On January 17, 1908, after several days of negotiation and preparation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially issued a public announcement announcing the establishment of the Australasian Propaganda Department, which was under the management of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was responsible for propaganda work at home and abroad.

All newspapers, media, writers' associations should be supervised by the propaganda department to ensure that no information that affects the stability of the country circulates at home and abroad.

The news of the establishment of the new department quickly attracted the attention of many people in the political arena, after all, the current official position in Australasia can be said to be more wolf and less meat, not to mention an important department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs such as the Propaganda Department.

At Arthur's suggestion, Grant Wilson prepared well and took advantage of the Unionist Party's advantage as the largest party to successfully obtain the position of the first minister of propaganda.

Grant Wilson, who became Minister of Propaganda, naturally knew Arthur's purpose, so on his first day in office, he reported his plans for the Propaganda Department like the Foreign Affairs Department and asked for the approval of the Cabinet Department.

On January 19, Foreign Minister Andrew successfully brought Grant's plan to the Cabinet for consideration, and successfully obtained the approval of the Cabinet, and the implementation officially began on the same day.

From 19 January, all migrants to Australasia will be assigned to different regions as families, with a greater focus on less populated areas.

In order to encourage these migrants to move to Western Australia and South Australia, the two state governments, on the advice of the Cabinet Department, have introduced policies to compensate migrants with at least five acres of land.

In any case, these two regions are sparsely populated, with nearly half the land area of Australasia combined, but only one-fifth of the population, so it's time to support them.

For immigrants, Australasia's compensation is also really powerful. If they were to go to Western Australia and South Australia, they would be given at least fifteen acres of land, a few indigenous labourers, and they would have no problem becoming landowners.

And if they give up the fifteen acres of land, they will be given priority access to the Leonora Industrial Zone, which is under construction, and will be trained to become workers in the industrial zone for higher wages.

At present, the income of workers in Australasia is not low, at least about 47 Australian dollars.

After the National Day, the Australasian government has also returned to its busy work, and construction continues to be in full swing across the country.

In particular, the Leonora Industrial Zone, which the government is currently paying more attention to, has invested more than 20,000 indigenous people, and there will be a small change in the construction site basically every few days, and a big change in the construction site every other week.

Beginning in February, Arthur participated in the groundbreaking ceremony of the battleship Australasia, the launching ceremony of the second Russian battleship, the formation ceremony of the 4th Regular Division, and so on, and finally got a little rest time in March.

Although it was busy, it was very comforting for Arthur.

The hope of the Australasian Navy has entered the construction stage, which means that Australasia will have a strong naval force in the near future, and the security of the country will finally be guaranteed.

On 17 March, Prime Minister Walter asked Arthur to attend a regular cabinet meeting to report on the current state of government and to determine the specific process and arrangements for this year's national election.

Australasia is different from other European countries. Australasian citizens can elect councillors at all levels, and councillors can elect government officials at the same level.

Members of Parliament generally serve a term of two years, but they can remain in office by re-election.

The term of office of all levels of government in Australasia is the same, and it is now unified into four years.

Among them, the prime minister can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms and a maximum of three terms. Cabinet ministers can serve a maximum of three consecutive terms and a maximum of five terms.

Governors are a little more restrictive, with a maximum of two consecutive terms, but there is no limit to the number of times they can serve.

This means that if a governor is popular with the people, it is possible to stay in office for two terms in three terms.

The rules for the mayors of each city are even more relaxed, and although the term of office is still four years, there is no limit on the number of terms.

As long as the mayor of the city is welcomed, Arthur doesn't mind keeping them re-elected, as long as he can do something practical.

Further down the village level, the office of village mayor is generally appointed by the state parliament for a term of six years, with no limit on the number of times.

All these officials are subject to the supervision of the two houses and the whole population, and the parliament has the power to remove elected officials, which of course does not include the cabinet government.

However, the House of Representatives can petition the Royal House and Arthur to remove the current cabinet and hold new elections.

When it comes to the election of the House of Representatives, Arthur has also decided to attend this meeting, and by the way, he can also listen to the reports of government officials on the work of the past few months.

On 19 March, the regular meeting of the Australasian Cabinet Government was held in the House of Ministers.

Amid cheers and applause, Arthur was present at the meeting, and sat at the head of the conference room as a matter of course.

The meeting first reported on the current work of their respective departments, such as which industrial base has been expanded by the Ministry of Industry, and how the current construction of the new industrial base is.

Among them, Arthur is more concerned about the immigration situation reported by the Ministry of People's Livelihood for more than two months.

At present, Australasian immigration can be said to be higher and stronger every year.

After setting a new immigration record the previous year, the number of immigrants in the first two months of 1908 had already exceeded 130,000, and this year is expected to reach a new high.

If we add the data of March for most of the month, the number of immigrants in 1908 has exceeded 170,000, and Australasia receives more than 2,000 immigrants every day, which is enough to see how terrifying the immigration speed of Australasia is today.

It is precisely because of this exaggerated number of immigrants that Australasia conducts a census almost every year to determine the true population of Australasia and facilitate the government's next steps.

With the addition of these new immigrants, the population of Australasia has exceeded 7.3 million, and the population of Sydney has officially exceeded 1 million.

Of course, it's limited to one million. With a population of 1 million, the Ministry of Communication, Ministry of People's Livelihood, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Industry, Department of Health, Department of Education and other departments have moved most of the remaining migrants to Western Australia and South Australia, and the remaining half to New Zealand.

The most popular in Western Australia and South Australia is, of course, the Leonora Industrial Complex, which is currently under construction.

This industrial base is highly valued in Australasia and will create tens of thousands of industrial jobs in the future, so it is necessary to migrate to this area as soon as possible.

In addition to the good news that migrants are hopeful of reaching new highs, Australasia is also in a very good fiscal position.

In the first two months, the total revenue has exceeded 7 million Australian dollars, although the investment is also very large, but it is also good news.

Minister Grant also reported on the current actions and achievements of the Ministry of Propaganda, and Arthur also encouraged Minister Grant to make more arrangements abroad to promote other cities in Australasia and strive to attract more immigrants.

Arthur also came up with the idea of creating a ranking of cities suitable for immigrants and doing a lot of publicity abroad.

Anyway, Australasia created the list itself, and there is nothing about the appropriateness of bias in its own favor.

As long as the European population can choose to believe the list, then the propaganda department's plan has succeeded.

Regardless of whether he is true or not, he will deceive the immigrants first. Anyway, the immigrants of this era are not too wealthy, and it is not so easy for them to bear the ferry ticket back and forth.

Of course, Arthur only came up with an idea, and how to do it depends on Minister Grant's ability.

For Arthur, all he has to do is to make a macro layout of the country's development, and these officials are the real candidates for micro implementation.

If a country needs the king to do everything himself, then the country is not destined to last.

After more than two hours of debriefing, the meeting finally began the last item on the topic, that is, about the upcoming elections for the House of Representatives.

The House of Representatives election is a nationwide political event for Australasia and has been welcomed and participated in by the majority of Australasian people.

According to the last House of Representatives election, that is, in 1906, there were more than two million Australasian people who voted in the House of Representatives, just for the 298 seats in the House of Representatives, which is enough to see the status of the House of Representatives election in the hearts of Australasian people.

This election, which is two years since the last, has increased the number of immigrants by more than a million alone.

This means that the number of people who voted this year is definitely more than two million, and the process and plan for voting also need to be prepared in more detail to avoid any surprises during the election process.

Impartiality, openness, and accuracy are topics that Arthur is more concerned about. Officials also know what Arthur thinks, after all, it is not the first time that the House of Representatives election has been held.

However, each election is different, and as Australasia develops, the House of Representatives election will become more and more important, and the number of people participating in the election will definitely increase.

To fully count the votes of these people, it is necessary not only for a large number of officials to do statistical calculations, but also to go deep into the cities, villages and towns to collect the intentions of all the people, which is also a big project, at least for the current Australasian government.

In fact, government officials also attach great importance to the election of the House of Representatives, after all, most of these officials already have a party affiliation, and their party is very concerned about the proportion of seats in the House of Representatives election.

After all, according to Australasian rules, the proportion of seats they occupy in the House of Representatives determines how much money they can receive each year, and also determines whether their key officials can enter the cabinet department.

For example, the United Party and the Country Party, the two largest parties in Australasia, each won a cabinet minister seat and qualified to enter the cabinet government precisely because they occupy a relatively large number of seats in the House of Representatives.

After all, this is a cabinet government, an opportunity to ascend to the top of the country's government, and no political party or individual can let go of such a good opportunity.

After more than four hours of discussion, the government finalized an electoral process and plan that satisfied everyone.

The first is the ballot collection box, which needs to be equipped in all villages and cities in Australia. Among them, small villages are equipped with one voting collection box, large villages and small towns are equipped with two voting collection boxes, and large towns and small cities are equipped with three voting collection boxes.

For cities with populations of more than 50,000, 100,000, and 200,000, they are equipped with four, six, and ten ballot collection boxes, respectively.

Not only are there soldiers to protect all ballot boxes, but each state government is also required to send a certain number of officials to supervise the ballot boxes in their non-residential areas.

In addition to the dual supervision of soldiers and officials, state governments also need to organize random inspections of ballot collection boxes in their jurisdictions to avoid accidents.

In addition, Arthur and the cabinet government will also conduct random spot checks, which is equivalent to five layers of insurance, which basically eliminates the occurrence of accidents.

The House of Representatives elections will begin on June 1, with a voting period from June 1 to June 20 and a transportation phase from June 21 to July 1.

All votes will be counted in the state governments, with the Royal House, the House of Representatives, the Cabinet Government, the Royal Family, the people and the military jointly monitoring the votes counted, and the votes will be randomly counted.

It takes about 20 days for each state to count the votes, and it is expected that the state governments will report the final results to the Cabinet government on July 21, and after random checks, the results of the House of Representatives election will be announced to the public around July 25.

In order to prevent possible surprises during the election phase, even after the results are announced, all the votes will still be concentrated in the capital, and Arthur will personally organize a review of the staff.

If the statistics are wrong or even too different from state to state, not only will the House election result be rejected, but the state government will also be held accountable, even down to every ballot box.

Arthur did not believe that under such a strict electoral system, there would be people who secretly violated the rules and even cheated.

The final result will be reviewed anyway, and if the state governments have the audacity to tamper with the results, let them try.

This election plan was accepted by most people, so it was successfully determined as the plan for the 1908 House of Representatives election and announced to the public.

It also means that people still have more than two months to think carefully about who they should support to become the new legislator.

Four thousand words, please leave brothers.

(End of chapter)