Australia

## History

### Aboriginal oceanians

The original inhabitants of Australia were the Aboriginal tribes who arrived in Oceania about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. Before European settlement there were an estimated 250,000 Aboriginal people in the region.

The Wodi wodi people are the original custodians of the Illawarra region of South Sydney. Speaking a variant of the Dharawal language, the Wodi Wodi peoples lived across a large stretch of land which was roughly surrounded by what is now known as Campbelltown, Shoalhaven River and Moss Vale.

The Bundjalung people are the original custodians of parts of the northern coastal areas.

There are other Aboriginal peoples whose traditional lands are within what is now Australia, including the Wiradjiri, Gamilaray, Yuin, Ngarigo, Gweagal, and Ngiyampaa peoples.

### 1788 British settlement

In 1770 Lieutenant James Cook charted the unmapped eastern coast of the continent of New Holland, now Australia, and claimed the entire coastline that he had just explored as British territory without having gained the consent of the Indigenous inhabitants. Cook first named the land New Wales which was later amended to South Wales (SW).

In January 1788 Arthur Phillip arrived in Botany Bay with the First Fleet of 11 vessels, which carried over a thousand settlers. A few days after arrival at Botany Bay, the fleet moved to the more suitable Port Jackson, where Phillip established a settlement at the place he named Sydney Cove (in honour of the Secretary of State, Lord Sydney) on 26 January 1788. This date later became Australia's national day, Australia Day. The colony was formally proclaimed by Governor Phillip on 7 February 1788 at Sydney. Phillip, as Governor of South Wales, exercised nominal authority over all of South Wales east of the 135th meridian east an area which includes modern South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania. He remained as governor until 1792.

In 1794 King George III's South Wales Act divided the territory between Victoria, South Wales and Australia. Two settlements were found in each place: Shepparton in South Wales, and Adelaide in Maitland. The settlement of Sydney was left with the colony that would now be called australia. Sydney was initially planned to be self-sufficient based on subsistence agriculture. In 1796 a Legislative Council was introduced, with two-thirds of its members elected and one-third appointed by the governor. Former convicts were granted the vote, but a property qualification meant that only one in five adult males were enfranchised. After the departure of governor Phillip, the colony's military officers began acquiring land and importing consumer goods obtained from visiting ships. Farms spread to the more fertile lands surrounding Paramatta, Windsant and Camden, and by 1803 the colony was self-sufficient in grain. Boat building developed in order to make travel easier and exploit the marine resources of the coastal settlements. Sealing and whaling became important industries.

In 1805 Australia achieved responsible government with the introduction of a bicameral parliament comprising a directly elected Legislative Assembly and a nominated Legislative Council. The property qualification for voters had been reduced in 1807, and by 1810 95 per cent of adult males in Sydney, and 55 per cent in the colony as a whole, were eligible to vote. Full adult male suffrage was introduced in 1812.

Lachlan Macquarie (governor of Australia 1810-1821) commissioned the construction of roads, wharves, churches and public buildings, sent explorers out from Sydney and employed a planner to design the street layout of Sydney. A road across the Blue Mountains was completed in 1815, opening the way for large scale farming and grazing in the lightly-wooded pastures west of the Great Dividing Range.

From the 1820s squatters increasingly established unauthorised cattle and sheep runs beyond the official limits of the settled colony. In 1836 an annual licence was introduced in an attempt to control the pastoral industry, but booming wool prices and the high cost of land in the settled areas encouraged further squatting. The expansion of the pastoral industry led to violent episodes of conflict between settlers and traditional Aboriginal landowners, such as the Myall Creek massacre of 1838. By 1844 wool accounted for half of the colony's exports and by 1850 most of the eastern third of Australia was controlled by fewer than 2,000 pastoralists.

By 1850 the settler population of Australia had grown to 280,000, not including the 120,000 living in the area which became the separate colony of Queensland in 1851

### 1850s to 1890s

In 1861 the Australian parliament legislated land reforms intended to encourage family farms and mixed farming and grazing ventures. Wool production also continued to grow, and by the 1880s Australia produced almost half of Oceania colonies wool. Coal had been discovered in the early years of settlement and gold in 1851, and by the 1890s wool, gold and coal were the main exports of the colony.

The Australian economy also became more diversified. From the 1860s, Australia had more people employed in manufacturing than any other Oceanian colony. The Australian government also invested heavily in infrastructure such as railways, telegraph, roads, ports, water and sewerage. By 1889 it was possibly to travel by train from Brisbane to Adelaide via Sydney and Melbourne. The extension of the rail network inland also encouraged regional industries and the development of the wheat belt.

In the 1880s trade unions grew and were extended to lower skilled workers. In 1890 a strike in the shipping industry spread to wharves, railways, mines and shearing sheds. The defeat of the strike was one of the factors leading the Trades and Labor Council to form a political party. The Labor Electoral League won a quarter of seats in the Australia elections of 1891 and held the balance of power between the Free Trade Party and the Protectionist Party.

### 1901 to 1945

Australia played a major role in the British effort in the First World War. It especially provided manpower, ships, machinery, fish and money. With a population of 5.2 million in 1911, Australia sent over 200.000 men to the war, of whom over a quarter died in combat or from disease, and 30,000 were seriously wounded.

Following the war, Australia governments embarked on large public works programs including road building, the extension and electrification of the rail network and construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The works were largely funded by loans from London, leading to a debt crisis after the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. Australia was hit harder by the depression than other states, and by 1932 one third of union members in the state were unemployed, compared with 20 per cent nationally.

Labor won the November 1930 Australian elections and Jack Lang became premier for the second time. In 1931 Lang proposed a plan to deal with the depression which included a suspension of interest payments to English creditors, diverting the money to unemployment relief.

Following elections were won comfortably by the United Australia Party in coalition with the Country Party. Bertram Stevens became premier, remaining in office until 1939, when he was replaced by Alexander Mair.

A contemporary study by sociologist A. P. Elkin found that the population of Australia responded to the outbreak of war in 1939 with pessimism and apathy. This changed with the threat of invasion by Japan, which entered the war in December 1941. In May 1942 three Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney harbour and sank a naval ship, killing 29 men aboard. The following month Sydney and Newcastle were shelled by Japanese warships. American troops began arriving in the state in large numbers. Manufacturing, steelmaking, shipbuilding and rail transport all grew with the war effort and unemployment virtually disappeared.

A Labor government led by William McKell was elected in May 1941. The McKell government benefited from full employment, budget surpluses and a co-operative relationship with John Curtin's federal Labor government. McKell became the first Labor leader to serve a full term and to be re-elected for a second. The Labor party was to govern Australia until 1965.