Section 2

Question 1

What happened prior to federation?

Answer 1

• Before Australia’s Federation there were six individual British colonies; New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia
• The ‘founding fathers’ designed a constitution that drew ideas from federal practices in a few well established countries with particular emphasis on the British idea of having a representative government, and the American model, having two houses of government.
• Once agreements were made, each state held a referendum allowing its people the opportunity decide whether they were going to join the Federation.

Question 2

Which was the last state to join the federation and when did they join?

Answer 2

Western Australia was the last colony to hold their referendum and decided to become a state in the nation of Australia in July 1900.

Question 3

What was one of the first laws enacted?

Answer 3

One of the first laws enacted was the White Australia Policy

Question 4

Give 3 reasons for federation

Answer 4

• The capacity of a strong national government to manage issues:
• Stronger defence system
  
  • Easier immigration system - colonies were worried by the amount of Chinese people coming in (from gold rush times)
  • The benefits that would come from centralising services such as railways and post.
• The benefits that would come from removing the taxes and duties on goods moving between the colonies/states.

Question 5

List some reasons against federation

Answer 5

• Uncertainty - different views from different colonies
• Allocation of roles between the states and the federal government
  
  • Loss of power
• Concerns we would lose our cultural ties to England and the emerging cultural identities of the 6 colonies would be lost.
• The colonies decided that they wanted to be able to legislate for Indigenous Australians, who were not able to vote and weren’t counted in referendums. So, the “race power” was written into the Australian Constitution, ensuring that the federal government would not be able to legislate for Aboriginal people.

Question 6

List some reasons why WA was unsure about Federation

Answer 6

• The 1890s were a time of economic depression for most colonies, however a gold boom kept Western Australia immune to this. For this reason, many people from Western Australia were concerned that becoming a part of the federation would weaken their economic and political power.
• Women in Western Australia were given state voting rights in 1899 and were unsure if they would be able to maintain this, or vote in federal elections.
• Thought they would lose power being so far away

Question 7

What did Ann Curthoys say about the first Chinese immigrants coming in to Australia?

Answer 7

“The Europeans thought these men barbarians, and the Chinese, in their turn, thought of the Europeans in the same way”

Question 8

Who said “The Europeans thought these men barbarians, and the Chinese, in their turn, thought of the Europeans in the same way”

Answer 8

Ann Curthoys

Question 9

According to Ann Curthoys, there were 17,000 Chinese immigrants in Victoria by when?

Answer 9

June 1855

Question 10

Why were Australians unkind to the Chinese immigrants?

Answer 10

• Taking gold away from Australians
• Fear of unknown and change
• “They were an inferior people who could not assimilate and would inevitably form an inferior group in society” Ann Curthoys

Question 11

What did the Chinese immigration during the gold rush lead to?

Answer 11

The White Australia Policy

Question 12

What happened on January 27th 1861?

Answer 12

“Large gathering of about 1500 miners and traders, many armed with sticks, assembled for an anti-Chinese meeting”

• The Chinese, having heard of the meeting, begun packing and carrying their belongings, they hurried before the attacking party
• European miners formed a Miners’ Protective League which forwarded to John Robertson, Secretary for Lands, a petition with 3394 signatures demanding government protection for European miners from the Chinese
• The league defined its membership as ‘men of all nations, except Chinamen”

Question 13

When did the Miners’ Protective League begin?

Answer 13

27th January 1861

Question 14

Why were new towns created during the gold rush?

Answer 14

• Migration patterns e.g. towards Kalgoorlie
  
  • Gold miners took their families (many women and children)
• Infrastructure expansion e.g. pipeline/ ports
  
  • Required water (e.g. C.Y. O’Connor pipeline to Kalgoorlie)
  • Creation of shops as demand increased
    
    • Expensive food because it was so far out
• Many people travelled to London selling shares in Kalgoorlie goldfields
• Increase of Fremantle as a port as the colony gained riches and needed more exports and imports

Question 15

When did the gold rush begin in the Eastern States?

Answer 15

1850s

1851 in NSW and Vic at the same time

Question 16

When and where was the first piece of gold found in WA?

Answer 16

Halls Creek 1885

Question 17

What happened in the 1890s?

Answer 17

• Draught and depression in eastern states and the rest of the world
  
  • WA was unaffected by the depression due to their gold rush
• Therefore people moving from eastern states to WA

Question 18

When and where did the Eureka Stockade happen?

Answer 18

Ballarat, Victoria on December 3rd 1854

Question 19

Describe what happened at the Eureka Stockade

Answer 19

Eureka Stockade, rebellion (December 3, 1854) in which gold prospectors in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia—who sought various reforms, notably the abolition of mining licenses—clashed with government forces

• The rebellion was the culmination of long-standing grievances on the part of the miners, or “diggers,” over exorbitant prospecting-license fees, brutal police procedures for collecting those fees, lack of the vote, and lack of representation in the Legislative Council.
• People must pay tax but don’t want to - Government fights

Question 20

What did Ann Curthoys say about the Eureka Stockade?

Answer 20

“These gold-seeking Chinese immigrants arrived to find the goldfields in a state of rebellion over questions of high licence fees and much else, culminating in the Eureka uprising of 1854.”

Question 21

Did the gold rush end?

Answer 21

No WA is still finding gold

Question 22

What happened after the big gold rushes?

Answer 22

The gold rush became less about individual men and more about technology and companies of the labour force

Question 23

When and where did the first convicts arrive in Australia?

Answer 23

26th January 1788 in NSW

Question 24

When did convicts start coming to WA?

Answer 24

1850s

Question 25

What led to convicts being sent to Australia?

Answer 25

• The Bloody Code Instituted in 1723 in England
• Sweeping imposition of the death penalty for over 200 offences including:
  
  • Murder
  • Arson
  • Wrecking a fishpond
  • Cutting down trees
  • Pickpocketing goods worth a shilling
  • Being an unmarried mother concealing a stillborn child
• Was supposed to deter crime but also for entertainment
• By 1820s the Bloody code had ended- only used for extreme crimes (murder and treason)
• Transportation increased because death penalty wasn’t working to deter crime
• American war of independence
  
  • Transportation used to mean people being sent to American colonies but once they gained independence from Britain this was no longer possible
  • Jails were getting overcrowded
  • Old ships were being used to hold convicts
  • Started sending convicts to NSW
• Most people had more minor crimes of those who were sent to NSW

Question 26

When did the Bloody Code begin and end?

Answer 26

Began in 1723 in England Had ended by the 1820s and was only used for extreme crimes (murder and treason)

Question 27

What is the convict stain?

Answer 27

• Australia now has an understanding that convicts are really misunderstood people
• “The transportation of convicts to Australia, according to Blainey (1966: 149), was in essence a form of compulsory, assisted migration, with approximately 168,000 convicts transported before 1868”
• “However, convict heritage was often hidden and considered a ‘stain’ by later generations. For example, families developed fictional family trees and it was common for ‘aging ex- convicts couples to be ostracised by their families’”
• Attitudes began to change in the early 1960s and, as Horne (1964: 60) argued, ordinary people who ‘could claim an early arrival in the colony as an ancestor – even a convict’ gained some slight prestige. During the last decades of the twentieth century, it became more acceptable to acknowledge Australia’s convict heritage, rather than conceal it in the manner of previous generations
  “Attitudes towards convicts were changing. Australian nationalists began to view the penal past as an era when the British ruling class unjustly persecuted noble workers and revolutionaries. Sent to Australia because of their “struggles for freedom” or trivial offences, they had demonstrated their good character by founding a prosperous democracy”
• Changed our view to being more separate from Britain and discovering their wrongdoings

Question 28

According to Blainey, how many convicts were transported to Australia before 1868?

Answer 28

168,000

Question 29

According to Blainey, 168,000 convicts were transported to Australia by when?

Answer 29

1868

Question 30

How has the convict stain influenced our national identity?

Answer 30

• In particular, left-wing, university educated, younger, post-materialist Australians view convicts and bushrangers as relatively important, indicating the salience of the larrikin in Australian identity