[3] However a decision to appoint a commissioner was delayed pending the report of the Australian Eastern Mission, Attorney General and Minister for External Affairs John Latham's fact-finding mission to the Far East, which found a dire need for Australian trade representative to improve mercantile connections in the region.

[6] Arriving in September, Critchley met with Governor-General Bonifacius Cornelis de Jonge and set up offices in the Chartered Bank Building in Tambora, Old Batavia.

[9] William Macmahon Ball, the Australian Political Representative to the AFNEI, arrived in Batavia on 7 November 1945 and returned to Australia in December 1945.

However, his departure in early June, owing to ill health, coincided with the arrival of Justice Richard Kirby, who acted as Political Representative in his absence before returning to Australia on 28 July 1946.

In April 1950, the consulate-general in Jakarta was raised to the status of an embassy, with the first Australian ambassador to Indonesia, John Hood, appointed by External Affairs Minister Percy Spender.