Australia

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The continent of Australia (roughly equal in size to the continent of North America), was 'discovered' by a number of explorers before James Cook in 1770.

Some historians claim that it is at least possible that Marco Polo visited Aussie shores, but it is definitely known that Dutch Navigator  Plesart landed on the west coast in 1629; Able Tasman
 

In 1642-3; William de Vlamingh in 1697; William Dampier in 1699; Nicholas du Fresne (who is said to have visited Tasmania) in 1767 to mention a few.

At the time James Cook discovered the 'east coast of the continent it was known as Tierra Austral del Espiritu Santo (The South Land of the Holy Spirit). One early map showed a land with the name Iave la Grandé to the south of Java. It included the notation: Coste des Herbaiges being French for 'coast of vegetation'.

British Settlement

Captain Cook's account of his discovery aroused much interest in England but Britain did not try to colonize Australia until its American colonies achieved independence. On 13 May 1787, the first fleet of 11 ships sailed from England under the command of Capt. Arthur Phillip. They reached Botany Bay on 18 January 1788 with 1530 people, 736 of them convicts. Finding the bay a poor choice, the fleet left eight days later to establish a settlement at Port Jackson, a few kilometres north. Here, Phillip began the first permanent settlement on January 26, now known as Australia Day. The settlement grew to be Sydney, Australia's biggest city with one of the world's best natural harbors. It was named Sydney for Britain's home secretary, Lord Sydney, (1733-1800), who was responsible for the colony. Phillip's domain covered half of Australia (from the eastern oceanic waters to as far west as the 135th meridian), but his human resources were limited.

Three major problems confronted the early governors: providing a sufficient supply of foodstuffs; developing an internal economic system; and producing exports to pay for the colony's imports from Britain. Land around Sydney was too sandy for suitable farming, and the colony faced perpetual food shortages through the 1790s. (Natural food sources were largely limited to fish and kangaroo.) Phillip established farms on the more fertile banks of the Hawkesbury River, a few miles north-west of Sydney, but this land was often flooded or still used by the Aborigines. Food supplies came mainly from Norfolk Island, nearly 1,600 km (about 1,000 miles) away, which Phillip had occupied in February 1788; the island later served as a jail.

In 1792 the Royal Marines were replaced with the New South Wales Corps, which had been specifically recruited in Great Britain. Given grants of land, members of the corps became the colony's best and largest farmers, but they also posed a serious threat to the governors by their power over the economy. With a sharp eye for enhancing their income, they specialized in controlling the price of rum, which served largely as the colony's internal means of exchange.

Phillip's successor as governor, Capt. John Hunter (1738-1821), who arrived in 1795, tried in vain to gain control of the rum traffic. The next governor, Capt. Philip G. King (1758-1808), who served from 1800 to 1806, was no more successful.

The island settlement at Hobart in Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) was established in 1803 to accommodate convicts and to quash any possible French claims to the island.

In 1806 Capt. William Bligh replaced King. Bligh had gained notoriety earlier, when the crew of his ship, the Bounty, had mutinied in the

Pacific. Bligh threatened the corps with the loss of their monopoly. He was met with the so-called Rum Rebellion, and on Jan. 26, 1808, Lieutenant Colonel George Johnston arrested him.

Bligh was later sent to London, where he successfully defended his policies, but he was not restored to his governorship. The Rum Rebellion thus gave the leaders of the corps immediate victory.

Meanwhile, one of its ringleaders, John Macarthur (1767-1834), had found the solution to the colony's lack of valuable exports; in 1802 he had shown British manufacturers samples of Australian wool. It was only after 1810, however, with the breeding of the merino sheep, with its long staple wool, that sheep grazing gradually developed into a major economic activity.

Bligh's replacement, Lachlan Macquarie (1762-1824), served as governor from 1809 to 1821. The New South Wales Corps was sent home, and because the economy had improved, the government gained stability. Macquarie began an extensive public works program, employing the ex-convict Francis Greenway (1777-1837) to design churches, hospitals, and government buildings in Sydney. The population of the colony also increased after Britain's defeat of Napoleon in 1814.

The arrival of more free settlers brought increased claims to farmland on which more convicts could serve as laborers. These two groups of colonists, however, reflected a growing tension within New South Wales. As convicts completed their sentences or were eligible for release due to good behavior, they sought land and opportunities. They were known as the emancipists, and their leaders urged that they be given more rights. The free settlers, like the corps before them, maintained that convicts, even after their release, should not be treated as equals. These opponents to the emancipists were known as the exclusives. Macquarie, as had Bligh, tended to support the emancipists, granting them land and appointing them to minor offices. The exclusives became critical of both Macquarie and the emancipists.

Macquarie's government was expensive, and most of the burden had to be carried by the British treasury. Overseas punishment, however, did not appear to have reduced the number of convicts, and many wondered if New South Wales was the proper solution to Britain's crime problems. In 1819, the British Colonial Office sent Judge John Thomas Bigge (1780-1843) to inspect and report on Macquarie's administration. He recognized the colony's growing importance to the British Empire as a home for wealthy free settlers, and he popularized the name Australia for the southern continent. Bigge's reports resulted in a major change in the constitution for New South Wales in 1823.

New South Wales was granted the first constitutional charter by a British law, authorizing the creation of a Legislative Council with limited power. In 1825, by an executive order of the British government, the island settlement of Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) became a separate colony.

written by: Linda in Oz  

(Linda's Australian Page)

The Australian Flag came into being after the the federation of the Australian States into the Commonwealth of Australian on 1 January, 1901. The Commonwealth Blue Ensign was selected a a result of a public competition (over 30 000 designs were submitted); although selected in 1901 and gazetted in 1903, it was not given Royal assent and adopted as the definitive Australian flag until 1954 in the Flags Act 1953 (Act No. 1 of 1954)! It is based on the Blue Ensign of the United Kingdom, is twice as long as it is wide, and consists of a dark blue field that can be notionally divided into four quadrants. There is a different motif in each of the upper and lower hoist quadrants and the remaining two quadrants of the fly share another different constellation motif.

The present Australian flag can be considered to consist of three main elements:

•   The Union Jack  in the upper hoist quadrant or first quarter (also know as the Canton) denotes Australia's historical links with Great Britain. The Union Jack itself, is composed of red and white intersecting and overlayed vertical and diagonal crosses on a blue background.

• The Southern Cross in the second quarter (also known as the top or head) and fourth quarter. Consists of five stars in a more or less kite-like pattern - Alpha Crucis (7-point), Beta Crucis (7-point), Gamma Crucis (7-point), Delta Crucis (7-point) and the smaller Epsilon Crucis (5-point). The outer diameter of each of the 4 major stars is 1/7 the width of the fly and the inner diameter is 4/9 outer diameter; the diameter of Epsilon Crucis is 1/12 the width of the fly and the inner diameter is 4/9 the outer diameter. The constellation of the Southern Cross is a significant navigational feature of the southern hemisphere, strongly places Australian geographically and has been associated with the continent since its earliest days.

• The Commonwealth Star or Star of Federation, central in the third quarter or lower hoist, has seven points to denote the six states and the combined territories of the Commonwealth. The seventh point was added in 1909. The outer diameter is 3/5 the width of the Union Jack (3/10 the width of the fly) and the inner diameter is 4/9 the outer diameter.

In 1996, the Governor-General, Sir William Deane, proclaimed 3rd September as Australian National Flag Day, to commemorate the day in 1901 on which the national flag of "Stars and Crosses" was first shown.  It is the right and privilege of every Australian to fly the Australian National Flag.

Some Significant Flag Dates

29 April 1901

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (#27) holds a design competition for the Flag of Australia, announced by the first Australian Prime Minister, Edmund Barton.

03 September 1901

First official raising of the blue Australian Flag at the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne.

20 February 1903

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (#8) Proclamation that King Edward VII had approved the design for the Flag of Australia.

19 December 1908

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (#65 pg. 1709) announced addition of the 7th point to the Commonwealth Star to represent the Australian Territories.

02 December 1953

In the Commonwealth Government 'Flags Act 1953', the status of The Flag is confirmed by legislation and to be titled the Australian National Flag.

24 March 1998

Flag Amendments Bill amended the Flags Act 1953 to ensure that the Australian National Flag can only be changed if the electorate approves.

Parts of this excerpt are taken from the

Australian National Flag Association website.

Advance Australia Fair is today's Australian National Anthem after 'God Save The Queen' was dumped in 1977. It took four years of talking, thinking and voting to decide on this song, written by Peter McCormick in 1878. It was chosen in a referendum receiving 2.9 million votes, other options 'Waltzing Matilda' (song about a sheep thief) got 1.9 million and the Queen's song got even less votes than the sheep thief with 1.3 million.

Advance Australia Fair was proclaimed as the national anthem by the Governor-General on 19 April 1984.

Advance Australia Fair was composed by Glasgow-born Peter Dodds McCormick (1834?-1916), who used the pen-name "Amicus", a Latin word meaning "friend".

The first public performance is thought to have been given in Sydney on November 30th, 1878 at the St. Andrew's Day concert of the Highland Society.

It was also sung by a choir of 10,000 at the inauguration of the Commonwealth, but with a few amendments by McCormick including the addition of the words "our youthful Commonwealth".

In 1907, the Commonwealth Government awarded McCormick £100 for his composition.    McCormick died in 1916.

The copyright on Advance Australia Fair ended in 1966, fifty years after McCormick's death.

The Australian Labor Party policy for the 1972 elections included finding an alternative to God Save the Queen. The ALP won office in that election, and the Whitlam government (1972-75) announced in the Prime Minister's 1973 Australia Day address that a competition would be held under the auspices of the Australia Council for the Arts to find a new Australian national anthem.

Although a large number of submissions were received (2,500 lyric and 1,400 music entries), none were considered acceptable.

The judges recommended that one of three existing Australian songs - Advance Australia Fair, Banjo Patterson's Waltzing Matilda  or Carl Linger's Song of Australia - be selected.

On April 8th, 1974, opinion polls were held by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the government announced that henceforth Advance Australia Fair was to be Australia's anthem, but with God Save the Queen to be played when (British) royalty was present.

The Whitlam government was dismissed by the Governor-General (Sir John Kerr) on November 11, 1975, and was replaced by the Fraser (Liberal) government (1975-1983).

In January 1976, the Fraser government modified the rules governing the national anthem. Advance Australia Fair was to be used, without words, on non-regal occasions, and God save the Queen was to be used on all royal, vice-regal, defense, and loyal toast occasions.

The Fraser Government held a plebiscite, the National Song Poll, on 21 May 1977.  Advance Australia Fair won over the other options by a wide margin.

In spite of  the poll results, adoption of the new anthem met with widespread opposition and obstruction.

Thus, it was not until 19th April, 1984 (in time for the Los Angeles Olympics) that Advance Australia Fair finally became Australia's national anthem, under the Hawke (Labor) government (1983-1991).

Advance Australia Fair was to be played at all official and ceremonial occasions; God Save the Queen became the "royal anthem", to be played when the Queen or members of the Royal Family are present.

Changes were also made to three lines of the text:

Advance Australia Fair

Lyrics

Australians all let us rejoice,

For we are young and free;

We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil;

Our home is girt by sea;

Our land abounds in nature’s gifts

Of beauty rich and rare;

In history’s page, let every stage

Advance Australia Fair.

In joyful strains then let us sing,

Advance Australia Fair.

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross

We’ll toil with hearts and hands;

To make this Commonwealth of ours

Renowned of all the lands;

For those who’ve come across the seas

We’ve boundless plains to share;

With courage let us all combine

To Advance Australia Fair.

In joyful strains then let us sing,

Advance Australia Fair.

To Hear the Australian National Anthem:

Excerpts taken from www.hamilton.net.au/advance.html & www.amazingaustralia.com.au/music.htm