Australian Communist Party v Commonwealth civil liberties grounds, and the proposal was narrowly defeated. Australian Communist Party v Commonwealth Australian Communist Party v The Commonwealth, also known as the Communist Party Case, was a legal case in the High Court of Australia described as "undoubtedly one of the High Court's most important decisions." In a general election held on 10 December 1949, Prime Minister Robert Menzies led a Liberal-Country Party coalition to government pledged to dissolving the Communist Party of Australia. The Party had been banned before: following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Party had opposed Australian involvement in the Second World War in 1939, which
United Kingdom declaration of war on Japan it costs nothing to be polite." Winston S. Churchill: The Second World War (vol.3): the Grand Alliance. (1950) United Kingdom declaration of war on Japan On 8 December 1941, the government of the United Kingdom declared war on the Empire of Japan, following the Japanese attacks on Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong. The British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Anthony Eden, was in transit to Moscow at the time, so Prime Minister Winston Churchill was in charge of the Foreign Office. The text of his letter to the Japanese Ambassador was as follows: Of the letter, Churchill later wrote: