The numbers were about the same, and surely what the Americans had done by war, the Australians could bring about in peace, without breaking the ties that held them to the mother country.Known himself as the "Father of Federation", Parkes would die before the project was completed.

Edmund Barton became the newly Federated Australian nation's first prime minister at a grand ceremony in Centennial Park, Sydney, on 1 January 1901.

[3] Hopetoun had first offered the position to the Premier of New South Wales Sir William Lyne (an opponent of Federation), but the other members of Cabinet and the general population saw Barton as the logical choice.

Barton appointed two other honorary Cabinet positions: Richard O'Connor of New South Wales, to serve as Vice-President of the Executive Council, and Elliott Lewis, the Premier of Tasmania.

[3] Meanwhile, the candidates generally agreed on the need to establish a restrictive immigration system (recalled as the White Australia Policy) to preference British and European migrants.

Other key issues included the need for the establishment of a transcontinental railway, a High Court, a system for arbitrating on industrial disputes, and the provision of an old age pension.

Shortly before her death in January 1901, Queen Victoria had designated her grandson, the Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V) to preside over the opening of the first Parliament of Australia.

After an expenses dispute, Parliament refused to augment the income received by the Governor-General with an additional annual allowance, and Lord Hopetoun resigned, sailing for Britain in July 1902.

Nevertheless, the Colonial Secretary in Britain made it clear that a race based immigration policy would run "contrary to the general conceptions of equality which have ever been the guiding principle of British rule throughout the Empire", so the Barton government conceived of the "language dictation test", which would allow the government, at the discretion of the minister, to block unwanted migrants by forcing them to sit a test in "any European language".

[3] The restrictive measures established by the first parliament gave way to multi-ethnic immigration policies only after the Second World War, with the "dictation test" itself being finally abolished in 1958 by the Menzies government.

[8] The occasion of the first federal Budget saw the Protectionist supporters of the Barton government clash with the Free Trade Opposition led by George Reid.

[5] According to political historian Brian Carroll, Barton faced a serious crisis when Kingston resigned from his ministry in July 1902 over a dispute with Labor over the jurisdiction of the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill.

Barton's health declined and in August 1903, he collapsed in his room at Parliament and resigned the following month to take up a position with the newly established High Court of Australia.