AUSTRALIA

Australia is an Island Continent in the south-west Pacific.

Aborigines were the first inhabitants and it is thought they migrated from South-east Asia 50,000 years ago.

The first Europeans landed there were the Dutch in 1606 and record shows a ship Duyfken landed. It is also assumed that Portuguese explorers could have discovered Australia earlier. 

In 1770 Captain James Cook claimed it for the British; the eastern part of the continent, naming it New South Wales. It was turned into a penal colony in 1788. It was the first of several similar colonies where convicts were sent which in turn made a considerable contribution to the economic foundation of the country.

In the first half-century Australia was treated as an extensive jail.

From 1830 the Government aided free settler and the colonisation began. It helped the colony to develop and huge sheep farming for the wool industry were established. It also encouraged explorers who discovered a whole new world of unusual animals and flora not know before.

As always, settlers were given huge pieces of land and they accepted it as theirs. It led to a confrontation with Aborigines and at Myal Creek a massacre where white station hands killed 28 Aborigines in 1838.

The British-Australian Government denied for a long time that the Aborigines were there before the settlers. Only very recently they were acknowledged and recognised as the original settlers of Australia.

Other colonies were formed in Tasmania in 1825; Western Australia in 1829 and South Australia in 1836.

The convict transportation slowed down from 1840 and finally stopped in 1868.

The Gold Rush during the 1850s and 1860s brought new immigration to Australia which also encouraged exploration of the outback.

At the same time a WHITE AUSTRALIA POLICY began to prevent Asian workers to be taken on because of lower wage demand and outcast the white man. This policy lasted till the 1950s.

The colony self-governed as a Federation and became part of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The British monarch is represented by a Governor-General. The Prime Minister and Cabinet is drawn from the federal Parliament. The self-governing states have their own constitutions.

Australia played a very important part in both World Wars. After 1945 Australia developed a new mineral mining industry and it contributed largely to economic growth. It also strengthened its ties with South-east Asia. Through that came 4 million to the country

In recent decades some Australia's politicians are aiming to cut the ties with Britain and demanding to declare Australia a Republic.