PM Transcripts

FOR MEDIA 6 APRIL 1990
EMBARGOED UNTIL 6.00AM 6 APRIL 1990
I am delighted to announce that the British Government has
agreed to make a gift to Australia of an original document
containing our Australian Constitution.
The document is an original copy of the Commonwealth of
Australia Constitution Act the British Act of Parliament
which was passed in 1900 and which brought our nation into
existence on 1 January 1901.
The document, which has been on loan to Australia since the
Bicentenary and is on display in Parliament House, is the
British Government's own record of the Act. There would be
no more original version of the Australia Constitution.
This is the first time that such a gift has been made to any
country by the British Government and it follows some six
years of negotiations by the Australian Government.
Release of the document to Australia will require
legislation in the British Parliament and Mrs Thatcher has
informed me that the necessary legislative arrangements will
be made as soon as possible. I expect that the formal
transfer will occur later this year.
I wish to express my gratitude, on behalf of the Australian
people, to the British Government and to Mrs Thatcher in
particular for making possible this unique gift.
I would also like to thank Mr Alf Morris MP, the Chairman of
the ANZAC Group of Parliamentarians at Westminster, who
previously introduced a private member's Bill into the House
of Commons on this subject.
I am also appreciative of the efforts of High Commissioner
Doug McClelland and his staff in London.
In a very real sense, our birth certificate as a nation will
be returning home.