ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF THE AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION - PART I

One hundred years ago, on 1 January 1901, the six Australian colonies became one federated country, Australia. Like the US, Australia was settled originally as a series of independent colonies, each with their separate governments. But unlikely the US they were all British.

The western coast of Australia could have been settled by the Dutch. The Dutch were the first explorers of western Australian but they decided that the land that they called New Holland was too hostile for white settlement.

The Dutch had already settled in the nearby islands of the Dutch East Indies, is today's Indonesia.

The first white settlement in Australia began on 26 January 1778, with the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships carrying settlers and convicts in what was later called Sydney Cove, New South Wales, under Captain Arthur Philip.

Arthur Philip became the first Governor of the colony of New South Wales. The name Australia did not come till later. The western part of the continent was still called New Holland and it was not known until later exploration whether New South Wales and New Holland were actually one country or two separate islands.

As time went on more and more immigrants came to Australia and the country was opened up to settlement after explorers showed the way. It was found that that it was one large island from New South Wales to New Holland inhabited by tribes of Aborigines throughout the land.

Each new settlement became a separate colony, Western Australia, Victoria, Van Dieman's Land (later Tasmania), South Australia, Queensland. These colonies had separate governments, separate railway line gauges, separate customs and armies.

After years of discussions, conventions between the colonies and the British government, the decision was made to declare a new federated independent country on 1 January 1901. These events leading up to this will be covered in a separate series of articles.

The governors of the separate colonies and future members of the new parliament and others laying the groundwork for the new nation and its constitution disagreed on a number of things, but one issue they all agree on: race. The new nation would be a white, Anglo-Saxon nation. Australia would be a land for the white man only in south-east Asia.

In the next article about federation will be The White Australia Policy, which will follow an article about Anzac Day.

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