Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00408:front:0:p239
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during the Colonial conventions leading up to the Federation of the Australian colonies into the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 was the matter of a national capital.  Many initially assumed that either Melbourne or Sydney, as the largest cities in the proposed nation, would become the capital.  The potential combination of economic and political power in one of the colonies, however, caused disquiet, and after much discussion, an inland site was specified in the Constitution for the new nation.

The basic decisions about who would choose the site, where the capital could be, and the nature of its land tenure, were embodied in Section 125 of the new Commonwealth Constitution,

    'The seat of Government of the Commonwealth shall be determined by the Parliament, and shall be within territory which shall have been granted to or acquired by the Commonwealth, and shall be vested in and belong to the Commonwealth, and shall be in the State of New South Wales, and be distant not less than one hundred miles from Sydney.

    Such territory shall contain an area of not less than one hundred square miles, and such portion thereof as shall consist of Crown lands shall be granted to the Commonwealth without any payment therefor.  The Parliament shall sit at Melbourne until it meet at the seat of Government.'

In the early years of the new nation, politicians and the general populace lobbied for their suggestion of a location for the federal capital.  Albury, Armidale, Bombala, Canberra, Dalgety, Lake George, Lyndhurst, Orange, Tooma, Tumut and Yass-Canberra were all on the ballot taken in Parliament in October 1908, Yass-Canberra beating Bombala by 39 votes to 33 (Pegrum 1983, pp. 137-138).

By 1911 the proposed location was firmly enough established to enable an international competition for the design of the new capital to be advertised.  The competition documentation included Scrivener's survey maps and panoramic paintings of the Molonglo River valley.  The only spatial directive in the competition conditions was that the parliamentary building 'should be so placed as to become a dominating feature of the city'.  The 'panoramic value of the city surrounds' and the prospects for 'ornamental water' were mentioned but were not specific requirements (Freestone 2010, p. 96).

137 competition entries were received from around Australia and the world.  After a split decision by the Federal Capital Design Board, the Minister for Home Affairs, King O'Malley, followed the majority view and announced Walter Burley Griffin as the winner of the design competition for the federal capital.  Eliel Saarinen won second place and Alfred Agache third.

    'unlike other competitors, the Griffins did not treat the Limestone Plains as a blank space, but responded sensitively to the natural features, integrating topography into the