Australia's Prime Ministers

Purpose of Australia’s Prime Ministers portal website
What’s in the Prime Ministers portal website?
People: the review panel, writers and site design
Portal partners: collaborating institutions

Purpose of Australia’s Prime Ministers portal website

The National Archives of Australia has created this website to:

enhance understanding of Australia’s national leadership and political history
provide a view of our political history from the top – through the documents dealt with by each of the 25 Prime Ministers
enable users to explore significant and original documents – many are available online
make original records accessible through a portal to archives and libraries in Australia and overseas

The website is a ‘shop window’ of information and features digitised documents from the National Archives collection.

It also links to specially designed Prime Ministers pages on the websites of the National Archives of Australia, National Library of Australia, Australian War Memorial, Screensound Australia and the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library.

This website is a new reference in Australia’s political history. You can:

look at the evidence in the original documents
check the facts
discover some intriguing stories

What’s in the Prime Ministers portal website?

Home

Quotes – introduce the Prime Ministers in the words of those who knew them
This week last century – ‘pinhole’ views of political anniversaries
Fascinating facts – revealing records of Prime Ministers’ lives

Meet a PM

Begins with a gallery of Prime Ministers' portraits and links to five sections:

Before – a sketch of the early years and political career before taking office
Elections – the federal elections contested and links to electoral statistics
In Office – a description of the period in office
After – a summary of the political career after leaving office
Prime ministerial wife – a description of the official role of the spouse of the Prime Minister

Note: The description of the current Prime Minister necessarily addresses issues and events that are completed. The entry will be regularly updated.

Timeline

Relevant events in Australian political history. It can be viewed in HTML and Flash.

Who’s Who

The key people to each prime ministership. Provides concise facts about members of federal ministries since 1901 and other figures in Australian federal politics, particularly those whose papers are available in archival collections. Click on a linked name in Meet a PM and a brief note pops up on that person.

Glossary

Explains some terms used in the Meet a PM sections and identifies main organisations such as major political parties.

Research Map – the core of the website

lists collections with holdings of original material for each Prime Minister

offers a select bibliography of research theses, journal articles and some key books

links to web pages on Australian Prime Ministers in the National Archives of Australia, National Library of Australia, Australian War Memorial, ScreenSound Australia and the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library

As part of this project, each of these national institutions has identified records in its collection relevant to the 25 Prime Ministers and created special web pages to help users access these records.

The National Archives has digitised more than 30 000 document pages and photographs to make them available online.

Fast Facts

A quick reference tool summarising key personal and political facts. Some trivia facts too – nicknames, who was the tallest Prime Minister, whose term in office was the briefest, etc.

Notes about Fast Facts

Education – generally shows the last school attended and university or other qualifications

Marriage – details refer to the prime ministerial wife (other marriages shown in parentheses)

Honours – generally only national honours are shown. An explanation of the British and Australian honours system (including British awards to Australians) can be found at http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au

Terms in office – the start date is the date a Prime Minister is sworn in by the Governor-General and the end date is the date the Governor-General accepts a resignation, or the date of death

Term as MP – for the House of Representatives, the start date is the date a parliamentarian is sworn in, and the end date is the date the seat is lost at an election, the date of resignation, or the date of death

People – review panel, writers, site design

The review panel provides advice on the website content and ongoing development. It comprises John Bannon, Dr Neal Blewett, Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Bolton, Dr Chris Cunneen, Dr David Day, Rt Rev Dr Tom Frame, Ian Hancock, Emeritus Professor Colin Hughes, Dr Helen Irving, Dr John Knott, Frank Moorhouse, Dr Heather Radi, Professor Jill Roe, Professor Marian Sawer, Dr John Uhr, Professor James Walter and Professor John Warhurst.

The writers were Dr John Knott (Menzies), Dr David Day (Curtin and Chifley), Ian Hancock (Gorton), Dr Chris Cunneen (Hughes), Dr Susan Marsden (Whitlam). Dr Lenore Coltheart wrote other Prime Ministers and was responsible for the overall content development of the website.

Site design and construction by The Swish Group, Canberra.

Portal partners: collaborating institutions

The Prime Ministers portal is a collaborative project. Each of the institutions listed below developed pages on their websites to enable access to their collections of archives on Australia's Prime Ministers.

Australian War Memorial (www.awm.gov.au)
John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library (john.curtin.edu.au)
National Library of Australia (www.nla.gov.au)
National Film and Sound Archive (www.nfsa.gov.au)

The Prime Ministers Papers Project at the National Archives of Australia was supported and approved by Cabinet.