Australia was part of the British empire from 1788 until 1901. In this project I am going to research the history of Australia as a British colony. The research I am going to do is about the following topics:
- Why Great Britain wanted Australia as a colony?
- How did Great Britain rule the country?
- How did Australia become independent?
Australia is the biggest country in the continent Oceania and it has a lot of different landscapes including mountains. The original inhabitants of Australia moved from south east Asia circa 65,000 years ago and they are called Aboriginal Australians. The country is surrounded by the Indian and Pacific Ocean. The Arafura and Timor seas separates Australia from Asia and then you have the Tasman Sea situated between New Zealand and Australia. The fact that Australia is surrounded by water benefited the United Kingdom because the country is easy to protect and difficult for other counties to conquer the country.
When a fleet from New South Wales found Australia it was an untouched and empty continent where Great Britain could occupy the East coast without opposition. The first European who came to Australia was a Dutch navigator named Willem Janszoon. He reached the country in 1606 but later in 1770 was the country was explored by a British man named James Cook. The Eeast coast of Australia was claimed by South Wales in 1788 and that is how the British empire could use Australia as a place to send criminals. The criminals who had to go to the penal colony had to work from sunrise to sunset to punish them. Later there were a lot of people who left Great Britain and moved to Australia because there was more space and more opportunities in the agricultural industries that brought prosperity.
The country became popular after 1851 when a prospector found gold in the country. He discovered some flecks in a waterhole near Bathurst. After that more gold was found in the state Victoria this resulted in the Australian Golf Rush, that effected the national identity of Australia. In the same years there were a lot of people who moved to the gold fields in Australia. Most people were British but some people were prospectors from the USA, Germany or immigrants from China. The wages in the region around Victoria doubled but it was hard to find workers because people were only at the fields to seek their own fortune in the gold fields. Those people were called ‘diggers’.
Australia at that time was a federal parliamentary democracy and in constitutional monarchy with Great Britain under king Charles the III. A federal state consist of a central government and a few subdivisions. These have all their own parliament and their own government. Australia became a colony of the British empire it was ruled by George the III. He ruled the country until a Canadian governor-general Lord Durham published a report about giving colonies their own government who is responsible for the country. In 1842 the penal colony was ruled by a governor who works with an legislative council. In the late 1840s was the Australia ruled by a direct government through governors from the appointed council.
The Australian Colonies Government Act of 1850 brought a new colony in the south-eastern part of Australia. Victoria was created by a majority-elected legislative council. More councils were incorporated in other parts of the colony and it also split the north side of the New South Wales what created the state Queensland. That created a new colony with a responsible government. Constitutions were made to take of a responsible government to its particular legislature in every colony in Australia. The parliament of the British empire accepted those measures in 1855.
In the year 1901 Australia became an independent country after the British empire agreed with the federal foundation and became a self-governing dominion of the British Empire. The six original self-governing colonies (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia) got together to form the Commonwealth of Australia. This was after the Australian Constitution was accepted by the United Kingdom. This happened on the 1st January 1901 and is called Federation day. This day is also known the day of independent Australia.
Whilst Australia did become nominally independent in 1901, Londen still had the control over substantial legislative powers and the British empire had stil impact om Australia’s foreign policy. Before the Federation the colonies were ruled by agent-generals in London who headed up an overseas government office. That is why every state had their own distinct representation to create structures.
The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act from 1900 said that through this act, the British Government still had the power to conduct foreign relations for the Australian Commonwealth. In the declaration it also controlled stated that the United Kingdom and their dominions were equal in status of matters of internal and external affairs. Australia had a Commonwealth with the British empire who had controls the foreign policy. This was from the Federation until the Second World War. After that time was Australia took care of their own external affairs. Those cases went from trade and immigration to conventional diplomatic autonomy that is ruled by the country is own government.
Australia is still part of the United Kingdom but the country is fully independent and the country has everything that a country needs. Anthony Albanese is president of Australia since 2022 and he is the one who rules the country with the government of Australia.
This was my project about Australia as a colony of the British empire. Thank you for reading this project.
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