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Australia will be hosting a World Exhibition to commemorate the
Centenary
of the Kangaroo
stamp issued as the first Commonwealth postage stamp.
Australia 2013 will be an FIP International Stamp Exhibition to be held
in Melbourne Australia,
from 10 - 15 May 2013 at the Exhibition
Buildings, Carlton, Melbourne
KANGAROO & MAP STAMPS:
An
Advertisement for Australia
Richard Breckon
When Australia’s
six colonies federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia on January 1 1901, philatelists looked forward to the imminent release of a single series of Australian Commonwealth stamps. It was not to be. Not even a temporary issue of state stamps overprinted
with the Commonwealth’s initials “CA” was arranged (as had been initially
proposed). For 12 years after Federation, state stamps continued to be
current, and for most of this period the stamps remained valid for postage
only in the state of origin. For example, a Melbournian visiting Sydney could not use a Victorian stamp to send a letter home. Six colonial postal administrations
had become one Federal postal authority, but six separate issues of stamps
continued to be produced.
The
Postmaster-General’s Department had decided in 1901 that state stamps would
have to be continued for at least several years because of Section 89 of
the Australian Federal Constitution. This clause specified that state governments
were to be reimbursed the surplus revenue of former colonial departments
that had been transferred at Federation to Commonwealth control for a period
of at least five years. The “book-keeping clause”, as it was known, meant
that the postal systems in each state had to be run independently of each
other, so that the surplus revenue could be calculated accurately. To this
end, separate supplies of state stamps were maintained for use exclusively
by each state. (To read Full Article click here)
