Selecting a Capital Territory

How the Canberra area came to be Australia’s capital territory is a story that has been told a number of times.[i] But there is a tendency for such accounts to treat its choice as the happy ending of the tale, whereas the turbulence of the selection process would rather suggest that the outcome was not necessarily optimal. Here the tale is briefly told again but without the presupposition that today’s Australian Capital Territory was predestined by its natural qualities to become the seat of the federal government. In the process a rather baffling discrepancy emerges.

The story may be said to begin with the discussions leading up to federation during the late 1890s. It was felt, having regard to the American example, that the Commonwealth should establish a seat of government independent of the states, so that it would not be beholden to any one of them. At the same time, it was decided, probably as a come-on to New South Wales, which was more reluctant than most to join the federation, that the territory reserved for the seat of government should be within that state.

Accordingly the Australian Constitution provides (in section 125) that the “seat of Government of the Commonwealth shall be determined by the Parliament, and shall be within territory which shall have been granted to or accepted by the Commonwealth, and shall be vested in and belong to the Commonwealth, and shall be in the State of New South Wales, and be distant not less than one hundred miles from Sydney”.

Even before federation became a reality, the New South Wales government appointed a royal commission, which “was required to report upon 40 proposals submitted … by an enthusiastic community”. The sixth proposal, originating at a public meeting in Queanbeyan and authored by a journalist, John Gale, envisaged a territory which was described as being west of Queanbeyan and extending from Tharwa to Gungahlin,[ii] that is, essentially covering what is today’s Australian Capital Territory. However, the Royal Commissioner, Alexander Oliver, rejected this and most other proposed areas on general principles, which may be summarised as follows:

(1) accessibility by existing transport modes,

(2) proximity of water supplies, and

(3) high ground including a bracing climate.

On the same considerations he placed the Bombala–Eden area first on the list, with Yass and Orange equal second. The latter two were on existing road and railway links with Sydney, but the former was not. Bombala was some eighty kilometres from the nearest train terminus at Cooma. However, it had the virtue of being closer to the sea than any of the other locations. And access to the sea was an important consideration in the selection of a site, not only because of a desire to accommodate a future Royal Australian Navy, but because in those days sea voyages were still a major form of personal and other transport. The fishing port of Eden was regarded as satisfying these essential requirements.

The New South Wales government offered the three sites to the Commonwealth and asked it to select one, and, when Prime Minister Edmund Barton hesitated, expressed a willingness to widen the choice. However, in the second year of federation, rather than choosing from among the proposed sites, the Commonwealth parliament appointed its own royal commission to report on areas at Albury, Armidale, Bombala, Lake George, Orange–Bathurst and Tumut. 

The focus was not only on Bombala but also on Albury, which, though not close to the sea, seemed to have had every other ingredient to appeal to the Parliament: it already had a significant settlement, it was located on one of the major rivers, and it had railway links with Sydney and Melbourne. Furthermore it was on the main road connecting the two major Australian cities. But Albury had one shortcoming, and that proved its undoing: it was twice as far from Sydney as from Melbourne. For this reason alone nearly all members of parliament from New South Wales and Queensland were against its selection as the seat of government. And to ensure that the weight of southern Australian opinion should not somehow manage to override the opposition of their northern counterparts, the latter organised a “fact-finding” trip to Albury for parliamentarians during one of the most severe droughts the township had known, when sandstorms were blowing almost daily. After that visit Albury never regained its parliamentary support, though officially it stayed on the list.

The House of Representatives voted for Tumut; the Senate, which had refused a combined sitting for the purpose of selecting a federal territory, chose Bombala. The Commonwealth Royal Commission managed to resolve the conflict in a somewhat unusual way: it flatly ignored the respective parliamentary choices; indeed, though initially leaning towards a recommendation of the Albury site, it rejected in the final analysis every single area on the original list, and instead proposed one which had been referred to it at a late stage by Sir John Forrest, among others. The area in question was the village of Dalgety and its surrounds, located deep in the southern tablelands, and containing much natural beauty. In both these respects it resembled Bombala, but it had an advantage over the latter by being only half the distance from Cooma and therefore from the railway line. Nevertheless, the choice was unusual, and in retrospect it still surprises that Dalgety had any chance of being selected for such an important destiny.[iii]

But, like Bombala’s, Dalgety’s relative proximity to the sea was a point in its favour; the motorcar was in its infancy, while aeroplanes had yet to get off the ground. Federal capital territory proposals therefore tended to include plans, vague as they might have been, for railway lines to be extended not only from existing lines to the selected area but also from that area to a suitable spot along the seashore. There had even been talk of building a railway connection to Bairnsdale in Gippsland.

The proposal left the New South Wales government entirely unmoved, and Alfred Deakin was reluctant to press the matter. But when Chris Watson took over as Prime Minister for a few short months in 1904, he bit the bullet and produced an Act in which the Dalgety area was nominated or, in constitutional language, determined as the seat of government. Unsurprisingly, the state government of New South Wales was in no mood to accept this decision, and failed to follow the Commonwealth legislation with its own for the purpose of granting a transfer of the required territory.

A principal actor in the New South Wales reaction, or lack of it, was Stewart Mowle, the Usher of the Black Rod in the state Legislative Council. He had been a pioneer of the New South Wales highlands and was familiar with nearly all the locations proposed. His objection to Dalgety appears to have been mainly based on its low winter temperature, which he had experienced on more than one occasion during visits to the southern tablelands. The argument favouring Dalgety on account of its proximity to a seaport he refuted by pointing to the uselessness of Eden’s Twofold Bay as a port when a south-easterly was blowing. He expressed his liking for Canberra as a possible location, and in fact wrote to Prime Minister Watson to that effect.[iv] He was probably also instrumental in getting the New South Wales government to advocate the Canberra area as an alternative.

However, Watson’s ministry was soon replaced by the short-lived Reid–McLean government, which in turn made way for the second Deakin ministry. As a result nothing especially constructive towards a choice of a federal capital territory occurred until 1908, when Deakin accepted that the whole exercise of selecting a seat of government should be repeated. On this occasion, however, the list included not just the seven areas mentioned during the previous bout, but an additional four: Canberra, Lyndhurst, Tooma and Yass–Canberra.

Meanwhile, Chris Watson, who had retained a strong presence in the parliament as the member for South Sydney, received a letter from one of his constituents inviting him to have a look at the Canberra area. The constituent in question was none other than Stewart Mowle, who had written to Watson on the same subject once before, and although now retired from the New South Wales parliament he was still keen on promoting his particular preference for a federal capital territory. Early in 1907 Watson paid a visit to the region and was duly impressed, saying so in his reply to Mowle. After that he became an eloquent advocate of the Canberra site in federal parliament.

However, from the start there was little hope of getting this site selected. The Parliament had not been able to muster majorities for federal sites which were accessible through Sydney only; and Canberra fell into that category: while it could at the time be reached relatively easily by rail or road via Bungendore and Queanbeyan, which meant for all practical purposes through Sydney, the journey direct from Melbourne was an arduous one regardless of the means of transport chosen. To rescue Canberra from oblivion, proponents of the area managed to link it to the Yass area, which had earlier been one of the recommendations of the New South Wales Royal Commissioner. The new site of Yass–Canberra extended from Yass in the north to Canberra, as far as the Molonglo, in the south.

On October 8, 1908, the House took nine ballots to settle the issue, omitting each time the lowest scorer of the previous ballot. Lake George, which like Canberra was partly included in the Yass–Canberra area, received no support at all and was left out in the second ballot, quickly followed by Albury, Orange and Bombala. Canberra, which had had only a single supporter, namely its proposer, Henry Willis of New South Wales, fell at the next hurdle. Dalgety, strongly backed by the West Australians, led on every ballot until the seventh, when Yass–Canberra, having played second fiddle till then, drew level at twenty-four votes, with another twenty-four divided between Tooma and Lyndhurst. When the latter two were eliminated Yass–Canberra picked up most of their votes and won the ninth and final ballot thirty-nine to thirty-three.

Nearly a month later, on November 6, the Senate made its decision. In the first ballot Tumut and Yass–Canberra tied with eighteen votes each; in the second ballot one Senator changed his mind in favour of Yass–Canberra.

Four days later the government fell, and Deakin was succeeded as Prime Minister by Andrew Fisher, who had earlier replaced Watson as Labor leader. This time the political change did not interrupt proceedings as far as the decision of a federal capital territory was concerned. In December 1908, the Fisher government passed the Seat of Government Act determining Yass–Canberra as the site, while repealing the 1904 Act, which had selected the Dalgety area as the federal territory.

When four years earlier Dalgety had been selected, the New South Wales government sat on its hands. On this occasion something rather more extraordinary happened. It started innocuously enough, with New South Wales lending the federal government the services of one of its surveyors for the purpose of developing an exact description of the area. Charles Scrivener was his name, who had earlier impressed with a survey of the Dalgety area. However, in the light of the instructions he received from Fisher’s Home Affairs Minister, Hugh Mahon, he felt entitled not only to survey the Yass–Canberra area, but to redefine it. Following further negotiations with New South Wales, the territory that emerged from this survey was the old Canberra site, first proposed in some detail by John Gale, subsequently supported by Stewart Mowle, Chris Watson and others, but on separate occasions rejected by the New South Wales Royal Commissioner and the federal parliament.

It was under the third Deakin government, which came to office in 1909, that things finally came together. The New South Wales government passed an act to cede the Yass–Canberra territory, but on examination the schedule to the Act turned out to list only those counties and locations which collectively described the Canberra area, not the Yass–Canberra area. The Commonwealth Parliament, somewhat surprisingly in view of its history in the selection of a suitable site, did not demur, and passed a corresponding act, the Seat of Government Acceptance Act, which referred to the Yass–Canberra area but copied the definition of the New South Wales Act. Receiving its assent on December 13, 1909, the Act commenced on January 22, 1910, and was followed in 1910, under the second Fisher government, by a Seat of Government (Administration) Act, which made provision for the government of the territory and was proclaimed on January 1, 1911.

The upshot was that the federal parliament determined one area to be the capital territory but accepted another, though there was some overlap between the two. There is no suggestion of illegality. It was entirely legal for New South Wales to cede a territory and for the Commonwealth to accept it, especially considering that the decisions were all underpinned by legislation. It was obviously also legal for the Commonwealth to determine the federal territory. In fact it is because everything was done in accordance with the law that we have such a clear discrepancy.

Normally when such a discrepancy threatens to arise between acts of parliament, the conflict is resolved by repealing the earlier act. This is what happened when the Yass–Canberra area was selected instead of Dalgety. Yet the Seat of Government Act of 1909 was never repealed, which means that the inconsistency between it and the Seat of Government Acceptance Act of 1909 persists to this day.

There was a certain awareness at the time that things had not proceeded in the most appropriate manner. To account for the apparent irregularity, it was for instance argued that the federal parliament was supposed to select a federal territory (which it presumably did by passing the Seat of Government Act), from which it selected the capital city site (which it presumably did by passing the Seat of Government Acceptance Act).

Yet this is not an interpretation which the relevant constitutional texts could sustain, nor would the contents of either act of the federal Parliament (the Seat of Government Act or the Seat of Government Acceptance Act), allow such a reading. What would have been a possible alternative interpretation of section 125 is precisely the reverse, namely for the federal parliament to have determined the capital city site (in the Seat of Government Act) and to have followed it with an acceptance act in which the (larger) federal territory had been defined and ceded.

No matter what interpretation we put on the Constitution, there is undoubtedly a discrepancy between the two acts, and there is a reasonable suspicion that the shift from the Yass–Canberra site to the Canberra site was not an accident. Should we be looking for a conspiracy? By landowners in the areas concerned? Or by King O’Malley, perhaps, who, rightly or wrongly, acquired a reputation for intrigue while he was a member of the Australian parliament?

The most one can probably say is that New South Wales, realising that its choice of Bathurst, Orange or Lyndhurst was not going to be endorsed by the federal parliament, took the opportunity, when it presented itself, to settle for the next best thing, namely the Canberra area. There was obviously some sleight of hand involved, seeing the continued reference to Yass–Canberra in the later legislation, but to call it a conspiracy would be stretching the available evidence.

The transport imbalance between Sydney and Melbourne originally presented by the choice of Canberra, though persisting in the case of road and rail to this day, was in general terms partly overcome by the development of civil aviation, which has prompted some people to praise the federal and New South Wales parliaments for their incredible foresight. While, with the advent of the motor vehicle, road transport to and from Canberra also improved tremendously, the imbalance remained: the present situation has Canberra (finally) linked to Sydney by a divided road, but there are no signs that a similar link between Canberra and Melbourne will be completed in the near future. As far as the railways are concerned the situation has not changed much from the old days. What used to be called the Monaro Express and is now referred to as the Xplorer has cut its journey time by more than half an hour, while the trip from Melbourne no longer requires a change of trains at Albury. Yet, coming from Melbourne one still has to take a coach from Yass to Canberra, or else travel on to Goulburn to catch the Xplorer. In the 1980s there were proposals for a fast train between Melbourne and Sydney via Canberra, but these came to nothing, largely it seems because the Commonwealth was not prepared to grant the tax breaks required for such a project.

Meanwhile with the help of Walter Burley Griffin and despite the First World War, the parliament moved from Melbourne to Canberra in 1927. Only years later did people realise that by that time the great depression had already commenced. This economic disaster, followed not long after by the Second World War, held up progress in what came to be called, in the mid-thirties, the Australian Capital Territory, but the energy of successive governments managed in the longer term to create a national capital which many Australians are rightly proud of. The Australian Capital Territory was initially administered by the Commonwealth Department of the Interior, but in 1989 it was given a degree of independence along the same lines as the Northern Territory. There is in the case of these self-governing territories always the prospect of their acquiring statehood one day, that is to say, if they reach a point where population and resources can sustain such a position.

Naturally, should the Australian Capital Territory ever acquire statehood, the Commonwealth will have to start looking for a new federal territory and capital.  But in such a situation the choice of territories would have narrowed considerably compared with what it was at the beginning of the previous century.

Dalgety and Bombala would have to be ruled out because they could not accommodate a modern airport. Moreover, the significance of access by sea has dwindled since the early days of federalism. Yass would probably be regarded as too close to the Australian Capital Territory. But an area which might at last come to the fore would be Albury. It still has all the virtues it had when the Commonwealth of Australia came into being, while the dust storms have long since abated. It would also have the terrain to allow an international airport to be built. But, as before, the Sydney establishment might not care for it and might refuse to cede the necessary territory. Other areas, without being necessarily any more attractive, such as Tumut and Tooma, which lie within the shadow of the Snowy Mountains, would probably encounter the same treatment from New South Wales. That virtually leaves the areas west of the Blue Mountains: Orange, Bathurst and Lyndhurst. Yet it would be difficult to expect a parliament, which over almost a decade consistently ignored these areas, in the end to choose one of them.

In this quandary an alternative would be for the Commonwealth to stay put and accept that it has to be beholden to a state for its law and order and general administration. But if it should come to that, there would no longer be any point in having a separate capital territory, and the Commonwealth might as well return the Australian Capital Territory to New South Wales and be beholden to the latter.

An interesting point is that an act returning the Australian Capital Territory to New South Wales may well have to refer to the territory as the Yass–Canberra area. If it should so refer to the territory, it must at the same time of course append the schedule describing the Canberra area, and so once more repeat the inconsistency before finally dissolving it.

Tony Winkelman is a retired Melbourne economist with additional interests in other social sciences.