The Department of Post-War Reconstruction was an

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government i ...

department responsible for planning and coordinating

Australia's Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by a ...

transition to a peacetime economy after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The department was established in December 1942 and dissolved in March 1950.

History

The Department of Post-War Reconstruction was established on 22 December 1942 by moving functions from the

Department of Labour and National Service The Department of Labour and National Service was an Australian government department that existed between October 1940 and December 1972. Scope Information about the department's functions and/or government funding allocation could b ...

. Its role was to plan and coordinate Australia's transition from a

war economy A war economy or wartime economy is the set of contingencies undertaken by a modern state to mobilize its economy for war production. Philippe Le Billon describes a war economy as a "system of producing, mobilizing and allocating resources t ...

with the goal of achieving and maintaining

full employment Full employment is a situation in which there is no cyclical or unemployment#Cyclical unemployment, deficient-demand unemployment. Full employment does not entail the disappearance of all unemployment, as other kinds of unemployment, namely Structu ...

. This reflected the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...

government's strong desire to ensure that Australians' standard of living was greater after the war than it had been before it, as well as to avoid a repetition of the poor conditions in which many returned soldiers from

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

lived.Dennis et al. (2008), p. 427

Treasurer A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance. Government The treasury o ...

Ben Chifley Joseph Benedict Chifley (; 22 September 1885 – 13 June 1951) was an Australian politician who served as the 16th prime minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1945, follow ...

was appointed the first Minister for Post-War Reconstruction, and H. C. 'Nugget' Coombs became the department's first director-general on 15 January 1943.Hasluck (1970), p. 511 Historian David Lee has written that the establishment of the Department of Post-War Reconstruction formed part of the professionalism of the

Australian Public Service The Australian Public Service (APS) is the federal civil service of the Commonwealth of Australia responsible for the public administration, public policy, and public services of the departments and executive and statutory agencies of the G ...

during World War II. The department was initially given a wide range of responsibilities. These included overseeing the Government's commitment to full employment, introducing new social welfare payments, establishing the

Commonwealth Employment Service The Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) was an Australian Government employment agency that was established in 1946 with the introduction of the ''Re-establishment and Employment Act 1945'' under the Curtin ALP government. It was designed to ide ...

, working with the state governments to provide housing and hospitals as well as providing financial support to state universities. The department also drew up the initial plans for the demobilisation of the Australian Military after the war, and these were approved by

Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

in June 1944.Hasluck (1970), p. 612 The department's responsibilities changed over time as they were handed to other agencies after being established or completed. Unlike other departments created during the war, the Department of Post-War Reconstruction did not build up a large staff, but generally sought to coordinate the work of other agencies. Most of the department's employees were young

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

s who had been

conscripted Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day und ...

into the Australian Public Service during World War II.Davison et al. (2001), p. 526

John Dedman John Johnstone Dedman (2 June 1896 – 22 November 1973) was a Minister in the Australian Labor Party governments led by John Curtin and Ben Chifley. He was responsible for organising production during World War II, establishing the Australian N ...

replaced Chifley as the Minister for Post-War Reconstruction in February 1945, and L.F. Crisp became director-general in 1949 after Coombs was appointed Governor of the

Commonwealth Bank The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), or CommBank, is an Australian multinational bank with businesses across New Zealand, Asia, the United States and the United Kingdom. It provides a variety of financial services including retail, busines ...

. The Department of Post-War Reconstruction was dissolved on 16 March 1950 following the election of a conservative

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

government in December 1949. Its functions were transferred to other departments; the Economic Policy Division was transferred to the

Prime Minister's Department A cabinet department or prime minister's department is a department or other government agency that directly supports the work of the government's central executive office, usually the cabinet and/or prime minister, rather than specific ministe ...

but was subsequently abolished, and the remaining divisions became part of the newly established Department of National Development.Jones (2003), p.27

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History

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Further reading