Department of Information (Australia)

Australian government department, 1939–1950

Department of InformationDepartment overview

Formed| 12 September 1939
Dissolved| 16 March 1950
Headquarters| Melbourne

The Department of Information (DOI) was an Australian Government department formed during World War II.

The department was established in September 1939 under the leadership of John Treloar, the director of the Australian War Memorial, who remained in the role of departmental secretary until early 1941.[1] It was the first of 17 new Australian Government departments to be established during the war, and was responsible for both censorship and disseminating government propaganda.[2] The department was based in Melbourne throughout its existence, though it established divisions in Sydney and bureaus in New York City and London.[3] The DOI was broken up in 1950, with its functions being allocated between other departments.[2]

Henry Gullett was the first Minister for Information.[4]

The Australian News and Information Bureau (ANIB) was created within the DOI in 1940, based in New York City, with the main goal of informing the United States of Australia's war effort, thereby nurturing and building the relationship between the two countries. The agency later evolved into the Australian Information Service,[5] eventually becoming part of DFAT.[6]

## Ministers for Information

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# | Name | Party | Start | End | Government

|
|
|
|
|

1 | Henry Gullett |  | United Australia | 12 September 1939 | 14 March 1940 | Menzies
2 | Robert Menzies |  | United Australia | 14 March 1940 | 13 December 1940 | Menzies
3 | Harry Foll |  | United Australia | 13 December 1940 | 7 October 1941 | Menzies
Fadden
4 | Bill Ashley |  | Labor | 7 October 1941 | 21 September 1943 | Curtin
5 | Arthur Calwell |  | Labor | 21 September 1943 | 19 December 1949 | Curtin
Forde
Chifley
6 | Howard Beale |  | Liberal | 19 December 1949 | 16 March 1950 | Menzies

## Notes

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1. ^ Vickery 2009, p. 46.
2. ^ a b Vickery 2009, p. 1.
3. ^ Vickery 2009, p. 42.
4. ^ CA 34: Department of Information, Central Office, National Archives of Australia, retrieved 9 February 2021
5. ^ Tebbutt, John (9 September 2016). "Australian News and Information Bureau". Austlit. Retrieved 27 December 2020. "Appears in A Companion to the Australian Media [edited by Bridget Griffen-Foley, 2014] pg. 56-57"
6. ^ "Fact Sheet Forty Seven: Australian Overseas Information Service photographs". National Archives of Australia. 2000. Archived from the original on 12 February 2006. Retrieved 12 May 2006.

## References and further reading

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* Lakin, Shuane (2006). Contact: Photographs from the Australian War Memorial Collection. Canberra: Australian War Memorial. ISBN 0-9751904-6-6.
* Vickery, Edward Louis (2009). "Telling Australia's story to the world: The Department of Information 1939-1950". Thesis. Australian National University. Archived from the original on 14 August 2011. Retrieved 10 August 2011.