Documents on Australian Foreign Policy Australia and Nauru: Phosphate, Trusteeship and the Resettlement Issue 1945–1962

The 374 documents selected for this volume— many of them not previously publicly available— illuminate the context, implementation, and development of Australian policies towards the South Pacific island of Nauru from 1945 to 1962. A second volume on the relationship— addressing the critical period from 1962 to 1968, when Nauru attained independence— will follow. While administering Nauru under a League of Nations’ mandate (from 1920) and then under a UN trusteeship (from 1947), Australia’ s primary interest was accessing Nauru’ s phosphate and providing it to Australian— and New Zealand— farmers at a very favourable price. The British Phosphate Commissioners (BPC) and their staff managed this extraction on behalf of Australia and its partners, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, with the heavy work done by Chinese and other imported labourers. Phosphate extraction was interrupted in 1942, when Japanese troops took over the island. Later, as the tide of war turned, Australian ministers lobbied strenuously but unsuccessfully for US support for the early recapture of Nauru. After Japan’ s surrender, the three partner governments, through the BPC, ensured the prompt replacement of war-damaged

Colin Milner, LLB (Sydney University), is a former official of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) who served as Special Representative to Nauru in 2004– 05 and Acting High Commissioner in 2013. Currently a PhD candidate in the Australian National University’ s School of History, he is preparing a thesis on the factors that shaped the world view of the distinguished Australian constitutional lawyer and public servant Robert Randolph Garran. He has produced several publications in this area, focusing in particular on Garran’ s activities as the Commonwealth’ s first Attorn Matthew Jordan, BA Hons, PhD (Sydney University) is Head of DFAT’ s Historical Publications Section and General Editor of Documents on Australian Foreign Policy. He has published mostly on Australian foreign policy history, focusing especially on the role played by ideas of race and nation in shaping Australia’ s attitudes to the world. Having published a DAFP volume on Australia and the Rhodesian Problem, 1961– 1972 (UNSW Press, 2017), he is now working on a follow-up volume on Australia’ s approach to Zimbabwean independence in the 1970s and 1980s. He is also finalising a documentary history of Stephen Henningham, BA Hons (UNSW), PhD (ANU), is a specialist historian in DFAT’ s Historical Publications Section. With the late Bruce Hunt, he has co-edited two volumes on Australia and Papua New Guinea in the Documents on Australian Foreign Policy (DAFP) series. He has also published on aspects of the history of late-colonial India and on the politics and history of the South Pacific region, including Papua New Guinea. He was the senior civilian official in the Peace Monitoring Group in Bougainville in 2001– 2 and served as an Australian diplomat in New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea and Samoa.

Foreword v Abbreviations Illustrations Chronology Preface Introduction Part 1 ‘ The vital importance of phosphate supplies’ Documents, February 1945– December 1947 Part 2 ‘ A proper showdown and a bit of straight talking’ Documents, June 1948– March 1951 Part 3 ‘ Regeneration of this land is a practical impossibility’ Documents, September 1950– April 1955 Part 4 ‘ The eventual home for the Nauruans has to be found on the Australian mainland’ Documents, July 1954– December 1958 Part 5 ‘ An advanced standard of living … much higher than is found in other Pacific territories’ Documents, February 1959– October 1960 Part 6 ‘ We consider preservation of our race … a sacred duty’ Documents, October 1960– April 1962 Appendixes Appendix I Biographical guide Appendix II A guide to the records cited in this volume Map Nauru in the Pacific Indexes Index of persons Subject index