User:Aemilius Adolphin/History of Australia Draft

History

Colonial era

The colony of New South Wales (NSW) established by Britain in 1788 included more than half of mainland Australia and all of modern Tasmania. Separate colonies were later established: Van Diemen's Land (1825, renamed Tasmania in 1856); Western Australia (1829); South Australia (1836); Victoria (1851); and Queensland (1859).

The government of NSW was initially in the hands of Governors who were responsible to the British Colonial Office. The first representative body for a colony was an expanded NSW Legislative Council established in 1842. The Council had 36 members, of which 12 were appointed by the Governor and the remainder were elected. The right to vote was limited to adult men with a freehold valued at £200 or a householder paying rent of £20 per year. The property qualification meant that only 20 per cent of males were eligible to vote in the first Legislative Council elections in 1843.

In 1850, the imperial parliament passed the Australian Colonies Government Act, granting Van Diemen's Land, South Australia and the newly-created colony of Victoria semi-elected Legislative Councils on the New South Wales model. The Act also reduced the property requirement for voting. Government officials were to be responsible to the governor rather than the Legislative Council, so the imperial legislation provided for limited representative government rather than responsible government.

In 1852, the British Government invited the eastern colonies to draft constitutions enabling responsible self-government. The constitutions for New South Wales, Victoria and Van Diemen's Land (renamed Tasmania in 1856) gained Royal Assent in 1855, that for South Australia in 1856. The constitutions varied, but each created a lower house elected on a broad male franchise and an upper house which was either appointed for life (New South Wales) or elected on a more restricted property franchise. When Queensland became a separate colony in 1859 it immediately became self-governing, adopting the constitution of New South Wales. Western Australia was granted self-government in 1890.

The secret ballot, adopted in Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia in 1856, followed by New South Wales (1858), Queensland (1859) and Western Australia (1877). South Australia introduced universal male suffrage for its lower house in 1856, followed by Victoria in 1857, New South Wales (1858), Queensland (1872), Western Australia (1893) and Tasmania (1900). Queensland excluded Aboriginal males from voting in 1885 (all women were also excluded). In Western Australia, where all women were excluded from voting, a property qualification for voting existed for male Aboriginals, Asians, Africans and people of mixed descent.

Societies to promote women's suffrage were formed in Victoria in 1884, South Australia in 1888 and New South Wales in 1891. The Women's Christian Temperance Union also established branches in most Australian colonies in the 1880s, promoting votes for women and a range of social causes. Female suffrage, and the right to stand for office, was first won in South Australia in 1895. Women won the vote in Western Australia in 1900, although there were racial restrictions. Women in the remainder of Australia only won full rights to vote and to stand for elected office in the decade after Federation, although there were some racial restrictions.

The colony of New South Wales

Main article: History of Australia (1788–1850)

Establishment of colony 1788 to 1792

The colony of New South Wales established by Britain in 1788 included all of Australia eastward of the meridian of 135° East, which was more than half of mainland Australia and all of modern Tasmania. Governor Phillip was vested with complete authority over the inhabitants of the colony.

In 1825 the western boundary of New South Wales was extended to longitude 129° East, which is the current boundary of Western Australia. As a result, the territory of New South Wales reached its greatest extent, covering the area of the modern state as well as modern Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

Van Diemen's Land (from 1856, Tasmania) became a separate colony from New South Wales in December 1825.

In 1851 the Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales as the colony of Victoria.

In 1827, Major Edmund Lockyer, formally annexed the western third of the continent as a British colony. In 1829 the Swan River colony was established at the sites of modern Fremantle and Perth.

The Province of South Australia was established in 1836. In 1851, the colony achieved limited self-government with a partially elected Legislative Council.

In 1859 the colony of Queensland seprated from NSW.

Towards representative government

Imperial legislation in 1823 had provided for a Legislative Council nominated by the governor of New South Wales, and a new Supreme Court, providing additional limits to the power of governors. A number of prominent colonial figures, including William Wentworth. campaigned for a greater degree of self-government, although there were divisions about the extent to which a future legislative body should be popularly elected. Other major issues in the public debate about colonial self-government were traditional British political rights, land policy, transportation and whether colonies with a large population of convicts and former convicts could be trusted with self-government. The Australian Patriotic Association was formed in 1835 by Wentworth and William Bland to promote representative government for New South Wales.

The British government abolished transportation to New South Wales in 1840, and in 1842 granted limited representative government to the colony by establishing a reformed Legislative Council with one-third of its members appointed by the governor and two-thirds elected by male voters who met a property qualification. The property qualification meant that only 20 per cent of males were eligible to vote in the first Legislative Council elections in 1843.

The increasing immigration of free settlers, the declining number of convicts, and the growing middle class and working class population led to further agitation for liberal and democratic reforms. Public meetings in Adelaide in 1844 called for more representative government for South Australia. The Constitutional Association, formed in Sydney in 1848, called for manhood suffrage. The Anti-Transportation League, founded in Van Diemen's Land in 1849, also demanded more representative government. In the Port Phillip District, agitation for representative government was closely linked to demands for independence from New South Wales.

In 1850, the imperial parliament passed the Australian Colonies Government Act, granting Van Diemen's Land, South Australia and the newly-created colony of Victoria semi-elected Legislative Councils on the New South Wales model. The Act also reduced the property requirement for voting. Government officials were to be responsible to the governor rather than the Legislative Council, so the imperial legislation provided for limited representative government rather than responsible government.

Self-government and democracy

Elections for the semi-representative Legislative Councils, held in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Van Diemen's Land in 1851, produced a greater number of liberal members. That year, the New South Wales Legislative Council petitioned the British Government requesting self-government for the colony. The Anti-Transportation League also saw the convict system as a barrier to the achievement of self-government. In 1852, the British Government announced that convict transportation to Van Diemen's Land would cease and invited the eastern colonies to draft constitutions enabling responsible self-government. The Secretary of State cited the social and economic transformation of the colonies following the discoveries of gold as one of the factors making self-government feasible.

The constitutions for New South Wales, Victoria and Van Diemen's Land (renamed Tasmania in 1856) gained Royal Assent in 1855, that for South Australia in 1856. The constitutions varied, but each created a lower house elected on a broad male franchise and an upper house which was either appointed for life (New South Wales) or elected on a more restricted property franchise. Britain retained its right of veto over legislation regarding matters of imperial interest. When Queensland became a separate colony in 1859 it immediately became self-governing, adopting the constitution of New South Wales. Western Australia was granted self-government in 1890.

The secret ballot, adopted in Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia in 1856, followed by New South Wales (1858), Queensland (1859) and Western Australia (1877). South Australia introduced universal male suffrage for its lower house in 1856, followed by Victoria in 1857, New South Wales (1858), Queensland (1872), Western Australia (1893) and Tasmania (1900). Queensland excluded Aboriginal males from voting in 1885 (all women were also excluded). In Western Australia, where all women were disenfranchised, a property qualification for voting existed for male Aboriginals, Asians, Africans and people of mixed descent.

Societies to promote women's suffrage were formed in Victoria in 1884, South Australia in 1888 and New South Wales in 1891. The Women's Christian Temperance Union also established branches in most Australian colonies in the 1880s, promoting votes for women and a range of social causes. Female suffrage, and the right to stand for office, was first won in South Australia in 1895. Women won the vote in Western Australia in 1900, with some restrictions based on race. Women in the remainder of Australia only won full rights to vote and to stand for elected office in the decade after Federation, although there were some racial restrictions.

History

Parliament House, Canberra

Upon British settlement in New South Wales in 1788, the appointed Governors had autocratic powers within the colony, but agitation for representative government began soon after the settlement. A legislative body, the New South Wales Legislative Council, was created in 1825, which was an appointed body whose function was to advise the Governor. On 24 August 1824, 5 members were appointed to the Council, which increased to 7 members in 1825, and between 10 and 15 in 1829. Also in 1829, British sovereignty was extended to cover the whole of Australia, and everyone born in Australia, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, became British subjects by birth.

The first parliamentary elections in Australia took place in 1843 for the New South Wales Legislative Council under the New South Wales Constitution Act 1842 (UK). [Source doesn't say this.] The Council had 36 members, of which 12 were appointed by the Governor and the remainder were elected. The right to vote was limited to adult men with a freehold valued at £200 or a householder paying rent of £20 per year, both very large sums at the time.

Responsible self-government was granted to Tasmania (1 May 1855), South Australia (24 June 1856), New South Wales and Victoria (16 July 1855), [source doesn't say this, p. 99 refers to constitutional self-government. Use Macintyre 2020 pp 99-100 and use term constitutional self-government] Queensland (6 June 1859) and Western Australia in 1890. Eligibility to vote was restricted and varied between the colonies based on age, gender, and property ownership. Most of the colonies included indigenous men in the right to vote but they were not encouraged to enroll. Queensland and Western Australia denied indigenous people the vote. [unsourced. delete or merge.]

An innovative secret ballot was introduced in Tasmania on 4 February 1856, Victoria (13 March 1856), South Australia (12 February 1856), New South Wales (1858), Queensland (1859) and Western Australia (1877). A form of postal voting was introduced in Western Australia in 1877, followed by an improved method in South Australia in 1890.

In 1856, under a new Constitution, the New South Wales Parliament became bicameral with a fully elected Legislative Assembly and a fully appointed Legislative Council with a Government taking over most of the legislative powers of the Governor. On 22 May 1856, the newly constituted New South Wales Parliament opened and sat for the first time. The right to vote for Legislative Assembly was extended to all adult males in 1858. [Confusing, repeated information]

All women in South Australia were granted the right to vote in South Australian elections in 1894, followed by women in Western Australia in 1899.

In 1901, the six Australian colonies united to form the federal Commonwealth of Australia. The first election for the Commonwealth Parliament in 1901 was based on the electoral laws at that time of the six colonies, so that those who had the right to vote and to stand for Parliament at state level had the same rights for the 1901 Australian federal election. Only in South Australia (since 1895) and Western Australia (since 1899) did women have a vote. Tasmania retained a small property qualification for voting, but in the other states all male British subjects over 21 could vote. Only in South Australia (which included the Northern Territory) and Tasmania were Indigenous Australians entitled to vote. In some areas of South Australia the Aboriginal vote may have influenced the poll outcome. Western Australia and Queensland specifically barred indigenous people from voting.

In 1902, the Commonwealth Parliament passed the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902, which established a uniform franchise law for the federal Parliament. The Act declared that all British subjects over the age of 21 years who had been living in Australia for at least 6 months were entitled to a vote, whether male or female, and whether married or single. Besides granting Australian women the right to vote at a national level, it also allowed them to stand for election to federal Parliament. This meant that Australia was the second country, after New Zealand, to grant women's suffrage at a national level, and the first country to allow women to stand for Parliament. However, the Act also disqualified Indigenous people from Australia, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands, with the exception of Māori, from voting, even though they were British subjects and otherwise entitled to a vote. By this provision, Indian people, for example, were disqualified to vote. The only exception was in relation to those who were entitled under Section 41 of the Australian Constitution to a vote. Section 41 states that any individual who has gained a right to vote at a state level, must also have the right to vote in federal elections. The then Solicitor-General, Robert Garran, interpreted the provision to mean that Commonwealth voting rights were granted by section 41 only to people who were already State voters in 1902. The effect was not to enable those who subsequently acquired the right to vote at a State level, but who were expressly excluded from the franchise by the 1902 Act, such as Indigenous Australians, to also vote at the federal level. Also, those otherwise entitled voters who are subject to a crime which carries a penalty of over one year in prison are disqualified to vote. There was also no representation for any of the territories of Australia.

In the meantime, State franchise laws continued in force until each one chose to amend them.

In 1897, in South Australia, Catherine Helen Spence was the first woman to stand as a political candidate. The restrictions on voting by indigenous Australians were relaxed after World War II, and removed by the Commonwealth Electoral Act in 1962. Senator Neville Bonner became the first Aboriginal Australian to sit in the federal Parliament in 1971. Julia Gillard became the first female Prime Minister of Australia in 2010.

Male suffrage

Boyle Travers Finniss became the first Premier of South Australia in 1856 - and the first leader of an Australian colonial parliament elected by universal male suffrage.

The first European-style governments established after 1788 were autocratic and run by appointed governors - although English law was transplanted into the Australian colonies by virtue of the doctrine of reception, thus notions of the rights and processes established by the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights 1689 were brought from Britain by the colonists. Agitation for representative government began soon after the settlement of the colonies.

Adelaide City Council was established in 1840 and the City of Sydney in 1842. The right to stand for election was limited to men who possessed £1000 worth of property and wealthy landowners were permitted up to four votes each in elections.

In 1835, William Wentworth had established the Australian Patriotic Association which agitated for representative government for New South Wales and a broad franchise, a goal at least partially achieved in 1842. Despite opposition from conservative free settlers in the colony, who sought representative government but emancipists being disenfranchised, the colony's constitution of 1842 gave to emancipists the same political rights as free settlers, but which was subject to a property test. The right to vote was limited to men with a freehold valued at £200 or a householder paying rent of £20 per year, both very large sums at the time. Australia's first parliamentary elections were conducted for the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1843. Voter rights were extended in New South Wales in 1850 and elections for legislative councils were held in the colonies of Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.

By the mid 19th century, there was a strong desire for representative and responsible government in the Australian colonies, fed by the democratic spirit of the goldfields evident at the Eureka Rebellion and the ideas of the great reform movements sweeping Europe, the United States and the British Empire, such as Chartism. The end of convict transportation accelerated reform in the 1840s and 1850s. The Australian Colonies Government Act [1850] was a landmark development which granted representative constitutions to New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania and the colonies enthusiastically set about writing constitutions which produced democratically progressive parliaments - though the constitutions generally maintained the role of the colonial upper houses as representative of social and economic "interests" and all established Constitutional Monarchies with the British monarch as the symbolic head of state. In 1856 South Australia granted the right to vote to all male British subjects (a term which extended to Indigenous males) 21 years or over however eligibility to vote for the upper House continued to have property restrictions. This right was extended to Victoria in 1857 and New South Wales the following year. The other colonies followed until, in 1900, Tasmania became the last colony to grant universal male suffrage, though some colonies explicitly excluded Indigenous males from the vote.

Female suffrage

Main article: Women's suffrage in Australia

South Australian suffragette Catherine Helen Spence (1825–1910). South Australian women achieved the right to vote and stand for parliament in 1895.

The female descendants of the Bounty mutineers who lived on Pitcairn Islands could vote from 1838, and this right transferred with their resettlement to Norfolk Island (now an Australian external territory) in 1856.

Propertied women in the colony of South Australia were granted the vote in local municipal elections (but not parliamentary elections) in 1861. Henrietta Dugdale formed the first Australian women's suffrage society in Melbourne, Victoria in 1884. Women in the other colonies soon followed forming their own societies. The international Women's Christian Temperance Union set up Womanhood Suffrage departments in each colony. The suffrage groups collected monster suffrage petitions to submit to the colonial parliaments, with varying success. For Queensland's three petitions, one for women and a second for men were collected in 1894, and a third arranged by the WCTU in 1897. Women in South Australia and the Northern Territory became eligible to vote for the Parliament of South Australia following passage of the Women's Suffrage Bill in December 1894 and receiving Royal assent in 1895. In 1897, Catherine Helen Spence became the first female political candidate for political office, unsuccessfully standing for election as a delegate to Federal Convention on Australian Federation. Western Australia granted voting rights to women in 1899.

The first election for the Parliament of the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 was based on the electoral provisions of the six pre-existing colonies, so that women who had the vote and the right to stand for Parliament at state level, namely South Australia and Western Australia, had the same voting rights for the 1901 Australian federal election. The Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 set uniform rules across Australia, and gave all women the right to vote and stand for election for federal Parliament. Four women stood at the 1903 federal election, all of whom stood as independents and all of whom were unsuccessful. The Act did, however, specifically exclude "natives" from Commonwealth franchise unless already enrolled in a state at the time. The other states followed suit granting women over 21 the vote soon after: New South Wales in 1902, Tasmania in 1903, Queensland in 1905 and Victoria in 1908, the last state to do so.

The year in which women obtained the right to vote in Australia are summarised as follows:

Female suffrage

	Right to vote	Right to stand for Parliament
South Australia	1895	1895
Western Australia	1899	1920
Canberra (Commonwealth)	1902	1902
New South Wales	1902	1918
Tasmania	1903	1921
Queensland	1905	1915
Victoria	1908	1923

Women's participation in local government in Australia

	Right to vote (a)	Right to stand	First elected
State
South Australia	1861	1914	1919, Grace Benny
Western Australia	1876	1919	1920, Elizabeth Clapham
Victoria	1903	1914	1920, Mary Rogers
Queensland	1879	1920	1923, Ellen Kent Hughes
City of Brisbane	1924	1924	1949, Petronel White
Tasmania
Rural	1893	1911	1957, Florence Vivien Pendrigh
Hobart City Council	1893	1902	1952, Mabel Miller
Launceston City Council	1894	1945	1950, Dorothy Edwards
New South Wales
Sydney City Council	1900	1918	1965, Joan Mercia Pilone
Municipalities and Shires	1906	1918	1928, Lilian Fowler
(a)The right to vote in local elections was not necessarily universal since there were property ownership restrictions on the right to vote in many local jurisdictions.

Indigenous Australians

Main article: Voting rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

Further information: Maori voting rights in Australia

Traditional Aboriginal society had been governed by councils of elders and a corporate decision making process. Indigenous Australians began to be enfranchised within Parliamentary systems of the Australian colonies during the 1850s. However, the granting of voting rights was uneven and restricted altogether in some colonies (and later states). Vestigial legal discrimination against Indigenous voters was removed in the 1960s.

When the colonial constitutions of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania were framed in the 1850s, voting rights were granted to all male British subjects over the age of 21, which included Aboriginal men. A few may have done so in South Australia. Western Australia and Queensland specifically barred indigenous people from voting. However, few Indigenous Australians were aware of their rights and hence very few participated in elections. The situation became murkier when the Commonwealth Franchise Act was passed in 1902. The Act gave women a vote in federal elections but Aboriginal people and people from Asia, Africa or the Pacific Islands (except for Māori) were excluded unless entitled under Section 41 of the Australian Constitution. Section 41 states that any individual who has gained a right to vote at a state level, must also have the right to vote in federal elections. The Solicitor-General, Sir Robert Garran, interpreted it to mean that Commonwealth rights were granted only to people who were already State voters in 1902. What transpired was a situation where Aboriginals who had already enrolled to vote were able to continue to do so, whereas those who had not were denied the right. This interpretation was challenged in Victoria in 1924 by an Indian migrant, where the magistrate ruled that Section 2 meant that people who acquired State votes at any date were entitled to a Commonwealth vote. The Commonwealth government in 1925 changed the law to give natives of British India living in Australia the vote (there were only about 100 in Australia at the time), but continued to deny other non-white applicants.

Campaigns for indigenous civil rights in Australia gathered momentum from the 1930s. In 1938, with the participation of leading indigenous activists like Douglas Nicholls, the Australian Aborigines' League organised the "Day of Mourning", which marked in protest the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet to the Australian continent and launched its campaign for full civil rights for all Aboriginal Autralians. In the 1940s, the conditions of life for Aboriginals could be very poor. A permit system restricted movement and work opportunities for many Aboriginal people. In the 1950s, the government pursued a policy of "assimilation" which sought to achieve full civil rights for Aboriginal but also wanted them to adopt the mode of life of other Australians (which very often was assumed to require suppression of cultural identity).

In 1949, the right to vote in federal elections was extended to all Indigenous people who had served in the armed forces, or were enrolled to vote in state elections (Queensland and Western Australia still excluded indigenous people from the vote). Remaining federal restrictions were abolished in 1962, though enrolment was voluntary.

In the 1960s, reflecting the strong civil rights movements in the United States and South Africa, many changes in Aboriginals’ rights and treatment followed, including removal of restrictions on voting rights. The Menzies government Commonwealth Electoral Act of 1962 confirmed the Commonwealth vote for all Aboriginals. Western Australia gave them State votes in the same year, and Queensland followed in 1965.

The 1967 referendum was held and electors overwhelmingly approved the amendment of the Constitution to remove discriminatory references and giving the national parliament the power to legislate specifically for Indigenous Australians. Contrary to frequently repeated mythology, this referendum did not cover citizenship for Indigenous people, nor did it give them the vote: they already had both. However, transferring this power away from the State parliaments did bring an end to the system of Indigenous Australian reserves which existed in each state, which allowed Indigenous people to move more freely, and exercise many of their citizenship rights for the first time. From the late 1960s a movement for Indigenous land rights also developed. In the mid 1960s, one of the earliest Aboriginal graduates from the University of Sydney, Charles Perkins, helped organise freedom rides into parts of Australia to expose discrimination and inequality. In 1966, the Gurindji people of Wave Hill station (owned by the Vestey Group) commenced strike action led by Vincent Lingiari in a quest for equal pay and recognition of land rights.

Indigenous Australians began to take up representation in Australian parliaments during the 1970s. In 1971 Neville Bonner of the Liberal Party was appointed by the Queensland Parliament to replace a retiring senator, becoming the first Aborigine in Federal Parliament. Bonner was returned as a Senator at the 1972 election and remained until 1983. Hyacinth Tungutalum of the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory and Eric Deeral of the National Party of Queensland, became the first Indigenous people elected to territory and state legislatures in 1974. In 1976, Sir Douglas Nicholls was appointed Governor of South Australia, becoming the first Aborigine to hold vice-regal office in Australia. Aden Ridgeway of the Australian Democrats served as a senator during the 1990s, but no indigenous person was elected to the House of Representatives, until West Australian Liberal Ken Wyatt, in August 2010.

Junk

In 1879 Alexander Forrest trekked from the north coast of Western Australia to the Overland Telegraph, discovering land suitable for grazing in the Kimberley region.