NationStates Jolt Archive

The Dominion of Australia

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Contents
1. Introduction (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11615606&postcount=1)
2. Australian Politics and Economics (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11615610&postcount=2)
3. Australian Military Forces (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11615613&postcount=3)
4. Australian Geography (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11615633&postcount=4)
5. History of Australia (1788-1850) (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11615644&postcount=5)
6. History of Australia (1851-1900) (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11615659&postcount=6)
7. History of Australia (1901-present) (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11615685&postcount=7)



Overview
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the world's smallest continent and a number of islands in the Southern, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the French dependency of New Caledonia to the northeast, and New Zealand to the southeast.

The continent of Australia has been inhabited for more than 42,000 years by Indigenous Australians. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the north and by European explorers and merchants starting in the seventeenth century, the eastern half of the continent was claimed by the British in 1770 and officially settled through penal transportation as the colony of New South Wales on 26 January 1788. As the population grew and new areas were explored, another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies were successively established over the course of the nineteenth century.

On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed.


Origin and history of the name
The name Australia is derived from the Latin Australis, meaning of the South. Legends of an "unknown land of the south" (terra australis incognita) dating back to Roman times were commonplace in mediaeval geography, but they were not based on any actual knowledge of the continent. The Dutch adjectival form Australische was used by Dutch officials in Batavia to refer to the newly discovered land to the south as early as 1638. The first use of the word "Australia" in English was a 1693 translation of Les Aventures de Jacques Sadeur dans la Découverte et le Voyage de la Terre Australe, a 1692 French novel by Gabriel de Foigny under the pen name Jacques Sadeur.[2] Alexander Dalrymple then used it in An Historical Collection of Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean (1771), to refer to the entire South Pacific region. In 1793, George Shaw and Sir James Smith published Zoology and Botany of New Holland, in which they wrote of "the vast island, or rather continent, of Australia, Australasia or New Holland."

The name "Australia" was popularised by the 1814 work A Voyage to Terra Australis by the navigator Matthew Flinders who was the first person to circumnavigate Australia. Despite its title, which reflected the view of the Admiralty, Flinders used the word "Australia" in the book, which was widely read and gave the term general currency. Governor Lachlan Macquarie of New South Wales subsequently used the word in his dispatches to England. In 1817, he recommended that it be officially adopted. In 1824, the British Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia.

The word "Australia" in Australian English is pronounced as /ə.ˈstɹæɪ.ljə/, /ə.ˈstɹæɪ.liː.ə/ or /ə.ˈstɹæɪ.jə/.

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Economics
Population: 4 million
Tech level: 4
Production centers: 1 (Sydney 1)
Resources: 12 (Melbourne 6, Perth 6)
Food production: 32


Politics
Capital: Melbourne (temporary - City of Canberra under development)
Prime Minister: Alfred Deakin
Ruling Party: The Protectionist Party (supported by the Labor party)

The Dominion of Australia is a constitutional monarchy and has a parliamentary system of government. King of England is the King of Australia, a role that is distinct from his position as monarch of the other British Realms. The King is nominally represented by the Governor-General at Federal level and by the Governors at State level. Although the Constitution gives extensive executive powers to the Governor-General, these are normally exercised only on the advice of the Prime Minister.

There are three branches of government.

The legislature
The Parliament, comprising the King, the Senate, and the House of Representatives; the King is represented by the Governor-General, who in practice only exercises constitutional power on the advice of the Prime Minister.

The Executive
The Federal Executive Council (the Governor-General as advised by the Executive Councillors); in practice, the councillors are the Prime Minister and Ministers of State.

The Judiciary
The High Court of Australia and other federal courts. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The bicameral Commonwealth Parliament consists of the King, the Senate (the upper house) of 72 senators, and a House of Representatives (the lower house) of 150 members. Members of the lower house are elected from single-member constituencies, commonly known as 'electorates' or 'seats'. Seats in the House of Representatives are allocated to states on the basis of population. In the Senate, each state, regardless of population, is represented by 12 senators. Elections for both chambers are held every three years; typically only half of the Senate seats are put to each election, because senators have overlapping six-year terms. The party with majority support in the House of Representatives forms Government, with its leader becoming Prime Minister.

There are three major political parties: The Protectionist Party, The Labor Party and The Free Trade Party.


States of Australia
Australia consists of six states and other minor territories. The states are New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. Federal legislation overrides state legislation with respect to certain areas as set out in Section 51 of the Constitution; all residual legislative powers are retained by the state parliaments, including powers over hospitals, education, police, the judiciary, roads, public transport and local government.

Each state has its own legislature. The lower house is known as the Legislative Assembly (House of Assembly in South Australia and Tasmania) and the upper house is known as the Legislative Council. The heads of the governments in each state and territory are called premiers and chief ministers, respectively. The King is represented in each state by a governor.

Australia also has several minor territories; Australia has the following, inhabited, external territories: Norfolk Island, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and several largely uninhabited external territories: Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Coral Sea Islands, Heard Island and the McDonald Islands.

ARMY
Regular forces:
1 garrison division (0.25) units/yr - Covers all of Australia

Reserve forces:
1 reserve infantry corps (0.125) units/yr - Rally point is Melbourne
1 reserve cavalry corps (0.25) units/yr - Rally point is Melbourne

NAVY
Colonial Combined Fleet
1 Gunboat flotilla (GB) (10 ships - tech 4) (0.10) units/yr - Based in Melbourne
Torpedo boat flotilla (TB) (20 ships - tech 4) (0.10) units/yr - Based in Melbourne

Royal Australian Navy
1 Battlecruiser (BC) (0.25) units/yr
HMAS Australia - tech 5 (Coal) - Based in Sydney

5 Light Cruisers (CL) (0.50) units/yr
HMAS Sydney - tech 5 - Based in Sydney
HMAS Melbourne - tech 5 - Based in Sydney
HMAS Brisbane - tech 5 - Based in Sydney
HMAS Perth - tech 5 - Based in Perth
HMAS Fremantle - tech 5 - Based in Perth

1 Submarine flotilla (SSK) (20 submarines - tech 5) (0.25) units/yr - Based in Sydney
1 Destroyer flotilla (DD) (20 destroyers - tech 5) (0.25) units/yr - Based in Sydney
1 Escort flotilla (CE) (20 submarine chasers or corvettes - tech 5) (0.10) units/yr - Based in Sydney
1 Transport group (represents 85 transport ships or 500,000 tons of shipping - tech 5) (0.25) units/yr - Based in Melbourne

Physical geography
Australia is a continent in Oceania located between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean at 27° S 144° E. It is the sixth largest country in the world with a total area of 7,686,850 square kilometres (2,967,909 sq. mi) (including Lord Howe Island and Macquarie Island), making it slightly smaller than the contiguous 48 states of the United States and 31.5 times bigger than the United Kingdom.

Australia has a total 25,760 kilometres (16,007 mi) of coastline and claims an extensive Exclusive Economic Zone of 8,148,250 square kilometres (3,146,057 sq. mi). It has no land borders.

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Continent
Australia

Region
Oceania

Coordinates
27° S 144° E

Area
7,686,850 km² (2,967,909.38 miles²)
99% land
1% water

Coastline
25,760 km (16,006.5 miles)

Highest point
Mount Kosciuszko
2,228 m (7,309.7 ft)

Lowest point
Lake Eyre
-15 m (82 ft)

Longest river
Murray River

Largest lake
Lake Eyre


Geology
Australia has had a relatively stable geological history. Geological forces such as Tectonic uplift of mountain ranges or clashes between tectonic plates occurred mainly in Australia's early history, when it was still a part of Gondwana. Erosion and weathering have heavily weathered Australia's surface and it is one of the flattest countries in the world.

Australia is situated in the middle of the tectonic plate, and therefore has no active volcanism, although it may sometimes receive minor earthquakes. The terrain is mostly heavily weathered, low plateau with deserts, rangelands and a fertile plain in the southeast. Tasmania and the Australian Alps do not contain any permanent icefields or glaciers, although they may have existed in the past. The Great Barrier Reef, by far the world's largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north-east coast. Mount Augustus, in Western Australia, is the largest monolith in the world.


Hydrology
The Great Artesian Basin - an important source of water, it is the world's largest and deepest fresh water basin.


Climate
By far the largest part of Australia is desert or semi-arid – 40% of the landmass is covered by sand dunes. Only the south-east and south-west corners have a temperate climate and moderately fertile soil. The northern part of the country has a tropical climate: part is tropical rainforests, part grasslands, and part desert.

Rainfall is highly variable, with frequent droughts lasting several seasons. Occasionally a duststorm will blanket a region or even several states and there are reports of the occasional large tornado.

Australia's tropical/subtropical location and cold waters off the western coast make most of western Australia a hot desert with aridity, a marked feature of greater part of the continent. These cold waters produce precious little moisture needed on the mainland.

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Natural hazards
Cyclones along the northern coasts; severe thunderstorms, droughts and occasional floods; frequent bushfires.

The history of Australia from 1788-1850 covers the early colonies period of Australia's history, from the first English settlement and penal colony at Port Jackson in 1788 to the establishment of other colonies and the spread of settlers.


Colonisation and convictism
After the loss of the United States, Britain needed alternative destination to take the population of its overcrowded prisons (full mainly due to the unemployment created by the Industrial Revolution). Sir Joseph Banks, the eminent scientist who had accompanied Cook on his 1770 voyage, recommended Botany Bay as a suitable site. In 1787 the First Fleet of 11 ships and about 1350 people under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip set sail for Botany Bay. On arrival, Botany Bay was considered unsuitable and on January 26, 1788—a date now celebrated as Australia Day—a landing was made at the nearby Sydney Cove. Phillip named the settlement after Thomas Townshend, 1st Baron Sydney (Viscount Sydney from 1789), the Home Secretary. The new colony was formally proclaimed as the Colony of New South Wales on February 7.

January 26, 1788 was also the date that the French expedition of two ships led by Admiral Jean-François de La Pérouse arrived off Botany Bay and Sydney Cove. Though amicably received, the other expedition was a troublesome matter for the English, as it showed the interest of France in the new land. The French expedition could not be given food from the meagre English fleet, but took on water and wood and departed, not to be seen again. La Perouse is remembered in a Sydney suburb of that name. Various other French geographical names along the Australian coast also date from this expedition.

In 1792 two French ships, La Recherche and L'Espérance anchored in a harbour near Tasmania's southernmost point they called Recherche Bay. This was at a time when Britain and France were vying to be the first to discover and colonise Australia. The expedition carried scientists and cartographers, gardeners, artists and hydrographers - who, variously, planted, identified, mapped, marked, recording and documenting the environment and the people of the new lands that they encountered at the behest of the fledging Société D'Histoire Naturelle.

European settlement began with a troupe of convicts, guarded by second-rate soldiers. One in three convicts was Irish, about a fifth of whom were transported in connection with the political and agrarian disturbances common in Ireland at the time. While the settlers were reasonably well-equipped, little consideration had been given to the skills required to make the colony self-supporting - few of the convicts had farming or trade experience (nor did the soldiers, for that matter), and the lack of understanding of Australia's seasonal patterns saw initial attempts at farming fail, leaving only what animals and birds the soldiers were able to shoot. The colony nearly starved, and Phillip was forced to send a ship to Batavia for supplies. Some relief arrived with the Second Fleet in 1790, but life was extremely hard for the first few years of the colony.

Convicts were usually sentenced to seven or fourteen years' penal servitude, or "for the term of their natural lives". Often these sentences were commuted from the death sentence, which was technically the punishment for a wide variety of crimes. Upon arrival in a penal colony, convicts would be assigned to various kinds of work. Those with trades were given tasks to fit their skills (stonemasons, for example, were in very high demand) while the unskilled were assigned to work gangs to build roads and do other such tasks. Female convicts were usually assigned as domestic servants to the free settlers. Where possible, convicts were assigned to free settlers who would be responsible for feeding and disciplining them; in return for this, the settlers were granted land. This system reduced the workload on the central administration. Those convicts who weren't assigned to settlers were housed at barracks such as the Hyde Park Barracks or the Parramatta Female Factory.

Convict discipline was harsh, convicts who would not work or who disobeyed orders were punished by flogging, being put in stricter confinement (eg leg-irons), or being transported to a stricter penal colony. The penal colonies at Port Arthur and Moreton Bay, for instance, were stricter than the one at Sydney, and the one at Norfolk Island was strictest of all.. Convicts were assigned to work gangs to build roads, buildings, and the like. Female convicts, who made up 20% of the convict population, were usually assigned as domestic help to soldiers. Those convicts who behaved were eventually issued with tickets-of-leave, which allowed them a certain degree of freedom. Those who saw out their full sentences or were granted a pardon usually remained in Australia as free settlers, and were able to take on convict servants themselves.

By 1790 a convict, James Ruse, had begun to successfully farm near Parramatta, the first successful farming enterprise, and he was soon joined by others. The colony began to grow enough food to support itself, and the standard of living for the residents gradually improved.

The Castle Hill convict rebellion
In 1804 the Castle Hill convict rebellion was led by around 200 escaped, mostly Irish convicts, although it was broken up quickly by the New South Wales Corps. On the 26th of January 1808, there was a military rebellion against Governor Bligh led by John Macarthur. Following this, Governor Lachlan Macquarie was given a mandate to restore government and discipline in the colony. When he arrived in 1810, he forcibly deported the NSW Corps and brought the 73rd regiment to replace them.


Land exploration
The opening up of the interior to European settlement occurred gradually throughout the colonial period, and a number of these explorers are very well known. Burke and Wills are the best known for their tragic deaths in the crossing of the interior of Australia from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Such men as Hamilton Hume and Charles Sturt are also notable. Other notable events include the crossing of the Blue Mountains led by Gregory Blaxland in 1813. He was accompanied by William Lawson, William Wentworth and four servants.

In 1829-30, Charles Sturt performed an expedition that found the junction of the Murray and the Darling before continuing on to the mouth of the Murray. This expedition also led to the opening of South Australia to settlement.

The Second Fleet in 1790 brought to Sydney two men who were to play important roles in the colony's future. One was William Wentworth, who as well as being an explorer founded Australia's first newspaper and became a leader of the movement to abolish convict transportation and establish representative government. The other was John Macarthur, a Scottish officer (and a distant relative of General Douglas MacArthur), one of the founders of the Australian wool industry, which laid the foundations of Australia's future prosperity. Macarthur was a turbulent element: in 1808 he was one of the leaders of the Rum Rebellion against the governor, William Bligh.

From about 1815 the colony, under the governorship of Lachlan Macquarie, began to grow rapidly as free settlers arrived and new lands were opened up for farming. Despite the long and arduous sea voyage, settlers were attracted by the prospect of making a new life on virtually free Crown land. From the late 1820s settlement was only authorised in the limits of location, known as the Nineteen Counties. Many settlers occupied land without authority and beyond these authorised settlement limits: they were known as squatters and became the basis of a powerful landowning class. As a result of opposition from the labouring and artisan classes, transportation of convicts to Sydney ended in 1840, although it continued in the smaller colonies of Van Diemen's Land (first settled in 1803) and Moreton Bay (founded 1824, and later renamed Queensland) for a few years more. The Swan River Settlement (as Western Australia was originally known), centred on Perth, was founded in 1829. The colony suffered from a long term shortage of labour, and by 1850 local capitalists had succeeded in persuading London to send convicts. (Transportation did not end until 1868.)

Each colony was governed by a British Governor appointed by the English monarch. Most of the administration of the early colonies was done by the military. The military in charge of the colony of New South Wales were known as the Rum Corps on account of their stranglehold on the distribution of Rum, the main currency in the colony at the time. There was considerable unhappiness with the way some of the colonies were run. In New South Wales this led to the Rum Rebellion.


Economy and trade of the period
The colonies relied heavily on imports from England for survival. The official currency of the colonies was the British pound, but the unofficial currency and most readily accepted trade good was rum. During this period Australian businessmen began to prosper. For example, the partnership of Berry and Wollstonecraft made enormous profits by means of land grants, convict labour, and exporting native cedar back to England.


Religion, education, and culture
As a British colony, the predominant Christian denomination was the Church of England, however the high proportion of Irish convicts meant that Catholicism was also widely practiced. There were presumably also Dissenters, Methodists, and so forth.

Education was informal, primarily occurring in the home.

Some Australian folksongs date to this period.

A number of early Australians wrote about their experiences, but these were mostly intended for the English audience.

The first Australian theatre was opened in Sydney in 1796.

The history of Australia from 1851 - 1900 continues Australia's colonial history, the discovery of gold in 1851 which led to increased economic and political independence from Britain and a great debate about federation.


Gold rushes
The discovery of gold, beginning in 1851 first at Bathurst in New South Wales and then in the newly formed colony of Victoria, transformed Australia economically, politically and demographically. The goldrushes occurred hard on the heels of a major worldwide economic depression. As a result, about two per cent of the population of Britain and Ireland emigrated to NSW and Victoria during the 1850s. There were also large numbers of continental Europeans, North Americans and Chinese. Gold produced sudden wealth for a few, and some of Australia's oldest wealthy families date their fortunes from this period, but also employment and modest prosperity for many more. Within a few years these new settlers outnumbered the convicts and ex-convicts, and they began to demand trial by jury, representative government, a free press and the other symbols of liberty and democracy.

Contrary to popular myth, there was little opposition to these demands from the colonial governors or the Colonial Office in London, although there was some from the squatters. New South Wales had already had a partly elected Legislative Council since 1825. The Eureka Stockade, an armed protest by miners on the Victorian goldfields, and the debate that followed, served as a significant impetus for democratising reforms. In 1855 New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania (as Van Diemen's Land was renamed) were granted full responsible government, with bicameral parliaments in which the lower houses were fully elected. The upper houses (Legislative Councils) remained dominated by government appointees and representatives of the squatters, worried that the radical democrats might try to seize their vast sheep-runs. Their fears were partly justified, with the Selection Acts of the 1860s, in particular the Robertson Land Acts of 1861, beginning the slow breakup of the squattocracy in Australia's more settled areas.

The gold rushes and the rapid expansion in settlement which followed were a catastrophe for the indigenous Australians. Between first European contact and the early years of the 20th century, the Aboriginal population dropped from an estimated 500,000 to about one tenth of that number (50,000). Many were killed outright with gun or poison, a great many more were starved to death by European conquest of their lands, but by far the most significant killer was European disease. Smallpox, measles, and influenza were major killers, many others added their toll - for a people without the thousands of years of genetically evolved resistance to diseases that Europeans had, even chickenpox was deadly. Of the 90% of the Aboriginal population that died out as a result of European contact, it is estimated that around 80 or 90% of the deaths were the result of disease, and reasonable to suppose that the worst-hit peoples were the ones that lived in the most fertile areas, where population densities were highest.


Booms, depressions and trade unions
The rapid economic expansion which followed the gold rushes produced a period of prosperity which lasted forty years, culminating in the great Land Boom of the 1880s. Melbourne in particular grew rapidly, becoming Australia's largest city and for a while the second-largest city in the British Empire: its grand Victorian buildings are a lasting reminder of the period. The traditional craft of Stonemasons in Melbourne were the first organised workers in the Australian labour movement and in the world to win an eight-hour day in 1856. Melbourne Trades Hall was opened in 1859 with Trades and Labour Councils and Trades Halls opening in all cities and most regional towns in the following forty years. During the 1880s Trade unions developed among shearers, miners, and stevedores (wharf workers), but soon spread to cover almost all blue-collar jobs. Shortages of labour led to high wages for a prosperous skilled working class, whose unions demanded and got an eight-hour day and other benefits unheard of in Europe. Australia gained a reputation as "the working man's paradise." Some employers tried to undercut the unions by importing Chinese labour. This produced a reaction which led to all the colonies restricting Chinese and other Asian immigration. This was the foundation of the White Australia Policy. The "Australian compact", based around centralised industrial arbitration, a degree of government assistance particularly for primary industries, and White Australia, was to continue for many years before gradually dissolving in the second half of the 20th century.

The Great Boom could not last forever, and in 1891 it gave way to the Great Crash, a decade-long depression which created high unemployment, and ruined many businesses, and the employers responded by driving down wages. The unions responded with a series of strikes, particularly the bitter and prolonged 1890 Australian Maritime Dispute and the 1891 and 1894 shearers strikes. The colonial ministries, made up for the most part of liberals whom the unions had long seen as allies, turned sharply against the workers and there were a series of bloody confrontations, particularly in the pastoral areas of Queensland. The unions reacted to these defeats and what they saw as betrayals by liberal politicians by forming their own political parties within their respective colonies, the forerunners of the Australian Labor Party. These parties achieved rapid success: in 1899 Queensland saw the world's first Labour Party parliamentary government, the Dawson Government, which held office for six days.

The industrial struggles of the 1890s produced a new strain of Australian radicalism and nationalism, exemplified in the Sydney-based magazine The Bulletin, under its legendary editor J F Archibald. Writers such as A B "Banjo" Paterson, Henry Lawson and (a little later) Vance and Nettie Palmer and Mary Gilmour promoted socialism, republicanism and Australian independence. This newfound Australian consciousness also gave birth to a profound racism, against Chinese, Japanese and Indian immigrants. Attitudes towards indigenous Australians during the period varied from the outright armed hostility seen in earlier times to a paternalistic "smoothing the pillow" policy, designed to "civilise" the last remnants of what was seen as a dying race (see White Man's Burden).


The push for federation
A serious movement for federation of the colonies arose in the late 1880s, at a time when there was increasing nationalism amongst Australians, the great majority of whom were native born. The idea of being "Australian" began to be celebrated in songs and poems. This was fostered by improvements in transport and communications, such as the establishment of a telegraph between the colonies in 1872. The Australian colonies were also influenced by other federations which had emerged around the world, notably the United States, Canada and Switzerland.

The 1890s depression (the most severe Australia had ever faced) made the inefficiencies of the six colonies seem ever more ridiculous, and, particularly in border areas, a push for an Australian Federation began. Other motives for Federation were the need for a common immigration policy (Queensland was busy importing indentured workers from New Caledonia, known as Kanakas, to work in the sugar industry: both the unions and the other colonies strongly opposed this), and fear of the other European powers, France and Germany, who were expanding into the region. British military leaders such as Horatio Kitchener urged Australia to create a national army and navy: this obviously required a federal government. It was also no coincidence that in the 1890s for the first time the majority of Australians, the children of the gold rush immigrants, were Australian-born.

The New South Wales Premier, Sir Henry Parkes, was the initial leader of the federation movement, but the other colonies tended to see it as a plot for New South Wales dominance, and an initial attempt to approve a federal constitution in 1891 failed. The cause was then taken up the Australian Natives Association and younger politicians such as Alfred Deakin and Edmund Barton. Following a federalist convention in Corowa in 1893, the colonies agreed to hold elections for a Federal Convention, which met in various cities in 1897 and 1898. A draft Constitution, largely written by the Queensland judge Sir Samuel Griffith was approved, and was put to referendums in the colonies in 1899 and 1900. New South Wales voters rejected the draft because it gave too much power to the smaller colonies, but eventually a compromise was reached.

Discussions between Australian and British representatives led to adoption by the British Government of an act to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia late in 1900. The Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, nearly derailed the whole process by insisting that British courts retain their jurisdiction over Australia. The Australians eventually reluctantly agreed to this. Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom gave her royal assent to the act on July 9 creating the Commonwealth and thus uniting the separate colonies on the continent under one federal government. The act came into effect on January 1, 1901.

The history of Australia from 1901 onwards begins with the federation of the colonies to create the Commonwealth of Australia.


Federation
The beginning of the twentieth century saw the final result of nearly two decades of negotiations with regard to federation, 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 creation of one federal Australian state as of January 1, 1901.

Melbourne was chosen as the temporary seat of government while a purpose-designed capital city, Canberra, was constructed. The Duke of York, opened the first Parliament of Australia on May 9, 1901.


The early 20th century
The first federal elections in March 1901 saw a Parliament elected in which none of the three parties has a majority in either House. Edmund Barton formed a Protectionist Party government supported by Labor, with George Reid's Free Trade Party in opposition. The Barton government, which was succeeded by the Deakin government in 1902 enacted much fundamental legislation, as well as turning the White Australia Policy into law.

In 1909 the Protectionists and Free Traders merged to form the Commonwealth Liberal Party, but this was not enough to prevent Labor coming to power under Andrew Fisher in 1910. Labor returned to power in 1913, and seemed set to become Australia's dominant political party.