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