This is an overview of the postage stamps and postal history of Australia.
Postal history
The six self-governing Australian colonies that formed the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901 operated their own postal service and issued their own stamps – see articles on the systems on New South Wales (first stamps issued 1850), Victoria (1850), Tasmania (1853), Western Australia (1854), South Australia (1855) and Queensland (1860). Section 51(v) of the Australian Constitution empowered the Commonwealth to make laws in respect of “postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services”.
The Commonwealth created the Postmaster-General's Department on 1 March 1901, which took over all the colonial mail systems and the then-current colony stamps. These stamps continued to be valid and became de facto Commonwealth stamps. Some of these stamps continued to be used for some time following the introduction in 1913 of the Commonwealth's uniform postage stamp series. These stamps continued to be valid for postage until 14 February 1966 when the introduction of decimal currency invalidated all stamps bearing the earlier currency.
Circumstances precluded the immediate issue of a uniform Commonwealth postage stamp. But there was no hindrance in respect to a Postage Due series. The first of these, the design of which was based on the current New South Wales postage due stamps, was issued in July 1902.
Postal rates became uniform between the new states on 1 May 1911 because of the extension of the United Kingdom domestic postal rate of 1d per half ounce (Imperial Penny Post) to Australia as a member of the British Empire. One penny became the uniform domestic postage rate. One penny postcards and lettercards also appeared in 1911. In the same year, the Postmaster-General's Department held a stamp design competition for a uniform series of Commonwealth postage stamps. This competition attracted over one thousand entries.
The "Roo" stamp
For most, Australian philately proper begins on 2 January 1913, 12 years after federation, with the issue of a red 1d (one penny) Kangaroo and Map, the design of which was adopted in part from the entry that won the Stamp Design Competition. This was the first definitive stamp with the sole nomenclature “Australia”. Although the delay between federation and the first stamps had several causes, one of the major reasons was political wrangling regarding the design. There was a considerable amount of opposition to any inclusion of British royal symbols or profiles.
A design completion was announced in 1911, and several designs, including royal profiles were chosen. The government decided on having only one design, and Charlie Frazer, then postmaster-general, inspired the basic outline of the new design. Blamire Young, a local watercolour artist, was commissioned to produce the final design.
The first definitive issue had fifteen stamps ranging in value from ½d (halfpenny) to £2 (two pounds). The Kangaroo and Map design was ordered by the Fisher Labor Government, which had in its ranks a number of pro-republicans who strenuously opposed the incorporation of the monarch's profile on Australian stamps. One of the first acts of the Cook Liberal Government, sworn in on 14 June 1913, was to order a series of postage stamps with the profile of George V. On 8 December 1913 the first of these, an engraved 1d carmine-red, appeared. Soon after, typographed values of the design ranging from ½d (halfpenny) to 1/4d (one shilling and four pence) appeared. The Postmaster-General's Department then went on to keep both basic designs on issue – 38 years for the Kangaroo and Map design, and 23 years for the George V (upon his death).
In 1948, H. Dormer Legge published the first definitive study of these stamps, The Kangaroo Issues of the stamps of the Commonwealth of Australia.