The Constitution. The Document That Created the Nation

51 Pages·2012·2.139 MB·English

by  Scott Brodie

Australian Timelines
The Constitution: The Document
That Created The Nation
by Scott Brodie
ISBN 978 086427 257 7
Published in electronic format by
Trocadero Publishing
GPO Box 1546
Sydney NSW 2001
Australia
ABN 28003214748
[email protected]
www.trocadero.com.au
Created and produced in Australia
Copyright © 2011 S and L Brodie
The information in this eBook was
current at the time of writing
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AUSTRALIAN TIMELINES
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Exploration and Settlement in Colonial Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia: Evolving into a Nation
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Gold: The Precious Metal that Brought Instant Wealth
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AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY
Influencing Australia * Please check www.trocadero.com.au for publication date
THE Constitution is the document that laid
the basis for Australia as a modern nation.
2 The Constitution Created From the middle of the 19th century people had been
Timelines to federation agitating for a federation of the six British Australian
and beyond colonies — New South Wales, Tasmania, Western
Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland.
With the coming of the prosperous decades after
4 The Constitution Story
1851, there slowly grew a movement that overcame the
From the very earliest
more petty concerns of individual colonies. People with
federation movements
vision, and people with more commercial aims, now
through the Constitutional
believed a union of the six colonies as a single, self-
Conventions, Federation,
governing British Dominion was the way of the future.
the Statute of Westminster
Through the 1890s a group of dedicated men used
and the Australia Acts their influence, their power and their oratory to bring
together the colonies to draft what would become the
18 The Referendums Australian Constitution.
How the Constitution Henry Parkes started the ball rolling with his
was changed Tenterfield Speech in October 1889, but it was mainly
those outside the parliaments who did the hard work
that would lead to federation. DrJohn Quick of the
20 The Constitution Explained
Australian Natives’ Association probably did most for
Full text of the Constitution
the movement with his proposal for an elected
with accompanying notes
convention that led to federation.
explaining key Sections
Although it is said that Australia gained its
independence on 1January 1901, this is far from the case.
48 Index What happened was that a federal colonial government
was created over six colonies that still had their direct
links to Britain. Australia was a Dominion, a sort of elite
colony of Britain, self-governing, largely autonomous, but
still subject to the whims of the British Parliament. It
took another 40years for anything like real independence
to emerge. Even then, the final links were not broken
until 1986.
While we may not notice it, the Constitution shapes
much of what happens each day. We are governed on
the basis of what a group of far-sighted men wrote more
than a century ago. Our political and legal systems, the
cornerstones of our democracy and our freedom, are
defined by the words of the Constitution. It is a truly
Edited by Lynn Brodie
democratic document because no politician or lawyer
ISBN 978 086427 257 7 can alter it — only a majority of the people can do that.
Copyright © 2011 S and L Brodie
All rights reserved
Published by Trocadero Publishing
GPO Box 1546 Sydney NSW 2001 Australia
www.trocadero.com.au For links to websites of interest, please go to
Produced in Australia www.trocadero.com.au/constitution
2
C
onstitution
the
created
Everyone wanted a piece of
the great boom of the 1880s.
The federation movement
gained a considerable boost
from all this prosperity before
the money dried up in the
early 1890s.
Leaders of Britain’s colonies
— Australia, Canada, South
Africa, New Zealand and
Newfoundland — gather for a
Colonial Conference in London
3
4
C
onstitution
the
story
EUROPEAN Australia, as we know it today, began
life as the British colony of New South
Wales on 26January 1788. Gradually, between 1788 and 1859, New South
Wales split into six separate colonies. With the exception of South
Australia, each began life as an outpost of the main settlement at Sydney
Town. Van Diemen’s Land (later Tasmania) separated in 1824, Western
Australia in 1827, Victoria in 1850 and Queensland in 1859. South Australia
was established as a province in 1836, the only colony not founded as a
place to send convicts. Each was a separate colony of Great Britain,
although the Governor of New South Wales had a large degree of control in
their early days.
Once Governor Lachlan Macquarie (1810–1821) set the colony on the road
to permanence and respectability, the thoughts of free settlers and former
convicts turned towards self-government. Until this time Governors had
been all-powerful, answerable only to the Secretary of State for the Colonies
in London. After Macquarie various bodies were developed to advise and
guide Governors. The initial Legislative Councils and Executive Councils
were unelected and unrepresentative of the people. Usually members were
the wealthy elite with links to the Governor or the government in London.
By the 1840s public opposition had all but ended convict transportation
in New South Wales. In 1843 the colony gained a Legislative Assembly, with
24 of its 36 members elected. Eligibility to vote was limited to males who
owned property, alienating a lot of the population. The Governor retained
considerable power, being able to dismiss the Assembly if he disagreed with
it. The other colonies followed with their own local variations.
5
Self-government moves
IN 1850 the British government responded to calls for responsible
Arthur Phillip
government — more correctly self-government — by passing
Governor
the Australian Colonies Government Act, also known as the Act for the
1788–92
Better Government of Her Majesty’s Australian Colonies. Its intention was to
standardise government in all the colonies. New South Wales, Van
Diemen’s Land, Victoria and South Australia began work on
constitutions that would become Acts of the British Parliament.
Western Australia was thought to be too undeveloped to warrant
self-government at this time.
The first constitution was the Constitution Act of Tasmaniain October
1854. Van Diemen’s Land changed its name in 1856, but had been
widely known as Tasmania for some time. South Australia followed
in 1854, New South Wales and Victoria in 1855. Queensland was
part of New South Wales until 1859 — its constitution came into
being in 1867. South Australia’s constitution contained a number
of radical developments, including universal adult male suffrage
and the secret ballot. The latter, a world first, was also adopted
Lachlan Macquarie
by Victoria. In some parts of the USA the secret ballot is still
Governor 1810–21
known as the Australian ballot.
Six colonies, six ideologies
FROM this time on the six colonies developed in their
own unique ways. There was considerable rivalry
as governments adopted conflicting political ideologies. New South
Wales leaned towards Free Trade, under which goods could be
imported from overseas with low duties or tariffs. Victoria went in
the opposite direction, becoming the pre-eminent Protectionist state,
charging high import duties to protect its manufacturers from
competition. The New South Wales policy favoured primary industry;
the Victorian favoured secondary industry. Thus Victoria became the
largest manufacturing state, remaining so until the 1980s. Charles FitzRoy
The regular InterColonial Conferences were mostly talkfests with Governor 1846–51
little tangible benefit. A typical example is the chaos of railway gauges Governor-General 1851–55
(the distance between the rails). In the 1850s New South Wales opted
for the standard gauge of 4’8½” (1435mm), while Victoria went for
5’3” (1600mm). To save money Queensland adopted 3’6” (1067mm).
South Australia made matters worse by having a mix of 5’3” and 3’6”.
Most of this occurred when competing colonial engineers sought to
outdo their rivals. New South Wales Governor Charles FitzRoy, a
railway enthusiast, was advised to intervene and set an intercolonial
standard, but he failed to do so.
Adelaide in the early years of South
Australia’s settlement after 1836
Talking federation
SOME more far-sighted individuals were proposing a
federation of the six colonies. Governor FitzRoy
suggested in 1846 that a single Governor-General be appointed to
control all the colonies. He was given the job between 1851 and 1855;
however, he retained his governorship of New South Wales as well.
This made the other colonies sceptical about his impartiality. In 1847
Earl Grey, Secretary of State for the Colonies, floated the idea of a
General Assembly for Australia with a Governor-General in charge.
There was widespread opposition to Grey’s idea from Van Diemen’s
Land, South Australia, Western Australia and the other soon-to-be
6
William C Wentworth colonies. They feared dominance by New South Wales. Grey originally
included provisions for a federal union in the draft Australian Colonies
Government Bill, but removed them in the face of the opposition.
The early federation push grew out of anti-transportation
movements. The Australian League was formed in 1850 by Reverend
John Dunmore Lang, James Wiltshire and Henry Parkes to end
transportation and promote a federal Australia. John West, founder
of the Anti-Transportation League, believed a single national body
was essential for negotiating with London. Both WilliamC Wentworth
of New South Wales and CharlesG Duffy of Victoria chaired
federation commitees in the 1850s.
Prosperity and expansion
TALK of federation faded after the 1850s gold rushes. The
colonies gained financial independence and saw less
need to rely on one another. Melbourne and Sydney, flush with wealth
from gold, grew into substantial cities rivalling any in the British
Empire. Vast new grazing and farming lands opened up in the inland.
Steamships were slashing travel times between the colonial capitals
and the rest of the world. By 1869 electric telegraph had linked all
colonies except Western Australia, which followed eight years later.
The Adelaide–Darwin Overland Telegraph connected Australia into
the world network in 1872. Sydney and Melbourne were joined by
railway in 1883, with a change of trains at Albury.
Admirable as these developments were, they tended to happen in
a parochial fashion. Railways radiated out from the capitals to
various parts of the colonies. It was 30years before anyone became
too excited about intercolonial railway links. The same was true for
telegraph lines.
Reverend John
Dunmore Lang Early signs of unity
NEW South Wales Premier Henry Parkes pushed his own
idea of federation at the 1867 and 1880 InterColonial
Conferences. He invited each colony to prepare a Bill to create a
Federal Council to coordinate colonial activities and ensure a unified
voice. New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland, South
Australia, Western Australia and New Zealand met in 1881 to consider
the idea. In the end colonial rivalry triumphed over good sense. New
South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania supported it; Queensland
and New Zealand opposed; Western Australia refused to vote.
In 1863 Tasmania proposed a customs union to standardise duties
New South Wales
Parliament House and tariffs between colonies. Paying these fees when
goods passed across colonial borders was one of the
most annoying and expensive aspects of Australian
business life. The customs union, regularly proposed,
came to nothing in the end.
By 1883 the Australian colonies — particularly
Queensland — and New Zealand and Fiji were
worried about German and French colonial
expansionism in the Pacific. Britain did not want
any more colonies that were not financially self-
supporting, and certainly did not want anyone else
setting its policies in this regard. Even so, the
existing colonies wanted all Pacific islands under
British control or protection.
7
When in 1883 Queensland annexed those portions of
New Guinea not already taken by the Netherlands or
Germany, the Colonial Office repudiated the move. This
graphically illustrated how little influence the colonies
had over matters on their own doorsteps. The following
year Britain relented and annexed British New Guinea.
Australasian Federal Council
WITH this in mind, late in 1883 Henry
Parkes’s idea of a Federal Council was
revived at the InterColonial Conference at Sydney attended
by the six colonies, New Zealand and Fiji. This grouping Delegates to the
became known as Australasia. Leading the push were Queensland’s InterColonial Conference
at Sydney in 1883
Samuel Griffith and Victoria’s James Service, who said London would
take more notice of one united body than a gaggle of small colonies.
The conference participants, some reluctantly, agreed to ask Britain
to legislate for an Australasian Federal Council. New South Wales
announced from the start that it would not participate.
The Australasian Federal Council Actpassed the British Parliament in
1885. The Council’s main concerns were defence, quarantine and
Pacific matters. Its first meeting was held at Hobart in January 1886
without New South Wales or New Zealand. Victoria, Tasmania,
Western Australia, Queensland and Fiji all ratified the Act, although
South Australia’s participation ended in 1891. While the Council met
regularly, it was never very effective.
Boosting federation
THE Australian Natives’ Association (ANA) was formed
by Australian-born Europeans in Melbourne in
1871. Initially it was a friendly society, providing health and
funeral benefits to its members. Gradually its aims expanded
to foster a new spirit of nationalism and work towards a
federation of the Australian colonies. In 1885, at a conference
in Bendigo, the ANA launched a program of meetings in all
major centres to promote the idea of federation. A major rally
was held in the Sydney Town Hall as the Association’s ideas
gained traction in all the colonies. In 1890, on 26January — by
then a national holiday — the ANA staged a large intercolonial
conference at Melbourne. Its main focus was federation.
At a time when there was considerable friction between the
world’s great colonial powers, defence was very much on the
minds of colonial leaders. In 1889 British Army Major General
JBevan Edwards reported that the small colonial military
forces were inadequate. The last British soldiers had been
withdrawn from Australia in the 1870s. He
recommended that all colonies contribute to a
single defence force. This was another boost
for a united Australia.
New South Wales Premier Henry
Parkes, whose Tenterfield Speech
on 24 October 1889 is widely
credited with kick-starting the
Constitutional debate