Talk:List of Australian ministries

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Untitled[edit]

I have done dates for the ministries. Adam 04:14, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Naming standard for government cabinets/ministries[edit]

I have started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, which will hopefully lead to a consistent naming standard for national government cabinets/ministries. See Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#Naming of government cabinets/ministries to take part in the discussion. /Slarre 12:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ordering, naming, and terms[edit]

There was no reference to this list; that has now been corrected. I have also today added the ordering and the party affiliations. The ordering has been drawn on the Australian Parliamentary Handbook. It would appear that the list of ministries created does not fully align with the reference source; and hence several ministries have had to span the ordered numbering. For example, according to the Australian Parliamentary Handbook, the 14th ministry that was led by Billy Hughes was for the period from 10 January 1918 (1918-01-10) to 9 February 1923 (1923-02-09). However, the list states that this period comprised part of Hughes' Fourth (1917–1920) and Fifth (1920–1923) ministries. Perhaps these ministries were reorganisations of previously constituted ministries. However, Hughes is an unusual example, as on three separate occasions between 1915 and 1923 he had to ask the Governor-General for a commission to form a new ministry and thus remain in office, due to resignations from his previously constituted ministers. With the First Gillard, First Keating and First Gorton ministries, they each lasted a short time following a leadership spill/death before the ministry was fully reconfigured / recommissioned. Again, there was / is a disparity in the numbering. To help address this, I have added the additional term. For example, prior to me editing the table over, Gillard's First Ministry used to run from 24 June to 14 September 2010 as one ministry / ordering. In fact, officially, it is considered as two ministries, according to the Australian Parliamentary Handbook; the first lasting just a four days while she worked out the composition of the new ministry, before all ministers were sworn in on 28 June. However, in practical terms, it is considered as just one ministry. All food for thought when compiling lists: it does help to draw on a solid reference source. Rangasyd (talk) 10:36, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have a serious problem with our numbering. Aside from Gillard (which is probably an error by the Australian Parliamentary Library), the rationale behind the difference between our numbering and the Parliamentary Handbook's ordering is unclear. I can lay out a list of each instance of difference with a call for proof, but first I'd like to address the problem in terms of Hughes, Menzies, and Gorton.
You, Rangasyd, said that he had to get a new commission three times after 1915 because of resignations. The PH list would agree with three reconstitutions: 1916, 1917, and 1918. Our list says there were four, adding a second in 1917. What is especially odd about our claim that there was a reconstitution (or whatever we are claiming) in May 1917 is that there is exactly no difference between the lineup in the Third Hughes Ministry and the beginning of what we call the Fourth Ministry. None. On what basis to we claim a break? Indeed, on what basis were our numbers determined at all?
These questions become more acute when we turn to more recent ministries, for which contemporary lists exist. According to our list and the PH list, a 4th Menzies government began in 1949. The list printed at the beginning of Hansard in 1950 agrees with this.[1] By 1965, our list is at the 10th Menzies Ministry, but PH says it is the 8th. Hansard agrees with PH. So again, where does our numbering come from?
Similarly, we refuse to recognize the initial month of Gorton's premiership as a distinct ministry, yet both PH and Hansard do, so that by February 1969 we are still on the 1st Ministry, yet Hansard[2] and PH are both on the 2nd.
I submit that we have on the one hand a fairly authoritative source backed up in multiple instances by an authoritative source from the relevant period. We have on the other hand a system that does not appear to relate to any outside source. It is clear to me that we should just rejigger the articles excepting Gillard to match PH and ask the parliamentary authorities to double check the Gillard thing. Is there any reason not to? I am perfectly willing to do the work, so that shouldn't be a consideration. -Rrius (talk) 05:11, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
More problems centre around Deakin. This article says a new Ministry started on 12 December 1906; that may be a typo as four changes occurred on 12 October 1906 (though only one member was added and one removed) because Issac Issacs became a High Court justice; zero changes occurred on 12 December. The articles Second Deakin Ministry and Third Deakin Ministry point to 24 January 1907, but only a few changes occurred that day (and again, only one in and one out) because Senator Playford lost his seat. But on 20 February 1907 (a day on which one more change actually happened), Hansard states it is the "Deakin Administration, from 5th July, 1905" and shows the changes made on 12 October, 24 January, and 20 February.[3] Indeed, a list printed at the beginning of the volume of Hansard including November 1908 (therefore showing the Deakin and Fisher ministries) says "Deakin Administration, from 5th July, 1905, to 13 November, 1908" and shows changes throughout the period.[4] Is that conclusive proof that no resignation and reconstitution happened? Of course not. But it is a datum supporting PH and tending not to support our version of numbering. In addition, this article tends to support the proposition (by inference) that only the ministers affected by the change in October 1906 were sworn, which would mean (if true) that the PM and other ministers did not resign. The January changes also do not appear to have prompted a full reconstitution, again by inference from a contemporary article. -Rrius (talk) 06:00, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The Lyons discrepancies are a mixed bag. PH appears to be correct that 1934 merely saw the addition of four Country members to Cabinet rather than a full reconstitution. Multiple articles from the time clearly support PH.[5][6][7] I'll just quote the first linked article to make the point, "The new coalition Government came into being yesterday with the swearing-in of new ministers-Dr. Page, Messrs. Paterson, Thorby, and Hunter-and now that it is an accomplished fact, interest is centred on the results it will achieve during its term of office. [...] Occupying only a few minutes, the swearing-in ceremony was conducted at Government House yesterday morning by the Governor-General (Sir Isaac Isaacs), in the presence of the Prime Minister and Ministers who have returned to Canberra." (The deleted material is an unrelated tangent.) Hansard describes tells a somewhat different story,[8] but that might say more about how the editors of the day chose to describe cabinets than anything else. Hansard during the Lyons years shows a lot "as of" dates for ministries that no one else uses, making it pretty useless. Various press reports called it the "Second Lyons Ministry" over the succeeding years, but no doubt they put more emphasis on the change from one-party government to coalition than PH does.
November 1937 is a different story. PH appears to be wrong according to many contemporary reports.[9][10][11][12] There is so much evidence that I suggest this be added to the pile with Gillard to be flagged up for the APL folks.
I can do this same sort of thing for the Bruce ministries, but someone with access to paper copies of Hansard needs to do Fraser and Keating. Hansard had lists numbered presumably as submitted by the Government from 2nd Menzies until at least 1980. That is the point where Parliament's PDFs drop off. They resume in the Howard years, but unfortunately, the only ministry to carry a number since then has been the 2nd Rudd Ministry. So bound volume of Hansard from 1982 should answer the question of whether there was a 5th Fraser Ministry. For the Keating discrepancy, Hansard, being closer in time to Howard, may not be particularly illuminating. Worse still, it is a similar situation to Gillard's, increasing the chance PH is wrong. My hope is that by getting the facts straight, we can figure out how to deal with this list and the related articles. -Rrius (talk) 07:21, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
With regard to Keating, PH appears to be wrong according to a press release from Paul Keating.[13] It refers to "changes to the Ministry", not reconstruction or any such thing. Other aspects of how it is written imply that only those affected by the changes will be sworn. Again, this is suggestive, not conclusive. -Rrius (talk) 07:38, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, what a mess. Good luck in sorting it out. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 07:48, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As of late, I've been working on modifying the pages for each Ministry, and making them more presentable. So far, I've done Barton to Third Hughes, and Ninth Menzies to Second Gorton. I did notice here and there that there was something slightly off about the numbering.... pretty much for the reasoning you have given here. Especially when it came to the Third and Fourth Hughes Ministries, where it currently says that the transition took place on the 5th of May 1917 - which is literally the day of the 1917 federal election. I was just wondering if you've come up with any solution to this mess since you first brought it up back in 2013 @Rrius:? --Thescrubbythug (talk) 15:09, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
WT:AUSPOL recently agreed to move all these to the "Ministry of Firstname Lastname" format, and no one has disagreed (after quite a bit of prompting) with the suggestion to merge all continuous ministries by the same leader. I'm intending on getting this done in the near future. The Drover's Wife (talk) 20:28, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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First Deakin Ministry and Fourth Hughes Ministry[edit]

The numbering of these ministries does not make sense to me. The First Deakin Ministry was from 1903-04 but there was an election at the end of 1903 which should have meant that was the end of the first Deakin ministry and the beginning of the second. In 1917 during his third ministry, Hughes offered to resign after getting a vote of no confidence in his leadership of the Nationalist Party but got recommissioned instead and that should have been the end of the fourth Hughes ministry and the beginning of the fifth. However the Fourth Hughes Ministry is stated to have continued until 1920.

1.42.38.244 (talk) 09:08, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ministry reconfiguration[edit]

Given that up until now there seemingly hasn't been any resolution to the ministerial inconsistencies that has been implemented, I was thinking of making these changes over the next few days (unless of course there are any objections):

  • Merge the Second and Third Deakin Ministries into one, so as to cover Alfred Deakin's entire second tenure as Prime Minister - from 1905 to 1908.
  • Have the Third Hughes Ministry extended until 8 January 1918, which is when Hughes terminated his commission as Prime Minister following the failed referendum on conscription - then have the Fourth Hughes Ministry go from that date to 3 February 1920.
  • Merge the Fourth and Fifth Fraser Ministries into one, so as to cover the entirety of Fraser's fourth term in office - from 1980 to 1983.

I don't really see an issue with any of the other ministries presented as they are, and hopefully this'll help resolve the long-standing issues regarding the consistency of these ministries on Wikipedia. --Thescrubbythug (talk) 08:42, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think there's a need to sort out the inconsistencies (and generally just agree on a consistent way of doing this because every Australian jurisdiction does it completely randomly differently and we need our own clear style for any of these articles to make sense), but I'm not sure I agree with two of these. I don't understand the logic of the Deakin change - it doesn't fix the existing inconsistency with the format used for the rest of them and would add a second one. The Hughes situation is similar: our current format is to break ministries at a federal election, which it currently does, and I don't really see the point of adding another inconsistency. (I don't really care about the idea of breaking the fourth ministry into two: it seems a bit pedantic but I'm not opposed.) Fifth Fraser Ministry seems to be an error - it says it covers exactly the same time period as Fourth Fraser Ministry, it seems to be the same content but with some details missing and the "5th ministry" isn't listed on our ministries page - no objections to merging the 5th page. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:07, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As far as Hughes goes, it never made sense that the ministry is listed to have ended on the day of the 1917 election - virtually every other example has the ministry end within days or weeks of an election either due to an election loss or a reshuffle. No such reshuffle took place, and indeed contemporary sources from the era seems to have the ministry dissolved on the 8th of January 1918, as shown with the cabinet photo on the Third Hughes Ministry page. The Deakin case seems similar to me, in that no contemporary source seems to have the Second Deakin Ministry dissolve in January 1907, and that there was a major reshuffle in October 1906 (two months before the election), and a *very* minor reshuffle in February 1907. The source for the photo for the Second Deakin Ministry also cites the ministry as existing until November 1908 (as does the admittedly equally inconsistent Parliamentary Handbook). My view is that both cases, coming as they do within less than 20 years of Federation, can be chalked up as cases of Early Instalment Weirdness (to borrow a commonly-used term from TV Tropes), before the current ministerial format really began to consolidate itself @The Drover's Wife:. Thescrubbythug (talk) 10:46, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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