On 6 July 1950 Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies

Robert Menzies

Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....

 issued a Directive entitled the Charter of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. The charter was an expanded and more specific form of the 1949 Directive for the Establishment and Maintenance of a Security Service

Directive for the Establishment and Maintenance of a Security Service

On 16 March 1949, Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley issued a Directive for the Establishment and Maintenance of a Security Service, appointing South Australian Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Reed as the first Director-General of Security...

 issued by Ben Chifley

Ben Chifley

Joseph Benedict Chifley , Australian politician, was the 16th Prime Minister of Australia. He took over the Australian Labor Party leadership and Prime Ministership after the death of John Curtin in 1945, and went on to retain government at the 1946 election, before being defeated at the 1949...

.

Note the spelling 'organization' used in the Directive. The official title of ASIO

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is Australia's national security service, which is responsible for the protection of the country and its citizens from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference, politically-motivated violence, attacks on the Australian defence system, and...

was amended by legislation in 1999 to remove this spelling and apply the Australian standard spelling of 'organisation.'

Text of the Directive

Expansion and revision

Both the Establishment and Charter Directives have been now largely superseded by federal legislation, notably by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979.