Constitution. He contributed a daily column to the Evening News, and had humorous poems critiquing opponents of federation published in The Bulletin. The following year, he began working with Quick on the Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, a reference work on the Constitution including a history, and detailed discussion of each section analysing its meaning and its development at the Conventions. Published in 1901, the Annotated Constitution, commonly referred to simply as "Quick & Garran", soon became the standard work on the Constitution and is still regarded as one of the most important works on the subject. Public service On the day that Federation was completed and Australia created, 1 January 1901, Garran, feeling like " a junior barrister suddenly promoted to the final court of appeal", was appointed secretary and Permanent Head of the Attorney-General's Department by the first Attorney-General of Australia, Alfred Deakin. Garran was the first, and for a time the only, public servant employed by the Government of Australia. Garran later said of this time that: I was not only the head [of the department], but the tail. I was my own clerk and messenger. My first duty was to write out with my own hand Commonwealth Gazette No. 1 proclaiming the establishment of the Commonwealth and the appointment of ministers of state, and to send myself down with it to the government printer. In this role, Garran was responsible for organising the first federal election in March 1901, and for organising the transfer of various government departments from the states to the federal government, including the Department of Defence, the postal and telegraphic services (now part of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) and the Department of Trade and Customs (now part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade). As parliamentary drafter, Garran also developed legislation to administer those new departments and other important legislation. As head of the Attorney General's department, Garran was also responsible for advice on the consistency of legislation with the Constitution, including the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 which by disenfranchising Aboriginals appeared to offend the Constitution's Section 41, which guaranteed the right to vote federally of anyone entitled to vote in a state. Garran advised that the Section could be neutered by interpreting it as no more than a grandfather clause of the right to vote of existing Aboriginal voters. The Act also conferred the