The original inhabitants of Australia probably reached that continent from Southeast Asia by way of Indonesia some 12,000 years ago.  The \TAborigines\t were seminomadic hunter-gatherers, a way of life many of their descendants still follow today in the Outback.  When discovered in 1642 by the Dutch navigator Abel \TTasman\t, they were a Paleolithic people sustaining a meager livelihood in their vast, arid continent.  They remained undisturbed until rediscovered in 1770 by Capt. James \TCook\t, who charted part of the coastline and took possession of the eastern half of Australia for Britain on his first voyage around the world.

PENAL AND FREE COLONIES

The annexation was timely, because the British government soon began looking for an alternative penal settlement to the North American colonies that it lost in the American Revolution. Accordingly, Capt. Arthur \TPhillip\t was sent to establish a penal colony at \TBotany Bay\t. Landing on Jan. 26, 1788, Phillip actually built the settlement on the better site of Port Jackson (later \TSydney\t). He also opened a second post for transported convicts on Norfolk Island. In 1803, to forestall French designs, a further penal extension was made in Van Diemen's Land (\TTasmania\t). The early years were ones of great hardship and near starvation.

Australia was spared from being no more than a penal settlement by the introduction of fine wool sheep and the opening up of the western plains of \TNew South Wales\t. British policy broadened to allow emancipists (freed convicts), discharged prison guards, and free migrants to take up land. By the 1830s they had spilled over from Van Diemen's Land to the mainland to found the free settlement of \TVictoria\t, which became a separate colony in 1851. Meanwhile, in 1829 the convict-free British colony of \TWestern Australia\t was established on the Swan River and was rescued from mismanagement by the British government a few years later. In 1836 the colony of \TSouth Australia\t was formed on the principles of systematic colonization advocated by Edward Gibbon \TWakefield\t. It, too, fell into chaos and was saved only by official intervention and the stringent economies of Gov. George \TGrey\t. Prosperity was later assured by the introduction of wheat and a locally invented harvester.

In 1825 an expanding New South Wales established a separate penal colony at Moreton Bay (\TBrisbane\t); this became the capital of the new colony of \TQueensland\t in 1859. Squatters (illegal occupants of land) also opened up the Darling Downs in western New South Wales. By 1844 the free settlers of New South Wales forced the British to stop sending convicts. However, transportation to other penal colonies continued.

Apart from the widely separated colonies around its coasts, little was known of Australia until its interior began to be explored, especially after 1840. From then to the end of the century, many intrepid explorers such as Robert O'Hara \TBurke\t, Edward John \TEyre\t, John \TForrest\t, John McDouall \TStuart\t, Charles \TSturt\t, Thomas Livingstone Mitchell (1792-1855), and Ludwig Leichhardt (1813-48) trekked inland, often with camels, only to discover its barren, inhospitable, even forbidding nature. They found little to induce settlement beyond the eastern seaboard.

The discovery of gold in the 1850s, however, did lead to new settlement, as mining towns sprang up in New South Wales and Victoria. It also produced conflict--sometimes erupting into violence as in the miners' rebellion at Eureka, Victoria, in 1854--between the overbearing authoritarianism of the colonial governments and the radical political demands of the thousands of gold seekers from North America, the British Isles, and New Zealand. Consequently, empowered by the Australian Colonies Government Act of 1850, all colonies, except Western Australia, adopted representative and responsible forms of government by 1860.

This development accentuated separatism and parochialism as each colony adopted different railway gauges and tariff policies, making intercolonial communication and trade difficult. Common to all, however, was a growing demand by settlers and newcomers for land. This was often frustrated, not only by the intractable nature of the country, but also by the malpractices of squatters. However, employer-employee antagonism and a series of bitterly fought strikes in the growing industrial sector, prolonged drought, and the failure of many banks in the early 1890s ended an era of prodigal expenditure of men and money. Only Western Australia, through a timely discovery of gold at Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie, escaped the economic depression of the 1890s.

None suffered so grievously in these colonial years as did the Aborigines. Treated almost as animals, they were hunted down for preying on settlers' sheep and cattle. They were virtually annihilated in Van Diemen's Land and nearly so in Queensland.

Preoccupation with domestic problems, however, did not blind the eastern colonies to French and German activities in the South Pacific and more especially to the consequences of importation of cheap labor to replace freed convicts. The influx of thousands of Chinese to the gold fields to work for much less than standard wages gave rise to the alarmist cry of "Yellow peril" and a demand by the labor unions for a "White Australia" policy to exclude Asians.

FEDERATION

Common dangers from without and problems of division within fostered growing recognition of the need for colonial union. After several intercolonial conventions, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia federated in 1901 in the Commonwealth of Australia. The newly created \TNorthern Territory\t entered in 1911. The constitution provided for an elected Senate (Upper House) and House of Representatives with specified powers and left the residual powers to the states. With its capital first in Melbourne and later transferred (1927) to \TCanberra\t, the Commonwealth gave the former colonies what they wanted--union--but not unity.

The federal government quickly put into law (1901) the White Australia policy, thereby causing the repatriation of Pacific Islanders (Kanakas) employed in the Queensland sugarcane fields. It also established a common tariff policy, the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration (1904) for industrial arbitration, and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (1911). At the same time a growing sense of independence from Britain was reflected in the creation (1909) of a separate navy and the institution of compulsory military training.

At the outbreak of World War I, Prime Minister William M. \THughes\t pledged full support to Britain but failed to obtain referendum approval of conscription. Overseas Australian "diggers" served with distinction, especially in the ill-fated \TGallipoli campaign\t. Its sense of nationhood intensified by the war, Australia secured separate representation at the \TParis Peace Conference\t (1919-20) and independent membership in the \TLeague\t of \Lnation\ls. The league granted Australia a mandate over the former German New Guinea and a share in another mandate over the phosphate island of \TNauru\t.

At home, wartime demands had led to the development of heavy industries in the eastern states. In spite of labor troubles, with a flood of lockouts and strikes, the immediate postwar years were prosperous. High export prices for Australian wool, wheat, and meat supported large-scale public works and the absorption of 300,000 migrants into the work force. The federal government attempted to develop the Northern Territory, while the individual states promoted their separate development. In the 1930s Western Australia even indulged in a short-lived secession movement, and in New South Wales and Queensland abortive "new state" movements appeared.

But with a deterioration in trading conditions resulting from the worldwide \TDepression of the 1930s\t, centralist tendencies prevailed. The states looked to the federal government, which in 1928 had taken over their debts. All the governments adopted stringent deflationary policies. With a high level of unemployment, Australia sought desperately for new markets, which the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa (1932) only partly supplied.

By trial and error Australia was struggling out of the depression when war threatened in Europe. When World War II broke out in September 1939, the federal government offered Britain every assistance and mobilized its resources of people and materials. To aid the war effort, the states surrendered their taxing rights to the federal government and even refused to take them back after the war.

Soon after Australia entered the war, the Federal Labor party under John \TCurtin\t came to power. He guided the country through the war with great skill and determination. After the fall (Feb. 15, 1942) of the British naval base at Singapore to the Japanese and the consequent loss of 22,000 Australian troops as prisoners of war, Curtin insisted upon the return of troops from the Middle East to defend Australia and to assist the American forces stationed in Australia under Gen. Douglas \TMacArthur\t in their drive back through the Pacific islands to Japan. But it was undoubtedly the supremacy of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific that saved Australia from Japanese occupation.

AFTER WORLD WAR II

After the war, liberal reconstruction programs, which had been begun before the war ended, were extended to include land settlement as well as full employment and education for all ex-servicemen. In 1948, Labor Prime Minister Joseph Benedict \TChifley\t, having failed to nationalize trading banks and control rents and prices, abandoned all economic controls and introduced large-scale social welfare measures. Of great and lasting significance was the adoption (1946) by the federal government of a bold program to finance immigration to the country. As a result, over 4 million new Australians, nearly half from continental Europe, diversified and enriched the social life of the big cities especially and brought the population to more than 14.2 million by 1978. Beginning in 1956, the federal government also modified its White Australia policy to one of restricted immigration of Asians.

From 1949 to 1972 the government was a Liberal-Country party coalition, led until 1966 by Robert G. \TMenzies\t. This government initiated an extensive water conservation and hydroelectric venture in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, involving three states and taking more than 20 years to complete. Of even greater consequence for the Australian economy were the rich mineral discoveries. Silver, lead, and copper had long replaced gold as a major source of wealth, but in the 1960s the opening up of almost limitless supplies of iron ore in Western Australia, as well as nickel in Western Australia and bauxite (aluminum) in northern Queensland, changed the pattern of the economy and made Japan Australia's chief export market instead of Britain. The discovery of oil more recently and of natural gas in the Bass Strait is making Australia largely independent of overseas supplies.

Meanwhile, in 1972 the Labor party returned to power in Canberra with Gough \TWhitlam\t as prime minister.  However, Whitlam's attempt to speed up the economic development of the country through large foreign loans resulted in the dramatic downfall of his ministry.  In his eagerness to do too much too quickly, he spent lavishly and was accused of irregularities in his loan borrowing.  A hostile Senate refused to approve his budget and thus made it impossible for him to govern.  In December 1975, in an unprecedented and much criticized move, Governor-General Sir John \TKerr\t dismissed Whitlam and dissolved both houses of Parliament.  In the following elections the Liberal-Country party was easily returned to power under J. Malcolm \TFraser\t.  To reduce the alarming unemployment, rate of inflation, and overseas indebtedness he adopted a policy of retrenchment and economy.  Economic problems triggered by a worldwide recession, however, caused Fraser's Liberal-Country government to lose popular support.  In March 1983 it was replaced by a Labor government under Robert \THawke\t, which retained control in the elections of December 1984, July 1987, and March 1990.  Hawke was replaced as prime minister and leader of the Labor party by Paul Keating on Dec. 20, 1991.

Although the state governments have successfully resisted direct attempts by Labor especially to reduce their powers, their rights have been gradually, if subtly, eroded through encroachment by the federal government. With funds provided annually by the federal treasurer, they jealously exercise what powers they still have, especially those of education. Even here, the federal government has steadily made increasing grants, particularly toward higher education, to help support 19 universities throughout the Commonwealth.

In keeping with its egalitarian philosophy, the Labor government established a universal contributory system of social security and a voluntary health insurance plan (Medibank).  More significantly, it extended these programs to include the Aborigines, over whom the nation's conscience has become increasingly sensitive.  The federal government has also granted Aborigines the vote and social benefits, hitherto denied them, but it is still greatly uncertain as to how best to treat Australia's indigenous people.  Nevertheless, in 1971 an Aborigine became a senator, and in 1976 an Aboriginal state governor was appointed in South Australia.

In international affairs Australia has since World War II become acutely aware of its position and responsibilities. Having shed all its traditional ties with Britain, except that of limited appeal to the British privy council, it has become vigorously assertive of its newfound independence.  It prepared its mandated territory of Papua-New Guinea for independence in 1975 and plays an active role in Asian and Pacific affairs.

Australia has defense links with the United States (see \TAnzus Treaty\t) and New Zealand.  It also signed (1986) a treaty to establish a nuclear-free zone in the South Pacific.  In January 1988 the country celebrated its bicentennial.

E. J. Tapp

Bibliography:  Bassett, Jan, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Australian History (1985);  Bolton, G., et al., eds., The Oxford History of Australia, 5 vols.  (1987-88);  Carroll, John, Intruders in the Bush (1982);  Clark, Manning, A Short History of Australia (1964;  repr.  1987);  Dibb, Paul, ed., Australia's External Relations in the 1980s (1983);  Feeken, Erwin H., et al.  The Discovery and Exploration of Australia (1970);  Harris, Alexander, Settlers and Convicts, rev.  ed. (1969);  Hughes, Robert, The Fatal Shore (1987;  repr.  1988); Keneally, T., et al., Australia (1987);  O'Brien, Eris Michael, The Foundation of Australia (1937;  repr.  1950);  Pike, Douglas, Australia:  The Quiet Continent, 2d ed.  (1970); Powell, J.  M., An Historical Geography of Modern Australia (1988);  Shaw, Alan G.  The Story of Australia, 4th ed. (1972);  Ward, Russel, The History of Australia:  The Twentieth Century 1901-75 (1978).