Federation
Australia became an independent nation on 1 January 1901 when the British Parliament passed legislation allowing the six Australian colonies to govern in their own right as part of the Commonwealth of Australia. Before the federation there was six colonies: New South Whales, Van Diemen's land, Queensland, Western Australia, The Port Phillip District (Victoria) and South Australia. Like with the decision to settle Australia in the first place, the decision to federate had many benefits, such as the idea of having a national defense. Before federation every colony had their own small defense force with different rules and ideas. If Australia was to federate and become a single nation they would have a national defense force, with greater numbers, weapons and ideals. Tariffs had a big factor in the decision for Australia to become a nation. Tariffs are taxes placed on imported goods and services. In the 19th century that meant that any good or service that came from another colony cost extra for consumers to buy. If a Victorian wanted to buy an item that came from New South Wales, it would cost more than an identical item that was made in Victoria. The Governments' of each colony did this for two reasons; one was to make money from goods and services coming from other colonies and two, was so local goods and services would be used more giving that colony more wealth from their economy. With a single nation only goods and services coming from other countries would have tariffs added to them. That pleased a lot of people since they would have wider range of goods and services offered to them and around the same price. But some people were for tariffs since it kept their business running. A individual and unified nation would give people more opportunities than they would have before. The federation of Australia was such an important issue at the time for many reasons some of which are like the ones mentioned before. The achievement of federation succeeded through two referendums; one in 1898 and the other in 1899. In the 1898 referendum in order for the change of constitution to be passed basically all the colonies except for New South Wales needed a majority of its population to be vote 'Yes'. New South Wales however needed 80,000 people to vote 'Yes' in order for it to passed there. Unfortunately only 71,595 people from New South wales voted 'Yes'. One of the main reasons why New South Wales was partly against the federation was because they understood it as that if they joined in all of their wealth and resources would have to be shared with the other colonies. When it was time for the second referendum in 1899, after a few changes were made to the constitution in order to please all the colonies. During this referendum all the colonies except for Western Australia voted 'Yes'. They were less supportive because of the fact that they were a smaller population, there was no transport that connected them to the other colonies and most of all they feared that if Australia had a federal parliament, Western Australia's interests would be submerged by those of the bigger colonies. The other colonies went on nevertheless and in 1900 the representatives for Australia's new parliament went to Britain to have the constitution approved by their government. The other colonies were so confident that Western Australia would wan't to be part of this new nation and news came through when the representatives were in Britain that they did want be part of it. On January 1st 1901 Australia was officially a federation. That was one of Australia most important historical events that shaped who we are. We still remember the federation to this day. For the 100th anniversary of the federation, Federation square in the city was built in celebration.
|