Introduction
When Prime Minister John Howard called an election in August 2004, the Liberal and National parties had been in office for eight years.1 They appeared to be either on level terms with, or trailing, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Opposition in the opinion polls.2 As the campaign started, Howard described the election result as ‘very much in the balance’.3 The result on 9 October was that the Liberal and National parties were returned to office with an increased share of the vote and more seats.4
The documents released this year are a selection of some of the records of the federal Cabinet and its powerful National Security Committee (NSC). As 2004 was an election year, it was natural that particular attention would be given to some politically sensitive ‘bread and butter’ issues in areas such as health, welfare and education. Nonetheless, matters of national security, defence, foreign affairs, trade and immigration continued to be important subjects for the Cabinet’s consideration. This was because the ‘war on terror’ had broadened from Afghanistan to Iraq, while Australia continued its regional presence in places such as Timor-Leste (East Timor), Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. In defence policy, moreover, Australia was on the cusp of a transition away from the self-reliant ‘Defence of Australia’ strategy that had been set out in the Defence White Paper of 1987.5 During a time of drought, climate change remained a sensitive issue that needed to be harmonised with the government’s energy policy and other environmental policies.
This is the first time that NSC documents which were not referred to full Cabinet have been included in the release. For that reason, the examination of records under the Archives Act in respect of these records has been much more complex than in the past.
This paper is based on documents made available to the Cabinet historian by 14 October 2024. The Cabinet historian received access-examined copies of the records selected for release, but did not have ‘official’ access to exempt information. The selected documents are discussed in six sections: national security, defence, foreign affairs, trade and Intelligence matters; economic, social welfare, health, education and immigration policies; climate change, energy, heritage and the environment; transport, infrastructure, communications, legal issues and cultural affairs; rural and regional issues, water and mining; Indigenous policy.6
The ordering of these sections does not necessarily indicate any judgement as to their weight or importance but has been designed to give readers a thematic sense of the range and variety of the matters dealt with by Cabinet in 2004.