the Australian Federation movement while in the Victorian Parliament, and in the early 1890s, he successfully persuaded the Australian Natives' Association to advocate Federation. In August 1893, Quick attended a convention of Federationists, the Corowa Conference, and there devised a scheme for the direct election of national convention, tasked to draft a federal constitution which would then be put to voter by means of a referendum. The scheme elicited little interest, and was formally rejected by Edward Barton's Australasian Federal League. But in November 1893 Quick drafted a bill encapsulating his ideas, in 1894 George Reid adopted them as Premier of News South Wales, and in 1897-8 the Australasian Federal Convention was constructed out of Quick's plan with very little modification. In March 1897 Quick won the second of ten vacancies in Victoria's delegation to the Federal Australasian Convention, outpolling Alfred Deakin. In the Convention's proceedings, his voting pattern was characteristic of the radical strain within it, and more closely resembled that of Alfred Deakin's more than any other delegate. Nevertheless, he was personally estranged from Deakin, to his later cost. When Federation was inaugurated on 1 January 1901, he was knighted in recognition of his services to the federation movement. On the same day, Quick and Robert Garran published The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, which is widely regarded as one of the most authoritative works on the Australian Constitution. Australian Natives Association While Quick was not born in Australia as was required for membership of the Australian Natives' Association (ANA) he nonetheless became a member of the Sandhurst (Bendigo) branch in 1882. He as a member at the same time as Malachi Cahill. Cahill also became the chairman of his electoral committee. Federal politics At the federal election of 1901, Quick was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as Member for the Division of Bendigo. He was initially considered a member of the Protectionist Party, but by 1903 the protectionist Age was no longer classifying him so. Partly on account of his shift to a less protectionist posture, George Reid made Quick chairman of a Royal Commission into tariffs. He held no cabinet position until 1909, when he was briefly Postmaster-General in the third cabinet under Alfred Deakin. Quick was defeated in the 1913 election by the Australian Labor Party candidate, John Arthur. That year, Quick became the founding President of the first Bendigo Cornish Association.