VPRS 20543 Records relating to State - Commonwealth loan agreements

Items in this series relate to the establishment of the agreements between the Commonwealth and the States regarding loans. Most of the items date from 1927-1929 during which the first agreement was drafted and revised. In June 1927, the Commonwealth submitted to the States the draft of a proposed financial agreement under which the Commonwealth would provide: - fixed contribution towards interest charges on State debts taken over by the Commonwealth,- a sinking fund contribution, - increased interest on transferred properties, and the - establishment of a statutory Loan Council to control public sector borrowing. The Commonwealths Financial Agreement Validation Act 1929 made the 1927 Financial Agreement effective and validated all decisions made from 1 July 1927 to 30 June 1929, which were deemed to have been taken under the Financial Agreement as now approved. For further details relating to the subsequent agreements and the establishment of the Loan Council of Australia, refer to the series descriptive text for VPRS 11338 Loan Council Minutes. Individual documents in this series include the early printed versions of the Draft and Final version of the 1927 Agreement. Both of these bear inward registered stamps of the Premier's Office and both contain handwritten annotations indicating these had been sent to Victoria for its input. Two registered items (P27/3118 and P27/3645) were part of a larger Premier's file which is not held in the relevant Premier's inwards correspondence series (VPRS 1163). This suggests the file was dismembered long before PROV came into existence and its contents dispersed. Also included in this series these documents are three registered items dating from 1929 (29/R2816, 29R/2817 and 29R/3247) that were originally registered as part of the Treasury's inward correspondence series (VPRS 1207). Other documents include draft or copies of items of inward or outward correspondence, a typewritten version of the first meeting of the Loan Council (probably duplicating the official version of this in VPRS 11338), a copy of the Commonwealth Act that approved the 1927 agreement and printed copies of the 1944 (2 copies) and 1967 Agreements All of the items in this series were received in the mail from an anonymous source in Queensland during April 2022. No information was provided which identified the Victorian Government agency which held the records nor how or when the records were obtained from that agency. The series has been attributed to the Victorian Department of the Treasury; a sheet of yellow paper found with the records was annotated 'Located in Compactus' and its reverse was printed blank pro-forma headed 'Treasury - Inter Office Memo'.