THE NORTHERN TERRITORY GOVERNMENTS CANBERRA REPRESENTATIVE

Abstract

On 14 July 1980 an experiment began in Australian Federal‐State relations which has been accorded little recognition. On that day the Northern Territory government opened an office in Canberra for its new “Canberra Representative”. It was a step no State government had ever taken, although several had discussed such a move over the previous decade during general reconsiderations of the machinery of Federal‐State relations. In particular, Sir Henry Bland's Board of Inquiry into the Victorian Public Service saw some benefits in the location in Canberra of one or more members of a proposed Commonwealth/State Relations Unit (now the Federal Affairs Division of the Premier's Department) in the State public service, although it chose finally not to recommend it