Australia

Federal Republic of Australia (English)

ᨔᨄᨒᨀ ᨒ ᨎᨀᨐᨇᨅᨇ (Maregean)

Wénga ang Marigi

Flag of Australia

10.3% Guri

9.8% Muri

7% Nyungar

5.6% Maregean

4% Yura

2.5% Yamatji

2% Anangu

1% Palawa

1.6% Other

9.1% Catholicism

8.7% Hinduism

7% Vajrayana Buddhism

5.6% Mahayana Buddhism

1% Other

**Australia** (Maregean: ᨎᨀᨐᨇᨅᨇ *Marigi*), officially the **Federal Republic of Australia** (Maregean: ᨔᨄᨒᨀ ᨒ ᨎᨀᨐᨇᨅᨇ *Wènga ang Marigi*), is a country spanning the planet’s largest island. It shares maritime borders with Papua, Aotearoa, Kanaky & Vanuatu. It’s capital is in Kurrajong, and it has a population of 51.8 million people. It is Oceania’s largest power in terms of economics, political influence & culture, and is also one of Asia's regional powers.

## History

Aboriginal Australians first arrived on the Australian mainland by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago, and penetrated to all parts of the continent, from the rainforests in the north, the deserts of central Australia. The indigenous Australians also survived unscathed while the dark-skinned inhabitants of Nusantara, Maharlika & Malaya got assimilated by the Austronesian population. The Austronesian inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands came into their present-day area around 3,000 years ago.

Sometime around the year 800, the first polities emerged in the present-day Marege and New Holland states. Among these polities were the Noongar State (Noongar: *Yagan Karlupgur*), a state based in Pindjalup, the predecessor to modern Boorloo. It was the earliest known polity in use of advanced weapons (of that time period). Another known polity was that of Eora, based in present-day Sydney, who were able to expand out of their small homeland.

The polities of Australia were unknown to much of the world, give exception to the Papuans across the Torres Strait. By the 1250’s however, this changed when Buginese and Makassarese Hindu-Buddhist traders got lost and ended up in Marege instead of Timor and Ambon respectively. They accidentally exposed the local Yolngu people to sicknesses they were immune to, causing many polities to collapse and many to die. An upside to the arrival of Nusantarans came in the form of stilt-houses, advanced agriculture, and boats. This allowed the people of Marege to trade with the Nusantarans.

By the year 1314, it became clear to the government of Majapahit that it was time to invade Marege, given as they could not take Kra from Siam or the multiple allied states of Maharlika. Under the queenship of Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi, the Majapahit Empire led an invasion of Marege from their home island of Java, as well as Bali and Sakasanusa, known as the Majapahit Conquest of Marege. This conquest resulted in the incorporation of current-day Marege and Pilbara into their sphere of influence, and a few citizens of Majapahit were sent here as colonizers.

The occupation of Marege would continue until the collapse of the Majapahits. The influence of Nusantara would continue well after the fall of the Majapahit Empire, with visits from later polities such as the Sunda, Java and Balinese kingdoms and especially the Gowa Rajhanate. Until the colonial period, Hinduism and Buddhism were the foremost religions in Australia, slowly spreading from the Marege area into present-day Pilbara, Anangu and Carpentaria.

The Majapahit citizens that were left in the region would eventually develop into today's Maregeans, who are an Austronesian group. Their language, Maregean slowly became a lingua franca across the island, incorporating many aboriginal words in it's vocabulary. The continued arrival of Nusantaran immigrants began to influence the area so much to the point that there were more of them than the aboriginals in Marege. By the late 1500's, Hindusim and Buddhism had made it's way to present day Carpentaria, Anangu and Pindjalup.

In 1644, the Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman arrived in Pindjalup, making him the first European man to visit the island. He called the area New Holland (Dutch: *Nieuw Holland*), after the region in the Netherlands. Initial contact with the Noongar people was friendly, as Dutch ships began arriving in the 1650’s and 1660’s. However, conflicts over resources and conflicts with the Noongars and the Malpa, Ngatjumai and the Kalaamaya later on hindered efforts to expand. The Dutch colony was incorporated in 1676, and had a population of 7,800 Dutch people, and small groups of Flemings, Germans and Danes.

Later on during the 1770’s, the British Empire sailed to Australia, landing in Botany Bay after hearing of the Dutch colony in the area. As the Britons landed, they encountered the Eora-populated State of Illawara, the first state that the British would encounter. They were surprised that they spoke "corrupted Malay". Botany Bay became the first British settlement on the island, becoming the capital of the established Crown Colony of Australia. The area was also the site of the creation of Australia’s first western colony, the Colony of New South Wales. Overtime, more colonies would be created, such as Victoria, Queensland and Coonawarra.

During the British annexation of the Cape, and the later Boer Republics, at least 4,000 Afrikaners fled to New Holland, where they would be known as *Australiëns*. Unbeknownst to them however, the New Holland colony was also to be ceded to Britain, and the Dutch colony became the Yaghan Colony. The populace of Marege knew they were next, though they did not have the respective firearms and vehicles to attempt to seriously combat the British Empire. Marege, similarly to New Holland also became a colony of Britain. The six Australian colonies were among the first political entities in the world to grant universal manhood suffrage, during campaigns in the 1850's for suffrage amongst men and female suffrage in the 1890s.

Up until independence in 1901, a series of gold rushes struck the colony of Victoria. Much of this gold, however was located mostly on indigenous land. Resulting hostilities resulted in the deaths of 250,000 aboriginals and 90,000 whites. During the chaos of the gold rush, at least 750,000 immigrants from Britain and Ireland arrived in the two colonies in search of gold, and while wages doubled during this period, it was still hard to find work as many left for the gold mines. Elsewhere, similar but smaller gold rushes occured in New Holland, and this lead to the displacement of much more groups with exception of the Noongar.

At the beginning of the 20th century, nearly two decades of negotiations on Federation concluded with the approval of a federal constitution by all six Australian colonies and its subsequent ratification by the British parliament in 1900. This resulted in the political integration of the six Australian colonies into one federated Australian Commonwealth, formally proclaimed on 1 January 1901. After WW1, the Australian delegation, led by Prime Minister Hughes, wanted reparations and the annexation of German New Guinea. With the annexation of the New Guinea colony, human rights activists began to show concern for the treatment of the New Guineans as well as the native Australians.

The country originally pleaded for neutrality in WW2, though this would change in 1941 as a result of resentment to the treatment of Maharlika and Americans in it under the invading Japanese forces. On 19 February, Garmalang suffered a devastating air raid, the first time the Australian mainland had ever been attacked by enemy forces, which killed over 1,000. Over the following 19 months, Australia was attacked from the air almost 100 times. The Japanese attempted to get the Marageans to ally with them, setting up a precedent that they would be treated better than under the Britons. This was of course was a lie, seeing the punishment of the Nusantarans under the Japanese.

During the 1960's, the Australian government began a series of programs known as the *Development Clause* (Maregean: ᨒᨀᨆᨀᨉᨄ ᨔᨀᨅᨇᨊᨀᨉ *Ngahaké Wagilak*), in order to intergrate the growing indigenous population into the economy, and development of aboriginal languages, culture, rights and religion. This program began with a special meeting in Kurrajong by President Robert Menzies and several other politicians and aboriginal rights activists about the living conditions of the aboriginals in the country. During the 1970's the country received it's first major waves of non-European immigration with the arrival of 170,000 Vietnamese people fleeing their country due to the Vietnamese Civil War.

During much of the 1970's, while the Development Clause met some success, the aboriginal population was still marginalized in terms of personal and workplace security. In addition to this, Hinduism and Buddhism, the two religions followed by most aboriginal people did not receive any protection at federal-government level. In order to bring more attention to this, Vincent Gough organized a workers strike in Mataranka, Marege known as the Gurundji Strike. The strike lasted 1 year and 58 days starting on November 13, 1976, ending with with the federal government adopting new laws to protect the rights of the aboriginals.

The Black Saturday bushfires struck Victoria on and around Saturday 7 February 2009. The fires occurred during extreme bushfire-weather conditions, and resulted in Australia's highest ever loss of life from a bushfire, with 173 casualties. The last months of 2019 and into early 2020 were also marked by intense bushfires on the east coast that became known as the "Black Summer". The fires directly killed 34 people. Approximately 9,352 buildings were destroyed. The fires are very likely Australia's costliest natural disaster at about A$100 billion.

## Politics

The country is governed as a federal parliamentary republic, where federal legislative power is vested in the Parliament of Australia and the Federal Council, which are seated in Kurrajong. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, while it is common for leading members of the executive to be members of the legislature as well. The system of government is based off of the 1942 Australian Constitution, though with significant changes throughout the country's history. The Legislature makes the laws, and supervises the activities of the other two arms with a view to changing the laws when appropriate.

It is bicameral, and consists of the 114-member Parliament, and the 226-member Federal Council. Senators from each state are elected for six-year terms, using proportional representation and the single transferable vote, known in Australia as "quota-preferential voting". The members of the Federal Council are elected by majority-preferential voting using the non-proportional Instant-runoff voting system from single-member constituencies allocated among the states. The president, the prime minister and the cabinet are responsible to the Parliament, of which they must, in most circumstances, be members. General elections are held at least once every three years. The current president is Bill Shorten, and the current prime minister is Anthony Albanese.

The country is among the best performing in the world in terms of human rights. Universal voting rights and rights to freedom of association, freedom of and from religion and freedom from discrimination are protected in Australia. The Australian colonies were among the first political entities in the world to grant universal manhood suffrage (1850's and female suffrage in the 1890s). The country was also one of the first to legalize same-sex marriage, doing do in 2009. Historically, the colonies did not give access to basic rights for the aboriginal population for much of it's colonial history, and a few post-independence politicians have actively denied histoical mistreatment. By the 1910's however, they earned full suffrage for men & women.

Australia is governed by 12 states, including the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), which acts as a state, and a district. These states are further divided into regions, which are divided into municipalities. The most populous of these states is Eora, while the least populous is Anangu. Most states were from the colonial period, though New Holland is derived from a former Dutch colony. The states of Pilbara, Anangu & Carpentaria are more recently created states, carved from New Holland, Marege & Meanjin respectively. The former colony of New South Wales was split into Eora, Illawara and Murray-Darling.

Over recent decades, Australia's foreign relations have been driven by a close association with the United States through the AUOUS pact, and by a desire to develop relationships with Asia and the Pacific, particularly through Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Pacific Islands Forum and the Pacific Community, of which Australia is a founding member. A founding member country of the United Nations, Australia is strongly committed to multilateralism and maintains an international aid program under which some 60 countries receive assistance.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia and its national interests. It consists of the Australian Navy (AN), Australian Army, Australian Air Force (AAF) and several "tri-service" units. The ADF has a strength of just over 85,000 full-time personnel and active reservists and is supported by the Department of Defence and several other civilian agencies. During the first decades of the 20th century, the Australian Government established the armed services as separate organisations. In 1976, the government made a strategic change and established the ADF to place the services under a single headquarters.

## Geography & Nature

The geography of Australia encompasses a wide variety of biogeographic regions being the world's smallest continent, while comprising the territory of the sixth-largest country in the world. The population of Australia is concentrated along the eastern and south-eastern coasts. The geography of the continent is extremely diverse, ranging from the snow-capped mountains of the Australian Alps and Tasmania to large deserts, tropical and temperate forests, grasslands, heathlands and woodlands.

The southern and southwestern coasts of Australia are warm, with a Mediterranean climate. This region is known as the Nullarbor, which encompasses parts of Pindjalup, most of Coonawarra, and western Eureka. This region contains most of the largest natural-forming lakes in the entire country, including Lake Eyre, Lake Gairdiner, Lake Arabuna, and Lake Munda. The Murray River flows through this region, providing much needed water to the city of Tarndanyanga. The Coonawarra wine region, for which the state takes it's name from is located entirely within this region. The region contains much of New Holland, which is one of the largest agricultural areas in the country.

The arid northwest and central regions, known as the Pilbara are known for being some of the hottest regions on the planet, often reaching 30-40 degrees. This region, while containing much significance for the aboriginal and Maregean populations, has the smallest populations in the entire country due to it's generally barely habitable nature. The region also contains many distinctive red-coloured deserts, including the Kogara Desert, the Wati Desert and the Tanami Desert. These deserts contain much of the country's earliest signs of inhabitation, especially at Juukan Gorge, and immense mineral wealth. The government of Australia has been criticized for not doing enough to protect this region from large corporations.

The region directly north of the Tanami desert is known as the Top End, being the northernmost point of the country. It corresponds to the Kakadu region (Maregean: ᨉᨀᨉᨀᨂᨓ), which is a large savanna grassland. The savanna-grasslands contain many diverse species of plants and animals, and the Tiwi Islands. The region was the first inhabited one in all of Australia. To the east of it is the Cape York region, which is much wetter being a rainforest, and containing the offshore Great Barrier Reef (Maregean: ᨒᨇᨔᨄ *The Reef*). This reef is considered the single largest reed in the world, and is thus heavily protected.

To the south of the Cape York region is the historical Yarra & New South Wales regions, named after the two first British colonies in the country. The regions are both very wet regions, receiving 78 inches of rainfall a year. However, this region is also known to be vulnerable to mild overgrazing and wildfires, which have mostly occured in this region. Despite holding almost 27.2 million people (34 million with Meanjin) in it’s territory, it is considered one of the least polluted and cleanest places on Earth. Though it is often considered it’s own region, Meanjin, including the city of Brisbane, is sometimes placed with the Yarra & NSW geographical regions. It is split by the Snowy Mountains, known as the Australian Alps due to it being the only place naturally-occuring snow appears in the country.

To the direct south of Melbourne is the island of Lutruwita, historically known as Van Diemen’s Land. It is a medium-sized hilly island centered around it’s Lyon Ranges, which average at 1,500 metres in height. Despite it’s soil quality being average, Lutruwita is the country’s second largest producer of apples, and largest producer of cabbages. Geographically and genetically isolated, Lutruwita is known for its unique flora and fauna such as the recently-revived Lutruwitan Tiger, which went “extinct” in the 1960’s.

## Demographics

As of 2025, the country had nearly 51.8 million inhabitants, which makes it the largest country in the Pacific region by population, though is not considered very populous in the greater Asia-Pacific region. The growth rate is 0.7% a year, which is low compared to the growth rates of other Asia-Pacific countries. The country is highly urbanized, with an urban population of 83.4%, the highest in Oceania. The country’s largest city proper is Sydney, with a proper population of 10.5 million, and nearly 13.4 million people in the greater Sydney metropole.

The two official languages are English, a colonial-era language spoken by the whites, and Maregean, a trade language spoken by the Maregeans and most aboriginals. There are also two official scripts, English and Lontara, introduced from Nusantara after Marege was conquered by the Majapahit Empire. After that, the most spoken languages are the Eora language at 230,000 speakers, Noongar at 178,000 and Watanangu, a creole language at 115,000. Mandarin and Vietnamese are the most widely spoken besides indigenous languages and English.

With it’s large population, the island is home to many ethnic groups and groupings. Of the non-indigenous groups, the Whites, mostly English, descended make up 38.5% of the populace, or 19.9 million. The Austronesian population, mostly made up of Maregeans make up 5.6%, or 1.9 million. Together, along with other non-indigenous groups such as Asians, make up 48.7% of the population, or 25.2 million. Historically, these people held the most power in Australian society, especially the colonial whites, who held the most power in the past, and still do to this day. Most white people in the country descend from England, though there are also Scots, Irish, Germans and Dutch mixed in.

The indigenous population numbers 51.3% of the population, or 26.5 million people. They are somewhat related to the Melanesians of Papua, especially the people of the Thurday Islands. The groups number in the hundreds, from small groups like the Warlpiri (22,000 members) to the Eora (1.2 million). These groups are categorized under largers groups, such as the Nyungar, Yamatji, Yura Palawa, Paman, Anangu, Guri, Muri and Kuri. The largest of these groups are the Kuri, at 14% of the national population, or 7.2 million people, mostly concentrated in Eora and parts of Illawara. Historically, the mistratement of the aboriginals led to health problems, some of which persist today.

Religion wise, most of the country does not follow a religion, with 47.3% being atheist, making it one of the most secular countries on earth. 21.3% of the population follows Protestantism, the most for any religion in Australia. 9.1% is Catholic, 8.7% of the population follows Hinduism, 7% follows Vajrayana Buddhism and lastly, 5.6% follows Mahayana Buddhism. 1% of the population follows other beliefs, such as the traditional Aboriginal religions, or Taoism. Most Hinduism and budhism followers are aboriginal, though there are also South Asian and East Asian members.