ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY BIRTHDAY
The following information is from the SEA POWER CENTRE
This might seem a simple question, but over the years the Australian Navy’s birthday has remained a source of some confusion. The date now accepted is 1 March 1901. The previously accepted date of 10 July 1911 is not the birth date of naval forces in Australia, rather it was the date that the Sovereign granted the title ‘Royal Australian Navy’. As with other forces institutions the name has changed over the last 101 years, but for the Navy the date of 1 March 1901 marks the creation of Australia’s Navy. This is made inviolable by the fact that by 1911 Australia had already possessed a unified naval force for more than a decade, as proclaimed in the Australian Constitution.
The full details can be obtained by reading the following link from the SEA POWER CENTRE. (That's where the above information came from.)
http://www.navy.gov.au/spc/semaphore/issue2_2002.html
