
responsibility in this area. He will co-ordinate particularly
policy developments within the three Departments concerned.
It will be seen from the list of portfolios that
I am proposing to make changes in the structure of the Ministry.
The Deputy Prime Ministership itself is becoming a heavier burden
and the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Anthony, is carrying a heavier
load of Cabinet work. Mr Anthony has indicated that he feels
the time has come for him to hold only one portfolio instead
of the two Overseas Trade and National Resources at present.
Mr Anthony accordingly will be appointed as Minister for Trade
and Resources, the opportunity being taken to draw together
in the one Department those elements particularly relevant to
our international trade in commodities. The Department of Trade
and Resources will be responsible for the existing functions of
the Department of Overseas Trade, and for the commercial
development and marketing of minerals including uranium and
hydro-carbon fuels.
The remaining functions of the Department of
National Resources and in particular national energy planning
and research and minerals exploration and resource assessment,
will be continued in a newly named Department of National
Development. This Department will also be responsible for the
Government's decentralisation policies.
For some time now the Treasury and the Department
of Finance have been separate Departments operating under the
one Minister, the Treasurer. There is a heavy burden in this
area to be borne at the ministerial level, both in the Parliament
and in responsibility for economic affairs. The time has come,
I believe, for two Ministers to be appointed a Treasurer and
a Minister for Finance and this is now proposed.
Some functions of the Department of the Prime
Minister and Cabinet will be shifted to a new Department of
Home Affairs, in particular the arts and women's affairs;
and from the Department of Administrative Services various
cultural bodies, national archives, and external territories
will also be transferred. Looking ahead I would expect the
Department of Home Affairs in due course to absorb any residual
functions of the Department of the Northern Territory and the
Department of the Capital Territory after the Northern Territory
and Capital Territory respectively achieve the additional
measures of self-government that are presently planned.
In the changes that are to be made I am proposing
a new initiative in respect of policies and programs in the
health and welfare field. Various administrative arrangements
have been examined, including by the Royal Commission on
Australian Government Administration, to achieve maximum
co-ordination. A Secretariat will be established within the
Department of Social Security responsible for the development
of plans and policies and review of existing policies and programs
in the broad field of health and welfare. The Secretariat will
be headed by a senior Second Division officer and will comprise
mainly expert officials seconded from Departments. It will work
to a committee of Permanent Heads and a Standing Committee of
Cabinet, while coming under the immediate supervision of the
Head of the Department of Social Security.
There will be other administrative changes which
will streamline and improve government operations. A new
Background Notes
CHANGES IN MINISTERIAL AN~ D DEPARTMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITIES AND FUNCTIONS
The following details of changes to be made to
administrative arrangements supplement the statement by
the Prime Minister issued on 19 December 1977.
NEW AND RETITLED DEPARTMENTS
A Department of Home Affairs is to be established,
and the existing Departments of National Resources and
Overseas Trade will be replaced by new Departments of National
Development and of Trade and Resources. The number of
departments will increase from 28 to 29.
As mentioned earlier, it has been decided that the
Minister for Special Trade Negotiations will in future be
known as the Minister for Special Trade Representations.
The Department of the Special Trade Negotiator will be renamed
the Department of the Special Trade Representative.
Home Affairs This Department-.* will~ assume responsibility for
administration of the Territory of Cocos ( Keeling) Islands,
the Territory of Christmas Island, Norfolk Island and the
Coral Sea Islands Territory ( from the Department of Administrative
Services), national archives and national museums ( also from the
Department of Administrative Services), and women's affairs and
support for the arts and letters ( from the Department of the
Prime Minister and Cabinet).
2.
Associated bodies for which the Minister for Home
Affairs w'ill be responsible include the Australian War Memorial,
the National Library of Australia, the Australia Council, the
Australian National Gallery, the Australian Film Commission
and the Film and Television School. In addition the permanent
women's advisory body referred to in the policy speech of
21 November will, when established, report to the Minister for
Home Affairs. It is the Government's intention that, in the long
term, residual functions of the Departments of the Northern
Territory and the Capital Territory will be transferred to the
Department of Home Affairs. With this in mind, administration
of the Departmeaits of Home Affairs and the Capital Territory
will, as already indicated, be the responsibility of one
Minister. National Development The functions of this Department reflect the
Government's intention that resources be devoted as a matter
of' priority to the development of a national energy plan.
in addition to the fundamental tasks of geodesy, mapping and
mineral and energy resource assessment, performed by the
Division of National Mapping and the Bureau of Mineral Resources,
Geology and Geophysics, the Department will have responsibility
for energy planning and research, exploration policy, water
resources and electricity, and matters relating to the
processing and distribution of oil and gas.
3.
The Minister for National Development will be
responsible for all bodies which currently report to the Minister
for National Resources, with the exception of the Joint Coal
Board and the National Coal Research Advisory Committee.
Ministerial responsibility for these bodies will be transferred
to the Minister for Trade and Resources. Nuclear commercial
functions of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission will also
become the responsibility of the Minister for Trade and Resources,
all other aspects being allocated to the Minister for National
Development. It has also been decided that responsibility for urban
and regional planning and development, including decentralisation
and growth centres, should be transferred to the new Department, of
National Development from the Department of Environment, Housing
and Community Development. Responsibility for the Albury-Wodonga
Development Corporation, the Ministerial Council on the Development
of Albury-! Wodonga and the Decentralisation Advisory Board will be
transferred to the Minister for National Development from the
Minister for Environment, Housing and Community Development.
Trade and -Resources
This Department will assume responsibility for all.
functions of the existing Department of Overseas Trade, together
with those functions of the existing Department of National
Resources which relate to the mining, production and marketing
of minerals ( including uranium and hydrocarbon fuels), and
economic matters affecting the mining industry. 4
4.
.4 4.
OTHER CHANGES IN FUNCTIONS AN) RESPONSIBILITIES
Employment and Industrial Relations.
It has been decided that responsibility for the
National Training Council should be transferred from the
Minister for Productivity to the Minister for Employment and
Industrial Relations, and that training policy should be
transferred from the Department of Productivity to the Department
of Employment and Industrial Relations.
Foreign Affairs Responsibility for the Australia-Japan Foundation
will be transferred from the Prime Minister to the-Minister
for Foreign Affairs.
Immigration and Ethnic Affairs
It has been decided to transfer to the Department ol
Immigration and Ethnic Affairs responsibility for post-arrival
migrant welfare ( from Department of Social Security) and
migrant adult education ( from Department of Education).
Prime Minister and Cabinet
Responsibility for Royal Commissions ( other than
servicing aspects) will be transferred from the Department of
Administrative Services to the Department of the Prime Minister
and Cabinet.
Science Responsibility for servicing the Australian Science
and Technology Council will be transferred from the Department
o, Primo Minister and Cabinet to the Department of Science.
Ministerial responsibility for ASTEC will be assumed by the
Minister for Science.
Social Security The Department of Social Security is to assume
responsibility for the development of plans and policies,
and the review of existing policies and programs, in the broad
field of health and welfare. To carry out this important
responsibility, a special Secretariat will be formed within
the Department; the Secretariat, to be headed by a senior
officer, will be small and will consist mainly of expert
officials seconded from departments.
Treasury The Australian Industry Development Corporation
will be transferred from the Finance Ministry to the Treasury
Ministry. December 1977