This Act has been repealed and is no longer in force. It is retained for historical reference.
Jurisdiction
Commonwealth
Act Number
15 of 1925
Collection
act
Plain English Summary
3/10 complexity
Loan Act (No. 2) 1925 — Plain English Summary
This Act is a government borrowing and spending authorisation — it gives the Commonwealth Treasurer the legal green light to borrow money and then specifies exactly what that money can be spent on.
What does it do?
Authorises borrowing up to £8,300,000 (about £8.3 million — a very large sum in 1925 terms) using existing Commonwealth borrowing mechanisms, either through "Inscribed Stock" (government bonds sold to investors) or "Treasury Bills" (short-term government IOUs).
Directs £8,031,482 of loan proceeds to specific government departments and projects, as listed in the First Schedule (see below).
Cancels unspent money from a long list of previous Loan Acts (going back to 1911) that remained unspent as of 30 June 1925 — essentially tidying up the books.
Who gets the money?
The First Schedule itemises spending across nine departments and a debt redemption category:
War & Repatriation Services (£826,270): Care for returned soldiers, including a mental hospital in Western Australia, payment of outstanding soldier wages, and — the biggest single item — £620,000 for the War Service Homes scheme (helping veterans buy homes).
Prime Minister's Department (£500): Upkeep of London offices.
Property purchases, a loan to the Territory of New Guinea for works, and construction of a .
Sourced from the Federal Register of Legislation (legislation.gov.au), CC BY 4.0.
Home & Territories Department (£83,250):
Solar Observatory in Canberra
Department of Defence (£433,675): Naval bases, drill halls, air force hangars and infrastructure, munitions factories at Maribyrnong (Vic) and Footscray (Vic), a machine gun factory at Lithgow (NSW), and land for military and civil aviation purposes.
Department of Trade & Customs (£593,537):£500,000 in advances to States and Northern Territory settlers to buy wire netting (a rabbit/pest control measure common in this era), plus new lighthouses and lighthouse vessels.
Department of Works & Railways (£1,306,112): River Murray water management, Commonwealth offices in Brisbane and Adelaide, and major railway construction — including lines to Alice Springs, the Kalgoorlie–Port Augusta transcontinental link, the Northern Territory Railway, and the Port Augusta–Oodnadatta line.
Postmaster-General's Department (£4,358,076): By far the largest share — expanding telegraph and telephone networks nationwide, constructing and renovating hundreds of post offices across every state and territory, and investing £200,000 in Amalgamated Wireless Limited (the forerunner of today's communications infrastructure).
Department of Health (£23,460): Serum and health laboratories, and property acquisition.
Department of Markets & Migration (£330,000): Passage money and landing assistance for assisted immigrants coming to Australia.
Loan Redemptions (£76,602): Repaying old South Australian government loans taken out on behalf of the Northern Territory and the Port Augusta–Oodnadatta Railway.
Why does it matter?
This Act is a snapshot of Australia in 1925 — a nation still healing from World War I (significant veteran support spending), actively building its communications backbone (the Post Office dominates the budget), pushing railways into remote and arid Australia, and actively encouraging immigration. It shows how the Commonwealth funded major capital works before modern budget mechanisms — through specific borrowing Acts that named every project and every pound.