The National Culture of Australian Federation

On the 29 April 1770a sailor/explorer named James Cook set sail on an island called New Holland or what’s now known as Australia with more than 1480 men which are prisoners that Britain did not have any cells for them, on the 3th of June 1790 the second fleet arrived which was consisted of six ships carrying 226 female convicts on board. On 1 January 1901, the Australian Federation started, there were many reasons for Australia to become a federation some of them are national pride, the impact of gold, the development of Australian culture, the idea of a United Australia and free trade.

The Australian identity slowly started during the 19th century. In the beginning, all the British immigrants were dreaming of the day they go back to their homeland, even though the houses, food, culture, customs, clothes etc in Australia were closely modelled to Britain. Slowly the thoughts of being a proud Australia started to merge into ex-convicts, people started building up the idea about the Australian federation a quote from Henry Parkes saying ''With our splendid harbour, our beautifully situated city, our vast territories, all our varied and inexhaustible natural wealth, if we don't convert our colony into a great and prosperous nation, it will be a miracle of error for which we shall have to answer as for a gigantic sin”.

Get quality help now

Prof. Finch

Verified writer

Proficient in: Australia

4.7 (346)

“ This writer never make an mistake for me always deliver long before due date. Am telling you man this writer is absolutely the best. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

All of the talks about the Australian federation started a new culture called the Australian culture. The Australian culture started a new sport called Australian Football League or what’s better known as AFL Australians also played cricket.

The Australian culture was similar to the British culture and beliefs as that’s what all the people were originally from. During the 1940s until the 1960s people from all over the world started migrating to Australia and that’s how Australia became this free multicultural land. On 1 January 1901 all the Australian colonies accepted to become a federation except Western Australia, however, the other colonies did not go down and started the federation without Western Australia, on 31 July 1900 Western Australia accepted the federation idea and joined in late.

The discovery of gold in Australia was during the 19th century, then the discovery of gold made Melbourne one of the richest cities in the British Empire. Although the discovery of gold helped to lay the foundation of the Australian federation it also had a huge negative impact on the aboriginal people and gold Seekers from China, as aboriginal people were moved away from the land and had all their cultural buildings/areas slowly destroyed as the British started looking for more gold and the Chinese gold seekers got lots of hatred and violence from the British. The first piece of gold was found around 1823, the amount discovered was quite small and was on government-owned land, this means that the gold should have been given to the government. However, in April 1851 an Author named Edward Hargreaves found gold on unclaimed land, later on the New South Wales government rewarded him with £10000 for his great discovery. He then immediately announced his discovery to the newspaper and the Australian gold rush began. A quote from the queen about the Australian gold rush “Her Majesty's forces were this morning fired upon by a large body of evilly-disposed persons” (Government Notice, Ballarat, 3 December 1854). Before the Australian colonies became one trades of goods between each day colony cost money and each colony made a higher price to reach the goal which is to become the richest colony. It also made it difficult to transport goods between colonies as train would delay at the border and the railway were different sizes.

Mary Lee is a feminist born on the 14th of February 1821. She had seven kids. When one of her sons became ill she sailed from Ireland to Adelaide to take care of him, she remained there and started campaigning for women’s writes. Her first achievement was to make it illegal for men to have any type of sexual activity with women under the age of sixteen. A quote from Christina Stead ''Women have been brought up much like slaves, that is, to lie.''. Thomas Bavin was a lawyer and a politician who became premier of New South Wales from 1927 to 1930. He was born on the 15th of may 1874 in New Zealand and arrived in Australia at the age of 15 where he studied law at the University of Sydney got married and had three daughters. He died on 31 August 1941 from cancer.

Australia becoming a federation had its positives and negatives, some positives of Australia becoming federation is the royal Australian army or what’s known now as the ADF- Australia Defence Force while before federation each colony had its small army, trades between colonies became easier and free of charge, travailing between states is free, taxes are fair and equal in all states, more employments around the nation, migration to Australia is slightly reduced because all states have to follow the same rule. Some negatives about becoming a federation are fearing that communication between England the mother will be cut, states having debates about who has the most power, states disagreeing with other states.

Overall the Australian federation has gone through its ups and downs and is still standing strong to this day.