The Last of Australian Imperial Dreams for the Southwest Pacific

Paul Hasluck, the Department of Territories and a Greater Melanesia in 1960

Bibliographic Data

ID9075247
AuthorsChristopher Waters (0000-0002-5574-4803, Deakin University, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume51
Issue2
Pages169-185
Publication date2016-04-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Pacific History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3344 • E-ISSN: 1469-9605
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00223344.2016.1195595
OpenAlexW2461273527
LanguageEN
Citations received7

This paper is a study of the vision held at the beginning of the 1960s by Paul Hasluck, the minister for external territories, and his department of the path to decolonisation for Melanesia. Faced by the ongoing West New Guinea crisis, Hasluck and his officials proposed to keep the western part of New Guinea out of Indonesian hands by expanding Australia’s empire, step by step, to include most of Melanesia. This greater Melanesian empire would eventually be guided to self-government. The proposal stood in a long line of ideas by Pacific-minded Australians going back for 100 years for an expanded Australian empire in the southwest Pacific. Consequently the Menzies cabinet’s rejection of Hasluck’s proposal was not just an important step towards changing its policy towards WNG; it marked the end to a century of Australian dreams and designs of a greater formal empire in the southwest Pacific

Ancient history · Archaeology · British Empire · Cabinet (room) · Decolonization · Economic history · Empire · Ethnology · Government (linguistics) · Indonesian · New guinea · Pacific studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropology · Australian History and Society · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism · History · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Law

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