Editing Alfred Deakin (section)

==Prime Minister, 1905–1908==
[[File:AlfredDeakin.jpeg|thumb|left|upright|Alfred Deakin in 1905]]

===Domestic policy===
Deakin resumed office in mid-1905, and retained it for three years. During this, the longest and most successful of his terms as prime minister, his government was responsible for much policy and legislation giving shape to the Commonwealth during its first decade, including bills to create an Australian currency. The Copyright Act was passed in 1905, the [[Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics]] was established in 1906, [[Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology]] was established in 1908 and the Quarantine Act was passed in 1908.<ref name=apmio>{{Cite web  | title =Alfred Deakin, in office  | publisher =[[National Archives of Australia]]  | work =Australia's Prime Ministers  | url =http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/deakin/in-office.aspx  | access-date =8 February 2010  | archive-date =29 September 2009  | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20090929125311/http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/deakin/in-office.aspx  | url-status =dead  }}</ref>

In 1906 Deakin's government amended the Judiciary Act to increase the size of the High Court to five judges, as envisaged in the constitution, and appointed [[Isaac Isaacs]] and [[H. B. Higgins]] to fill the two additional seats. The first protective Federal tariff, the Australian Industries Protection Act was passed. This "New Protection" measure attempted to force companies to pay fair wages by setting conditions for tariff protection, although the Commonwealth had no powers over wages and prices.<ref name=adb/><ref name=apmio/>

The Papua Act of 1905 established an Australian administration for the former [[British New Guinea]] and Deakin appointed [[Hubert Murray]] as Lieutenant-Governor of Papua in 1908, who ruled it for a 32-year period as a benevolent paternalist. His government passed a bill for the transfer of control of the [[Northern Territory]] from South Australia to the Commonwealth, which became effective in 1911.<ref name=adb/><ref name=apmio/> As prime minister Deakin championed the ''Seat of Government Act 1904'', that had ordained the establishment of the Commonwealth's capital at Dalgety, and vigorously, if unsuccessfully, fought the move to relocate the capital to the Canberra area.<ref>William Coleman,''Their Fiery Cross of Union. A Retelling of the Creation of the Australian Federation, 1889–1914'', Connor Court, Queensland, 2021, p. 282.</ref>

===Defence and external affairs===
In December 1907, he introduced the first bill to establish compulsory military service, which was also strongly supported by Labour's Watson and [[Billy Hughes]]. He had long opposed the naval agreements to fund Royal Navy protection of Australia although Barton had agreed in 1902 that the Commonwealth would take over such funding from the colonies. In 1906 he announced that Australia would purchase destroyers, and in 1907 travelled to an Imperial Conference in London to discuss the issue, without success. In 1908 he invited [[Theodore Roosevelt]]'s [[Great White Fleet]] to visit Australia, in a symbolic act of independence from Britain. The Surplus Revenue Act of 1908 provided £250,000 for naval expenditure, although these funds were first applied by the [[Andrew Fisher]] Labour government, creating the first [[Royal Australian Navy|independent navy]] in the British empire.<ref name=adb/><ref name=apmio/>