Australia has been called “the Oldest Continent,” “the Last of Lands,” and “the Last Frontier.” These descriptions typify the world's fascination with Australia, but they are somewhat unsatisfactory. In simple physical terms the age of much of the continent is certainly impressive—most of the rocks providing the foundation of Australian landforms were formed during Precambrian and Paleozoic time (3.8 billion to 248 million years ago)—but the ages of the cores of all the continents are approximately the same. On the other hand, whereas the landscape history of extensive areas in Europe and North America has been profoundly influenced by events and processes that occurred since late in the last Ice Age—roughly the past 25,000 years—in Australia scientists use a more extensive timescale that takes into account the great antiquity of the continent's landscape.

The American-style concept of a national “frontier” moving outward along a line of settlement is also inappropriate. There was, rather, a series of comparatively independent expansions from the margins of the various colonies, which were not joined in an independent federated union until 1901. Frontier metaphors were long employed to suggest the existence of yet another extension of Europe and especially of an outpost of Anglo-Celtic culture in the distant “antipodes.”

The most striking characteristics of the vast country are its global isolation, its low relief, and the aridity of much of its surface. If, like the English novelist D.H. Lawrence (Lawrence, D.H.), visitors from the Northern Hemisphere are at first overwhelmed by “the vast, uninhabited land and by the grey charred bush…so phantom-like, so ghostly, with its tall, pale trees and many dead trees, like corpses,” they should remember that to Australians the bush—that sparsely populated Inland or Outback beyond the Great Dividing Range of mountains running along the Pacific coast and separating it from the cities in the east—is familiar and evokes nostalgia. It still retains some of the mystical quality it had for the first explorers searching for inland seas and great rivers, and it remains a symbol of Australia's strength and independence; the Outback poem by A.B. (“Banjo”) Paterson (Paterson, A B), "Waltzing Matilda," is the unofficial national anthem of Australia known the world over.

Isolation is also a pronounced characteristic of much of the social landscape beyond the large coastal cities. But an equally significant feature of modern Australian society is the representation of a broad spectrum of cultures drawn from many lands, a development stemming from immigration that is transforming the strong Anglo-Celtic orientation of Australian culture. Assimilation, of course, is seldom a quick and easy process, and minority rights, multiculturalism, and race-related issues have played a large part in contemporary Australian politics. In the late 1990s these issues sparked a conservative backlash.

Unlike Britain, Australia has a federal form of government, with a central government and six constituent states (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania). Each state has its own government, which exercises a limited degree of sovereignty. There are also two internal territories: Northern Territory, established as a self-governing territory in 1978, and the Australian Capital Territory (including the city of Canberra), which attained self-governing status in 1988. Major issues in resource development and environmental management have ignited controversies over the protection of states' rights and the federal government's gradual accumulation of power. The federal authorities also govern the external territories of Norfolk Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island, Ashmore and Cartier islands, the Coral Sea Islands, and Heard and McDonald islands and claim the Australian Antarctic Territory, an area larger than Australia itself. Papua New Guinea, formerly an Australian external territory, gained its independence in 1975.

Historically part of the British Empire and now a member of the Commonwealth, Australia is a relatively prosperous independent country. Australians are in many respects fortunate in that they do not share their continent—which is only a little smaller than the United States—with any other country. Extremely remote from their traditional allies and trading partners—it is some 12,000 miles (19,000 km) from Australia to Great Britain via the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal and about 7,000 miles (11,000 km) across the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of the United States—Australians have become more interested in the proximity of huge potential markets in Asia and in the highly competitive industrialized economies of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Australia, the continent and the country, may have been quite isolated at the beginning of the 20th century, but it entered the 21st century a culturally diverse land brimming with confidence, an attitude encouraged by the worldwide fascination with the land “Down Under” and demonstrated when Sydney hosted the 2000 Summer Olympic Games.

The earliest known manifestations of the geologic record of the Australian continent are 4.4-billion-year-old detrital grains of zircon in metasedimentary rocks that were deposited from 3.7 to 3.3 billion years ago. Based on this and other findings, the Precambrian rocks in Australia have been determined to range in age from about 3.7 billion to 543 million years (i.e., to the end of Precambrian time). They are succeeded by rocks of the Paleozoic Era, which extended to about 248 million years ago; of the Mesozoic Era, which lasted until 65 million years ago; and of the Cenozoic Era, which continues to the present.

For millions of years Australia was part of the supercontinent of Pangaea (Pangea) and subsequently its southern segment, Gondwanaland (Gondwana) (or Gondwana). Its separate existence was finally assured by the severing of the last connection between Tasmania and Antarctica, but it has been drifting toward the Southeast Asian landmass. As a continent, Australia thus encompasses two extremes: on the one hand, it contains the oldest known earth material while, on the other, it has stood as a free continent only since about the mid-Cenozoic (about 35 million years ago) and is in the process—in terms of geologic time—of merging with Asia, so that its life span as a continent will be of relatively short duration. (See also geochronology: Geologic history of the Earth (Earth, geologic history of).)

The map of the structural features of Australia and the surrounding region shows the distribution of the main tectonic units. The primary distinction is between the plates of oceanic lithosphere, generated within the past 160 million years by seafloor spreading (seafloor spreading hypothesis) at the oceanic ridges, and the continental lithosphere, accumulated over the past 4 billion years. (The lithosphere is the outer rock shell of the Earth that consists of the crust and the uppermost portion of the underlying mantle; see plate tectonics.) The largest area of oldest rocks is the Western Shield, comprising the western half of the continent, which has been eroded to a low relief. The youngest rocks are found in the growing fold belt of the Banda arcs and in New Guinea at the boundary between the Indian-Australian plate and the Eurasian and Pacific plates. The modern fold belts are separated from Australia by a “moat” (the Timor Trough) and a wide shelf (the Timor and Arafura seas). The northern half of the Australian margin is completed by the North West Shelf and the Exmouth Plateau on the west and by the Great Barrier Reef and the Queensland Plateau on the east.

Precambrian (Precambrian time) rocks occupy three tectonic environments. The first is in shields, such as the Yilgarn and Pilbara blocks of the Western Shield, enclosed by later orogenic (mountain) belts. The second is as the basement to a younger cover of Phanerozoic (Phanerozoic Eon) sediment (deposited during the past 543 million years); for example, all the sedimentary basins west of the Tasman Line are underlain by Precambrian basement. The third is as relicts in younger orogenic belts, as in the Georgetown Inlier of northern Queensland and in the western half of Tasmania. Rocks of Paleozoic age occur either in flat-lying sedimentary basins, such as the Canning Basin, or within belts, such as the east–west-trending Amadeus Transverse Zone and north-trending Tasman Fold Belt.

Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks occur in widely distributed (though poorly exposed) basins onshore (the Great Artesian Basin in the eastern centre). Offshore they occur on the western, southern, and eastern margins, including beneath Bass Strait, which separates Australia from Tasmania, and to the north in the submerged ground between the Banda arcs/New Guinea and the mainland.

The geologic development may be summarized as follows. Archean (Archean Eon) rocks (those more than 2.5 billion years old) crop out within the two-thirds of Australia that lies west of the Tasman Line. Individual blocks of Archean rocks became embedded in Proterozoic (Proterozoic Eon) fold belts (those from about 2.5 billion to 543 million years old) to form a mosaic. The lines of weakness within the mosaic later guided stresses that pulled the blocks apart or pushed them together. The Proterozoic fold belts that bounded the western and southern sides of the Archean Yilgarn block, for example, became the sites of the continental margin during seafloor spreading in the Mesozoic, and the fold belts of the Amadeus Transverse Zone in central Australia guided the overthrusting of blocks in the north over those in the south during the late Paleozoic.

Proterozoic Australia was part of the supercontinent of Gondwanaland (Gondwana), comprising India and the other southern continents, from about 750 million years ago. At the beginning of the Paleozoic, some 543 million years ago, pieces began to flake off the Australian portion of Gondwanaland when ocean basins opened around its periphery. Off the northwest, an ancient forebear of the Indian Ocean, called the Tethys (Tethys Sea), transferred continental terranes (fault-bounded fragments of the crust) from Gondwanaland to Asia; later generations of this ocean rifted material northward, including the biggest and latest terrane of India. Off the east, an ancient Pacific Ocean opened and closed in the first of a series of back-arc basins or marginal seas that persists to the present.

The structure of Australia was determined by the following: the processes that welded the Archean blocks and Proterozoic fold belts into a mosaic; the lithospheric plate processes that acted on this mosaic along lines of weakness to form ocean basins by spreading along the western and southern margins; and the processes that accompanied the convergence of the Pacific Plate, including alternating back-arc spreading and subduction that accreted the eastern third of Australia during the Phanerozoic. Australia ultimately became isolated from its Gondwanaland neighbours India and Antarctica by seafloor spreading. It was isolated from Lord Howe Rise/New Zealand by back-arc spreading that began in the Mesozoic. Today, Australia is drifting northward from Antarctica as a result of seafloor spreading in the southeast Indian Ocean and, consequently, is colliding with the westward-moving Pacific Plate to form the strike-slip ranges of New Guinea and the S-shaped fold of the Banda arcs.

This major period of geologic time can be subdivided into the older Archean and the younger Proterozoic eons, the time boundary between them being some 2.5 billion years ago. In Australia the main outcrop of the Archean and older Proterozoic rocks is in the Yilgarn and Pilbara blocks of the southwest and northwest, respectively.

In the Yilgarn block the oldest known rocks (sedimentary rock) are sialic crust (i.e., composed of rocks rich in silica and alumina) that developed in the Narryer Gneiss Complex between 4.3 and 3.7 billion years ago. The older end of this time span is provided by detrital zircon grains found in younger metasedimentary rock (metamorphosed sedimentary rock) some 3.3 to 3.7 billion years old: as determined by ion microprobe analysis, these grains are 4.2 to 4.3 billion years old. A zircon grain imbedded in 3.75-billion-year-old metamorphosed sediment from Jack Hills in Western Australia was found to be even older, 4.4 billion years, and it is thus the oldest dated material on Earth. The younger end of 3.7 billion years ago is provided by samarium-neodymium (Sm-Nd) isotopic analyses of anorthosite and gabbro and more extensive granitic rocks. Subsequent to such igneous rocks being formed, siliceous sedimentary rocks were deposited during an interval of subdued relief and extensive sheets of vein quartz pebbles were concentrated on the surface.

The oldest rocks in the Pilbara block to the north make up a granite-greenstone terrane and so differ distinctly from those of the Yilgarn block. They are mostly 3.3 to 3.5 billion years old and comprise basic (alkaline) volcanics associated with horizontal tabular igneous bodies known as sills and layered intrusions, as well as acid volcanics associated with granitic plutons (pluton) (bodies of deep-seated intrusive igneous rock) and sheets. The association of basic and acid rocks suggests the possibility that older sialic crust melted. Chert within basalt 3.5 billion years old at the North Pole mining centre contains stromatolites (layered deposits formed by the growth of cyanobacteria) and filamentous colonial microfossils that are among the oldest known sets of fossils on Earth. Between 3.05 and 2.9 billion years ago, thick acid and basic volcanics and sedimentary rocks were intruded by large granite plutons and deformed and metamorphosed to establish the internal form of the Pilbara block. Between 2.8 and 2.7 billion years ago, the beveled surface of the Pilbara block was blanketed by basaltic lava. Finally, between 2.55 to 2.4 billion years ago, banded-iron formation, dolomite, shale, and minor acid-volcanic rocks were intruded by sills of porphyry. Iron ores of hematite and goethite have been formed by supergene enrichment of banded-iron formation.

The Yilgarn block became an internally coherent mass only after greenstone and associated granitic terrane had developed from 3.0 to 2.5 billion years ago, and it was then intruded by a swarm of vertical tabular bodies called dikes composed of dolerite. Mafic (mafic rock) and ultramafic rocks (those composed primarily of ferromagnesian—dark-coloured—minerals) 2.7 billion years old within the granite-greenstone terrane are the chief host of the epigenetic gold deposits of Western Australia. Slightly older (2.8 billion years) volcanic ultramafic rocks contain deposits of nickel sulfide.

The Pilbara and Yilgarn blocks were joined between 2.0 to 1.8 billion years ago along a belt of deformed continental-margin deposits. Later in the Proterozoic, between 1.6 billion and 650 million years ago, mountain belts resulting from the collision of continental terranes were repeatedly worn down and overlain by sedimentary rocks. This view contrasts with another interpretation that regards most of the western part of Australia as intact since Archean times and considers that most later orogenic activity was ensialic.

The development of the late Proterozoic Adelaidean province, the other Precambrian succession to be described here, was within a sialic basement. The Adelaidean succession crops out in the region of South Australia between Adelaide and the Flinders Ranges and contains an almost complete sedimentary record of the late Proterozoic. The early Adelaidean Callanna and Burra groups are confined to troughs faulted down into basement. A sheet of sedimentary deposits at the base of the Callanna group was cut by faults into rift valleys that filled with basic volcanic rocks and evaporitic sediment and carbonate rock. The succeeding Burra group comprises fluvial sediment followed by shallow marine carbonate.

The late Adelaidean Umberatana and Wilpena groups unconformably succeed older rocks. The Umberatana group contains a rich record of two glaciations: the older Sturtian (Sturtian Series) glaciation is indicated by glaciomarine diamictites deposited on a shallow shelf and at the bottom of newly rifted troughs; the younger Marinoan glaciation is represented by diamictites deposited on the basin floor and sandstone on the shelf. The Wilpena group comprises extensive sheets of interbedded sandstone, siltstone, and shale deposited during two marine transgressions, during the second of which deep canyons were cut and filled. The uppermost part of the Wilpena group, in the latest Proterozoic, contains the celebrated Ediacara assemblage of the oldest well-known animal fossils.

The Precambrian rocks of Australia provide a rich source of economically important minerals, such as the above-mentioned major iron ore deposits of the Pilbara block and the gold and nickel deposits of the Yilgarn block. Other minerals include diamonds from the Argyle diatreme (vertical volcanic conduit filled with breccia) in northern Western Australia. Lead and zinc are found at Broken Hill in western New South Wales, and lead, zinc, and copper occur at Mount Isa in northwestern Queensland and at Olympic Dam in South Australia.

Phanerozoic Australia is divided at the Tasman Line into two parts. These are a western terrane of exposed Precambrian blocks and fold belts overlain by thin Phanerozoic basins and an eastern terrane of exposed Phanerozoic fold belts and basins.

During Phanerozoic times, Australia has been marked by three regimes: Uluru (543 to 320 million years ago), Innamincka (320 to 97 million years ago), and Potoroo (the past 97 million years). Each regime, a complex of uniform plate-tectonic and paleoclimatic events at a similar or slowly changing latitude, generated a depositional sequence of distinct facies separated by gaps in deposition.

The Paleozoic Era (543 to 248 million years ago) opened in Australia with the breakup of the Precambrian continent along the Tasman Line and the initial generation of the floor of the Paleo Pacific Ocean by seafloor spreading. In the Adelaide area, wedges of deepwater quartzose sediment advanced over the newly formed seafloor. On the northwestern side of Australia, widespread basalt erupted over the Precambrian platform, possibly during the initial generation of the Paleo Tethyan Sea, and was succeeded by deposition of shallow marine limestone with abundant fossil trilobites and archeocyathids. The initial Paleo Pacific marginal seafloor was subducted—i.e., forced under the edge of a converging plate into the hot mantle—at the end of the Cambrian (490 million years ago); concomitant deformation and granitic intrusion of the overlying deepwater sediments and those of the adjacent Adelaidean region formed the Delamerian fold belt. A similar cycle of marginal sea generation and subsequent Mariana-type subduction (within oceanic lithosphere) accreted a second fold belt to eastern Australia during the Ordovician Period (490 to 443 million years ago). This was followed by an interval of block faulting and widespread granitic intrusion in eastern Australia that produced a landscape similar to the present Basin and Range Province of the western United States; by the late Devonian Period (370 million years ago) the first of a series of magmatic orogenic arcs had become established by Chilean-type subduction (of oceanic lithosphere beneath continental lithosphere) on the eastern margin, and a thick succession of mainly sandstone and shale accumulated in the moatlike foreland basin between the mountain belt and the craton—the flat and relatively stable interior portion of the continent. At the same time, local uplifts in central Australia shed gravels into the Amadeus Basin. By the mid- Carboniferous Period (320 million years ago), central Australia was deformed by folding and thrusting along east-west axes, and eastern Australia was deformed by folding along north-south axes and a subsequent granitoid intrusion that consolidated the Lachlan and Thomson fold belts in an epoch of deformation that concluded the Uluru regime.

Australia had moved to higher latitudes so that the alpine uplands that followed the deformation were covered by the nucleus of a continental ice sheet. Only the highest peaks stood prominently above the surface of the ice in the form of nunataks, and the little sediment available was carried off the continent in ice streams. The melting of the ice sheet early in the Permian Period (i.e., about 290 million years ago) released the sediment into the newly subsiding basins of the Innamincka regime. Much of interior Australia was covered by broad basins. The eastern margin between the New England Fold Belt and the craton became a second foreland basin in which the rich seams of black coal in the Bowen Basin of Queensland and the Sydney Basin of New South Wales were deposited during the final 10 million years of the Paleozoic Era. Other economic resources in Paleozoic rocks are the reef gold in Victoria that triggered the first mining boom, lead and zinc at Cobar and Woodlawn in New South Wales, and natural gas in Permian sandstone in the Cooper Basin of South Australia.

The various parts of the Tasman Fold Belt are separated from each other by faults or have boundaries covered by sediment. Geologists have reviewed the Paleozoic development of the Tasman Fold Belt in light of the observation that the component terranes of many other circum-Pacific fold belts are displaced to a greater or lesser extent from their place of origin. In the Tasman Fold Belt, uncertainty remains about the exact paleotectonic and paleogeographic settings and relationships of the identified terranes and the craton and between the terranes themselves during most of Paleozoic time. Much effort is being applied to paleomagnetic determinations of elevation levels at the time and to studies of the provenance and facies of sedimentary successions within the terranes in an attempt to ascertain their original locations.

The coal measures of the Permian gave way to barren red beds in the early part of the Triassic Period (248 to 206 million years ago). By 230 million years ago the foreland basin of eastern Australia had been overthrusted by the mountain belt, and a second epoch of black-coal formation opened in eastern Australia (southeastern Queensland and Tasmania) and in South Australia (Leigh Creek). Another foreland basin became established behind the magmatic arc along the eastern margin, and a set of basins, including the Great Artesian Basin, subsided over the east-central part of Australia. Thick sand was deposited over the area of rifting that became the western and northwestern margins of Australia as Gondwanaland was breaking up and seafloor spreading was beginning in the northwest during the Late Jurassic (about 159 to 144 million years ago) and in the west during the Early Cretaceous (about 144 to 99 million years ago). Subsequent burial of the sand by sediment of late Mesozoic and Cenozoic age (65 million years old or younger) generated the giant natural gas field at Rankin on the North West Shelf. Rifting between Australia and Antarctica started in the Late Jurassic and culminated with the separation of the continents and the beginning of (very slow) seafloor spreading in the Late Cretaceous (about 99 to 65 million years ago). The other momentous event at this time took place in eastern Australia. The shallow sea that had covered nearly half of Australia during the Early Cretaceous retreated when the long-enduring Chilean-type subduction off eastern Australia was replaced by Mariana-type subduction and back-arc spreading in the Southwest Pacific Ocean that carried New Zealand and the submarine Lord Howe Rise away from Australia.

All these events marked the change from the Innamincka Regime to the Potoroo Regime and the inception of modern Australia, with its oceanic margins on all sides and uplands on the eastern margin dividing the continental drainage into short coastal rivers to the east and the long ancestral Murray and Darling rivers to the southwest. Gold-bearing sand in rivers within the highlands was covered from time to time during the Cenozoic by flows of basalt lava. Other river sands deposited in the Paleocene (Paleocene Epoch) and Eocene epochs (Eocene Epoch) (65 to 33.7 million years ago) at the foot of the ancestral Eastern Highlands of Victoria were later shaped into broad folds to become the reservoirs of the giant oil and gas fields in the offshore Gippsland Basin. Australia continued moving away from Antarctica owing to seafloor spreading of the southeast Indian Ocean. By the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch (about 33.7 million years ago) the ocean was wide enough to allow the unimpeded flow of the Circum-Antarctic Current, which led to the glaciation of Antarctica by insulating it from the rest of the world ocean.

Australia meanwhile had drifted to lower latitudes, and the northern half of the Australian margin, including the southern part of New Guinea, became covered in warm-water carbonate sediment, though it was not until sometime in the Quaternary Period (1.8 million years ago to the present) that the Great Barrier Reef off the Queensland coast began to grow. In its northern progress over the Pacific Plate since about 25 million years ago, the leading edge of Australia picked up slivers of the continental and oceanic terranes that now form the northern half of New Guinea. Within the past few million years, Australia has collided in Timor with the Banda arcs. As Australia continues to move northward, it will ultimately join Eurasia by colliding with continental Southeast Asia, as did India, its former neighbour in Gondwanaland, some 50 million years ago.

The Pleistocene Epoch occupies the Quaternary Period, with the exception of the last 10,000 years (i.e., the Holocene Epoch). The northern leading edges of the continental plate in New Guinea and Timor rise to peaks of two miles (three kilometres) or more and are separated from mainland Australia by the flooded continental area of the Arafura and Timor seas. On the mainland, the Central-Eastern Lowlands extend from the Gulf of Carpentaria through Lake Eyre, some 40 to 50 feet (12 to 15 metres) below sea level, to the Spencer and St. Vincent gulfs near Adelaide. The Lowlands are bounded on the west by the Great Western Plateau—great in extent but not height: the highest point (in the Pilbara) is 4,105 feet (1,251 metres)—and on the east by the Eastern Highlands, whose highest point (at Mount Kosciusko (Kosciusko, Mount)) is 7,310 feet (2,228 metres). Inside a coastal region in the north, east, and southwest that is about 620 miles (1,000 km) wide, the arid interior lacks coherent drainage, and much of it consists of dune fields and sand plains covered by sparse vegetation in what is now the hottest and (after Antarctica) the driest continent. In the southeast, Tasmania represents the southernmost part of the Eastern Highlands beyond the flooded Bass Strait.

The Holocene (Holocene Epoch) is the latest of several interglacial phases within the Quaternary ice age. During the peak of the latest glacial phase, 18,000 years ago, the global sea level was some 300 feet (90 metres) lower than it is today, and New Guinea and Tasmania were joined by dry land to the mainland. The arid zone was even wider than it is at present: summers were dry, hot, and windy; sand was moved about in dunes and sheets; and dust was blown out to sea. Ice built up in Tasmania and the Mount Kosciusko region. Giant forebears of the Holocene marsupial animals became extinct, but humans survived as they had for the previous 20,000 years.

Major economic resources generated during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic include the oil and natural gas of the North West Shelf and offshore Gippsland; the brown coal of onshore Gippsland; the oil shale of Queensland; the black coal of Queensland, Tasmania, and South Australia; the bauxite of northern Australia; and, particularly valuable in arid Australia, extensive groundwater reservoirs, notably those of the Great Artesian Basin.

The Phanerozoic development of Australia (and the rest of the Earth) was overshadowed by the changing configuration of the continents. The enormous continental blocks amalgamated into a supercontinent—the so-called Proto-Pangaea—by the end of the Precambrian and then split apart in the early Paleozoic. The landmasses reassembled to form Pangaea between the Late Carboniferous (about 330 million years ago) and the Late Jurassic (150 million years ago), after which they began (and have continued) to disperse again. Attending the clustering of the continents in Pangaea were the tectonic effect of reduced turnover of mantle material and the environmental effects of low global sea level, a low concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and, through the correspondingly weak greenhouse effect, low retention of heat from the Sun. As a result, Pangaea was prone to glaciation, exemplified by the global glaciations near the end of the Proterozoic (in Australia, the Marinoan glaciation) and Permian (the deposits at the onset of the Innamincka Regime).

The reverse effects are known to occur during the alternate configuration of dispersed continents: the plate-tectonic “motor” turns faster, new rift oceans drive the continental fragments apart, sea level is high and the continents flooded, and a high concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide vented from the mantle retains radiant heat from the Sun. The result is that the continents are prone to be covered by the sea (Australia was flooded during the Cambrian and Ordovician between Proto-Pangaea and Pangaea, and after Pangaea in the Cretaceous) and tend to be warm (even though Australia was located at high latitudes in the Mesozoic, there is no evidence of permanent ice having existed on the continent at that time). It is the Pangaea factor that explains the association of tectonic and environmental effects that characterize the tectonic-climatic regimes of Phanerozoic Australia. Accordingly, the Uluru sequence in the interior is dominated by warm marine carbonate deposits, the Innamincka sequence by nonmarine (including glacial) deposits, and the Potoroo sequence by marine deposits confined almost wholly to the margins.

Moreover, the coastal rim is, almost everywhere, exempted from the prevailing flatness and aridity. In particular the east coast, where European settlement began and where the majority of Australians now live, is topographically quite diverse and is comparatively well watered and fertile.

In this huge continent there are wide variations in landforms and climate. The thickly wooded ranges of the Great Divide have little in common with the treeless, sun-baked plains of the Inland. There is a vast difference between the red rocks and monumental hills of central Australia and the tropical rainforests and sugar plantations of northern Queensland. To many visitors, Australia may not seem a pretty country, but it has a unique and haunting beauty that exerts a powerful fascination on those who get to know it.

Australia is a land of vast plains. Only 6 percent of the island continent is above 2,000 feet (600 metres) in elevation. Its highest peak, Mount Kosciusko (Kosciusko, Mount), rises to only 7,310 feet (2,228 metres). This situation stems in part from the long periods of geologic time during which Australia has been subject to weathering and erosion and in part from Australia's position at the edge of a zone of significant and geologically recent earth movement.

Many areas—notably the Nullarbor Plain, which is underlain by limestone, and the sand ridge deserts—are without surface drainage, but there are underground streams. A map of Australia can be misleading; though many “lakes” are depicted in the interior, the fact is that many of them are now salt lakes that contain no water for years on end.

The Precambrian western core area, known geologically as a shield or craton, is subdivided by long, straight (or only slightly bowed) fractures called lineaments. These fractures, most obvious in the north and west, delineate prominent rectangular or rhomboidal blocks, some of which have been raised to form uplands; others have been depressed to form lowlands or topographic basins. The lineaments display strong northwest-southeast and northeast-southwest trends in the northern, northwestern, and southeastern parts of the shield, but east-west alignments are prominent in the centre, and major structural lines are more nearly longitudinal in the west and southwest. In all areas, however, trends other than those that are locally dominant can be discerned.

In the far southwest, the Darling Range forms an upfaulted block underlain mainly by granite but capped by laterite, a reddish, iron-rich product of weathering rock. The Gawler block, in the southeast, is complex. There are crystalline and sandstone uplands in the east, sandstone plateaus in the northeast, and, in the centre and north, the rounded Gawler Ranges built of Precambrian volcanic rocks. Much of Eyre Peninsula is occupied by a rolling plain traversed by fixed sand dunes, but in the northwest numerous low isolated granite rocks of spectacular appearance, called inselbergs, stand above the plain. These epitomize the isolated ranges and hills widely developed in the northwest of South Australia, in the Musgrave (Musgrave Ranges), Everard, Birksgate, Mann, and Tomkinson ranges.

The lowlands between these raised blocks also display varied topography. The so-called Barkly Tableland is in reality a high plain of remarkable flatness, partly eroded in Cambrian sedimentary rocks and partly underlain by Tertiary swamp deposits. The Nullarbor Plain, a karst area, is approximately coincident with the Eucla Basin. Its surface is so flat that in one section the Trans-Australian Railway runs absolutely straight for some 300 miles (500 km) as it passes over the region. A vast area of the southwest of Western Australia is occupied by an extensive high plain traversed by elongate ribbons encrusted with salt, the desiccated and disrupted remnants of former river courses. The Gibson Desert consists in large part of a laterite-capped plain, but huge areas of the plains of central and northern Australia are occupied by active sand dunes, and large areas of southern South Australia and Western Australia are covered by fields of fixed dunes.

Actively developing and moving sand ridges occupy the Canning Basin, the Great Victoria Desert, the Amadeus depression, and large areas of the Arunta-Sturt Complex. The dune fields extend to the east into the Great Artesian Basin, where the dunes constitute the well-known Simpson Desert. These dune deserts reflect the prevailing aridity of most of Australia, and the dune trend displays a huge swirl around the centre of the continent. Yet, even in these most arid areas, rain falls from time to time, and the rivers run occasionally. Because of the scarcity of vegetation and the common development of impermeable rock layers of various types, runoff in the arid lands tends to be rapid and achieves dramatic and significant results. Hillslopes are scoured and washed bare of weathered debris; streams erode gullies and transport large volumes of sediment from the uplands to the plains; broad, braided river channels are developed; and extensive alluvial plains are formed. It is the alluvium, carried to the lowlands by rivers and deposited on the plains, that is, in large measure, the source of the sand out of which the desert dunes are molded by the wind.

In the far southwest of the shield, and especially in the northern areas, precipitation is sufficient to support a considerable vegetation and is regular enough for streams to flow seasonally. Here the work of rivers in shaping the land surface is more obvious and widespread; the landscape consists essentially of valleys and intervening divides, the precise form of each depending on local structure. But in such areas the rate of landscape change is more rapid than in the arid zones.

Many of the landforms of the shield are inherited from the past, when different climatic conditions obtained. Remnants of laterite are widespread in many parts of Australia: the Darling Range, the far southwest, the Isa Highlands, and Mueller Range, near Darwin, and the southern Eyre Peninsula. The evidence indicates that during the Tertiary Period, these areas had been reduced to low relief, and humid tropical climates prevailed, for laterite is at present forming only under such conditions in such areas as Southeast Asia and the Congo River basin. The disrupted former drainage system of southwest Western Australia has already been referred to, and remnants of similar old stream networks occur in the Amadeus depression, on the Nullarbor Plain, and in the Great Victoria Desert. A large swamp formerly occupied the south of the Barkly Tableland; and Lake Woods, near Newcastle Waters, is now dry, with a bed of some 70 square miles (180 square km) in extent, but shorelines indicate that the lake formerly occupied some 1,100 square miles (2,850 square km). Fossil remains also suggest wetter climates in the past in many parts of Australia and subsequent deterioration toward aridity. But in the south the occurrence of dunes now fixed by vegetation shows that the climate there has recently become moister.

Finally, in several parts of the shield remnants of eroded surfaces, planed off and covered with hard, silicified crusts of weathered rock, cut across local bedrock and are either preserved high in the relief or buried beneath later sedimentary deposits. They attest to changes in the disposition of the land surface (either base-level changes or regional warping or faulting) and also indicate that, in the past, surfaces of low relief similar to present ones were widely developed. Reference has already been made to the distribution of the laterite surface. At the eastern margin of the shield there are remnants of a still older surface, of late or middle Mesozoic age, which has been warped by subsequent earth movements and now disappears beneath the sediments of the Great Artesian and similar basins. Other evidence of the existence of this surface has been found in northwestern Queensland, central Australia, and South Australia.

To the south, the Mount Lofty Range (Mount Lofty Ranges) is a faulted and much dissected and complex horst, or ancient uplifted structural block. Bounded on both east and west by meridional or gently arcuate fault scarps, which developed initially in the Early Paleozoic but which have suffered recurrent movements since (and which indeed are still active), the ranges are surmounted in many areas by the remnants of a lateritic plain. In many other areas, such a hard capping of rock, if ever present, has been eliminated by stream erosion. Sandstones again form prominent ridges and residuals (isolated relief features), such as Mount Lofty itself; small granite outcrops give rise to boulder-strewn surfaces; and exposures of gneiss form slablike blocks known as tombstones, monk stones, or penitent rocks.

Between the Mount Lofty and the Flinders ranges is a region of broad simple folds in which the sandstone ridges run for the most part north-south and in which the broad open valleys were in some instances occupied by lakes during the Tertiary Period. To the northeast, similar upland areas of low relief, but with domes of crystalline rock standing above the general level, dominate the Olary Spur.

The Interior Lowlands are dominated by three major basins, the Carpentaria Basin, the Eyre Basin, and the Murray Basin. The Carpentaria and Eyre basins are separated by such minute residual relief elements as Mount Brown and Mount Fort Bowen in northwestern Queensland. The Wilcannia threshold divides the Eyre and Murray basins, and the latter is separated from the Otway Basin and the Southern Ocean by the Padthaway Ridge. The Eyre and Murray basins are entirely terrestrial, but the Carpentaria is partly inundated by the sea.

The Carpentaria plains, occupying the basin of the same name, form a narrow lowland corridor between the Isa Highlands and the Einasleigh uplands (part of the Eastern Uplands). They are drained by the Leichhardt, Flinders, and Gilbert rivers and in the south take the form of broadly rolling plains underlain by heavy gray lime-enriched (pedocalic) soils. In the north, however, there are extensive flat depositional plains, some of them related to Pleistocene swamps, some associated with the present floodplains of the braided river systems. Standing above the plains, for example around Normanton, are considerable plateau and mesa remnants of the Tertiary laterite surface.

Similar rolling plains with laterite residuals standing above them occur in the Eyre Basin, particularly around the headwaters of the Diamantina (Diamantina River), near Kynuna. But to the south, toward the more arid interior, the plains become flatter and are protected by a veneer of stones—the well-known stony desert with its mantle of gibber (hammada, serir, and desert armour). In many parts of southwestern Queensland, northeastern South Australia, and northwestern New South Wales, there are plateau and related relief remnants similar to those found in other parts of the lowlands, although these are capped and protected not by laterite but by silcrete, another hard rock residue. This region is folded in places, and the subsequent dissection by erosive forces has brought about disintegration of the silcrete, which is of middle Tertiary age and which formerly extended over vast areas of central Australia. This process provided much stony debris for the gibber plains so characteristic of much of central Australia and particularly of the Lake Eyre (Eyre, Lake) depression.

Under the prevailing arid conditions, fine dust is winnowed from the surface sediments and can be carried high into the air in dust storms. Some is carried long distances, even reaching New Zealand from time to time. The sand of the alluvium is molded into dune ridges.

In the east of this region there are extensive alluvial plains associated with major tributaries of the Murray. One feature of interest is the diversion of the Murray, near Echuca, by a rising structural block bounded by fault zones and known as the Cadell Fault Block.

The Eastern Uplands are a complex series of high ridges, high plains, plateaus, and basins that extend from Cape York Peninsula in the north to Bass Strait in the south, with a southerly extension into Tasmania and one extending westward into western Victoria. The uplands are the eroded remnants of an ancient mountain range recently rejuvenated by block faulting. They occupy the site of the Tasman downwarp belt, the sediments of which were folded and faulted in late Paleozoic times. Granite batholiths were intruded into this region, and during the Cenozoic Era lavas (lava) appeared extensively in areas as far apart as northern Queensland and Tasmania. Characteristic features associated with this process were lava fields, with stony rises, soil-filled depressions, and lava caves. Extinct cones and craters survive in southeastern Queensland, in the Monaro district of New South Wales, and in western Victoria.

In considerable measure the landforms (continental landform) reflect these various geologic events. Uplifted structural blocks, many of them trending north to south, are common in some areas, while straight river courses reflect the control exercised by fault zones. Ridge and valley forms, as found in the Grampians of Victoria, reflect the differential erosion of broken and folded rock strata. Massive domes or clusters of boulders are common on the exposed granitic batholiths. The lava plains and plateaus display stony rises, shallow alluvial depressions, and volcanic vents and plugs of various types and ages.

Other features reflect the erosional history of the region. Wide areas of the upland had been reduced to a uniform low relief by the time of the later Mesozoic Era (about 100 million years ago) and many remnants of this ancient surface, exhumed by erosive action from beneath a later Cretaceous cover, survive in the landscape, notably in northern Queensland. The mid-Tertiary leaching of rocks by weathering in humid climates—which forms iron-rich residuals (laterization)—also affected the uplands, from northern Queensland to Tasmania.

Lastly, during the Pleistocene, small glaciers developed in the Mount Kosciusko area of New South Wales and the central plateau of Tasmania. Small, ice-scoured hollows and small moraines (ridges of glacial debris) attest to these events, while over rather wider areas frost-shattered rocks that subsequently caused soils to flow down-slope (solifluction) have helped shape the surface. No snow normally survives through summer in either of these areas now, but in winter the snowfields of the Mount Kosciusko area alone are more extensive than those of all Switzerland, if far less heavily supplied.

In the context of such extraordinary environmental time frames, neither the Aboriginals (Australian Aborigine) nor the European settlers can be described as long-term residents, yet in their brief time they have already modified the landscape considerably and in most ways deleteriously. The Europeans in particular have been responsible for initially minor, but later significant and widespread, changes, notably considerable soil erosion. Clearing vegetation for agricultural purposes, overgrazing, introducing exotic plants and animals, making tracks and roads, even clearing stones from paddocks—all have rendered the land surface more susceptible to soil erosion. Humans have set in train their own great cycle of erosion, similar to that which beset many parts of western Europe in the 18th century and which has assailed many parts of the American West since the late 19th century.

In general, the continental pattern of soils is closely related to climatic factors. Mineral or skeletal soils exist over much of arid Australia that contain virtually no organic content and have developed little depth; they may consist merely of a rough mantle of weathered rock. gypsum is present in many of the desert loams and arid red earths. The soils of the semiarid regions (where annual precipitation is from 8 to 15 inches 【203 to 380 mm】) are also alkaline, with gypsum or lime a common feature. The organic content of the soils is again low in the solonized (salt-enriched) brown soils and the gray and brown soils of heavy texture that are common in these areas.

In both the arid and semiarid regions gilgai—patterns of swells and depressions caused by the alternate swelling and contraction following wetting and drying of clay soils—have developed. They are especially well represented in areas of seasonal rainfall. In areas with 15 to 25 inches (380 to 635 mm) of annual precipitation, black earths, brown soils, and red-brown earths are the most common soils. In the wetter areas the leaching out of minerals is a prominent feature of the soils. Podzols—sandy, with much humus at the surface and acid throughout—are the characteristic soil types. In the alpine regions humus soils—surface peats over a mineral—are noteworthy.

Superimposed on these broad, climatically determined, soil patterns are local variations caused by topography, groundwater conditions, and parent materials. For example, red soils of one kind (krasnozems) are developed on the basalt outcrops so common in eastern Australia, and those of different composition (terra rossas and rendzinas) on calcareous bedrock. In addition, laterite and silcrete originated in remote geologic times, when conditions were markedly different from those of today. Laterite is represented in every state, including Tasmania, though it is forming nowhere in Australia at the present time, while silicified material is restricted to arid Australia and parts of subhumid Western Australia, South Australia, and Queensland. The term is usually applied to surface or near-surface deposits cemented by silica and is often associated with the formation of mesas and other prominent landforms. Most Australian silcretes are thought to have originated in the middle to late Tertiary era.

Australia is the arid continent. Over two-thirds of its landmass, precipitation (largely as rainfall) per annum averages less than 20 inches (500 mm), and over one-third of it is less than 10 inches (250 mm). Little more than one-tenth of the continent receives more than 40 inches (1,000 mm) per year. As has been noted, in winter the snowfields of Tasmania and the Mount Kosciusko area can be extensive, but on the whole Australia is an extremely hot country, in consequence of which evaporation losses are high and the effectiveness of the rainfall received is reduced. In addition, the severity of climate, the predominance of the outdoors in the minds and lives of many, and the national importance of agricultural and pastoral pursuits all make Australians perhaps more climate-conscious than most. In no country of comparable development do climate and weather loom so large in the lives and conversation of the people.

The principal features of Australia's climate stem from its position, shape, and size. Australia is mainly a compact tropical and near-tropical continent. No major arms or embayments of the sea penetrate far into the landmass. The only extensive uplands occur near the east coast, and even they are not, by world standards, very high.

In summer (December–February), when the sun is directly overhead in northern Australia, temperatures are extremely high. The sea exerts little moderating influence, and the uplands are not sufficiently extensive or high to have more than local effects. Temperatures commonly soar above the 100 °F (38 °C) mark in the interior, but because there rarely is any cloud cover, radiation loss is considerable at night, and daily temperature ranges are wide. High temperatures dominate the Australian summers in all but Tasmania. Heat waves are common, and, though the highest amounts of solar radiation are received in northern South Australia, the highest temperatures and longest heat waves are recorded in the northwest of Western Australia. For example, Marble Bar has recorded a maximum temperature of 100 °F or more on 162 consecutive days. Temperatures in winter remain moderate except in the uplands of Tasmania and southeastern Australia, where snow is common. Night frosts are common in winter throughout southern Australia and in the interior.

Because of its relatively low latitudinal position, Australia comes under the influence of the southeast trade winds in the north and the westerlies in the south. Northern Australia is affected by a northerly monsoon, partly because of the latitude and the seasonal migration of planetary wind zones and partly because of the summer heating of the continental interior that draws in surface winds. The monsoon brings summer (December–February) rains to the northern coastal area that penetrate inland for variable distances. These summer rains are all the more important because most of northern Australia is in the sheltered rain shadow of the Eastern Uplands, which block the rain-bearing southeast trades (trade wind) in winter. The trades, forced to rise by the uplands, bring heavy rains to the Pacific coasts of Queensland and northern New South Wales. These areas are also affected by tropical cyclones and receive the heaviest rains of any part of Australia. Within this coastal fringe, the northern Queensland area around Tully, south of Cairns, is the wettest, with an annual average of nearly 160 inches (4,050 mm).

Southern Australia receives winter rains from depressions associated with the west-wind zone. Again, there are local topographic controls, with uplands receiving higher amounts than the adjacent plains. Parts of the southern Mount Lofty Range (Mount Lofty Ranges), in South Australia, average more than 40 inches (1,000 mm) of rainfall per year, but Adelaide, to the west, averages only about 20 inches (500 mm), while the Murray plains, in the rain shadows of the range, receive 15 inches (380 mm) or less rainfall annually.

In the great mass of the interior of Australia, annual rainfall averages less than 20 inches (500 mm), and over vast areas the total is less than 10 inches (250 mm); the Lake Eyre region averages less than half that amount. Rainfall in these areas is unreliable and capricious, with long droughts broken by damaging rains and floods. Over Australia as a whole, rainfall is indeed extremely variable. Only in the far north, around Darwin, in the southwest of Western Australia, in southern South Australia and Victoria, in Tasmania, and in eastern New South Wales is the recorded annual precipitation fairly consistent, in any given year totaling no more than 10 percent above or below the long-term average in specific years.

Much of Australia's marked climatic variability has been ascribed to the changeability in differential air pressures over the central Pacific and the Indonesian archipelago, primarily caused by contrasts in sea and ocean temperatures. The resulting large-scale swing in air pressure is known as the Southern Oscillation. Monitoring the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) is now considered essential to seasonal weather forecasting. The SOI is strongly negative when weak Pacific winds bring less moisture than usual to Australia. Prolonged negative phases are related to El Niño episodes in the South Pacific, and most of Australia's major droughts have been related to these episodes. Prolonged positive SOI phases (during La Niña) normally bring above-average rainfall and floods to eastern and northern Australia. In each case, however, the correlations are not exact.

Some two centuries ago Australia was in a nearly primal condition, unmodified by the practices of large-scale conventional agriculture. The continent's prehistory is so recent that a scattering of old eucalypts can be found still standing, bearing the great scars of canoes or shields cut from the bark by the Aboriginal (Australian Aborigine) peoples.

As nomadic hunters and gatherers without herds or crops, Aboriginals burned much of Australia's native vegetation, both deliberately and haphazardly. Fire, more particularly its frequency, had a profound influence on much of Australia's native vegetation, the surviving remnants of which have become difficult to manage; some have changed in composition because the fire frequency has decreased, others because the frequency has increased. The Australian botanist Helene Martin has presented palynological evidence (from the study of pollen and spores) showing how the trends of change in certain types of arid and coastal vegetation, over several thousand years of prehistory, were apparently deflected by the fires of Aboriginals.

Since Europeans arrived on the continent, cataclysmic changes have been wrought in its biota. Settlers have stripped the native vegetation from most potentially arable and some nonarable regions, substituting mainly exotic (nonnative) herbaceous crops and pastures. In the process they have effected the extinction of many native species and, through sheer decimation and reduction of habitat, have pushed many more to the brink of extinction. The vast central and northern regions too arid for the cultivation of crops were stocked with millions of sheep and cattle, converting them to rangelands. Many exotic animals (such as camels) and plants were introduced incidentally, some running wild as pests, without effective control measures. As a result, much of the inland has been overgrazed, and its original fauna has become impoverished.

Public pressure began increasing dramatically in the late 20th century for improved wildlife and natural landscape conservation in Australia; this in turn provoked strong opposing reactions from long-standing business interests that have exploited the country's resources. The result has been an increasing acrimonious debate. Existing reserves have protected some native biota and landscape—though scarcely enough to check the ongoing loss of diversity.

Legislation requiring preparatory environmental impact statements became standard for most types of development during the early 1970s. Conservationist organizations interested in protecting fauna and flora are well developed in Australia, and environmental protection is also served by related National Trust bodies whose main concern has been with the “built” environment of towns, cities, and historic rural landscapes. The strongest national conservation body is the Australian Conservation Foundation, which acts as a lobbyist and coordinates the work of smaller groups.

Australian federal and state government agencies and some universities maintain facilities for the scientific collection, storage, and study of Australian plants. Updated knowledge about these plants comes mainly from such institutions and reaches the public through published handbooks, called floras, listing and illustrating the species. The number of general popular books dealing with the ornamental, horticultural, medicinal, culinary, and other uses of plants increased sharply following the publication of a major new flora, the multivolume series Flora of Australia (1981).

Australia's phanerogamian (seed plant) flora of approximately 20,000 species is thought to have arisen in ancient times from two distinct intakes of stock. Both stocks had previously been involved in a wider theatre, and each intake was followed by a period when the species adapted and diversified within the continent. The great advances in geophysics toward understanding continental drift have made it possible to take the paleontological and related botanical evidence and reconstruct the physical environment and time-sequence.

Australia's initial intake of flora originated—as was the case with present-day South America, Africa, India, Madagascar, New Caledonia, New Zealand, and Antarctica—during the period when it was part of Gondwana. Hence, much Gondwanan flora is still shared among these now-separated lands, both at present and in the fossil record, including, for example, the southern beech (also called the Antarctic, or myrtle, beech), the conifer families Podocarpaceae and Araucariaceae, and many angiosperm families (e.g., Myrtaceae, Proteaceae, and Stylidiaceae).

Australia also shares many groups of plants with the Malesian region (the Malay Archipelago) to the north. This is considered to be the result of a second, two-way exchange much later in geologic history, in the Miocene Epoch, when continental drift eventually brought Australia into close proximity with the Malesian region. Thus, typically Australian taxa such as the genus Leptospermum (of the family Myrtaceae) extend northward; Baeckea extends to China, Melaleuca to India, and Eucalyptus to the Philippines. Of the family Epacridaceae, Leucopogon extends to Malaysia and Thailand, and Trochocarpa to Borneo and Celebes (Sulawesi). Conversely, more than 200 genera of plants best known from the Malesian region or northward are represented in Australia (mainly northern Australia), each by a single species not confined to Australia. These are comparatively recent arrivals from the north.

The Australian element includes derivatives of Gondwanan stock channeled specially to Australia, at the family level (for example, Epacridaceae, Myoporaceae, Goodeniaceae, and Stackhousiaceae), together with typically Australian developments within nonendemic families—for example, subfamily Leptospermoideae of Myrtaceae, the genera Banksia and Hakea of Proteaceae, the grass trees and blackboys (family Xanthorrhoeaceae, separated from Liliaceae), and the kangaroo paws (family Haemodoraceae).

Most obvious to the visitor is Eucalyptus, which is represented by more than 400 species, ranging in size from diminutive mallees, smaller than a person, to forest giants matching in bulk and height the world's largest plants. Their habitat is similarly varied, ranging from rainforest to snowfield to hot desert fringe. Members of the genus acacia have undergone similar adaptive diversification; the 700 species range from mulga and myall—the dominant trees of vast arid areas—to small leafless blades at ground level, the grass wattles.

The word vegetation, as opposed to plant life, implies the structure and communal relations of the landscape's plant cover, whether it be forest, grassland, or marsh. There is no standard, or worldwide, classification system (such as exists for describing flora) for this aspect of the environment. Initial attempts to apply European and American classification concepts to Australia were not particularly satisfactory because of the peculiarities of the continent's vegetation and environment. For example, climatic control of local vegetation zones was often found insufficient to explain vegetation changes; on the contrary, soil patterns and geologic history quite override climatic control in many localities. Similarly, structural descriptive schemes useful for Northern Hemisphere coniferous and deciduous vegetation proved inappropriate when confronted by the great variety of evergreen vegetation—notably mallees and shrubs—found in Australia. The mapping of Australian vegetation is based largely on factual descriptive features, and by this means comprehensive and detailed accounts and maps have been produced.

Australian plant life is distributed in three main zones—the Tropical, Temperate, and Eremian—a pattern that reflects overall climatic conditions. The Tropical Zone, which arcs east and west across the northern margin of the continent and extends halfway down the eastern seaboard, has a mainly dry monsoonal climate, with some wet regions. The Temperate Zone, with a cool-to-warm (temperate-to-subtropical) climate and precipitation mostly in winter, is arced across the southern margin, embracing Tasmania and extending up the eastern seaboard to overlap slightly with the Tropical Zone. The Eremian Zone covers the whole of central Australia through to the west-central coast; its climate is arid.

The major structural units constituting this geographic distribution are rainforest, sclerophyll forest (dominated by hard-leaved plants such as eucalypts), and woodland, scrub, savanna, and grassland forms, each with a range of subforms. The bulk of the Tropical Zone comprises mixed deciduous woodland and sclerophyllous low-tree savanna, with areas of tussock grassland, coastal mangrove complexes, and tropical rainforest containing much exotic vegetation—particularly in the northeastern parts of Cape York Peninsula and in Queensland. A strong Malesian influence occurs throughout the entire zone. The rainforests—characterized by large trees with stem buttresses and by multiple vegetation layers with interlaced canopies of lianas (liana) and epiphytes (epiphyte) growing in the trees—fit the popular concept of “jungle.”

The Temperate Zone is characterized by dry and wet sclerophyllous forests, temperate mixed woodlands, savanna woodlands, mallees, and scrubs, with areas of alpine vegetational complexes, temperate rainforest, and sclerophyllous heath. A much higher proportion of the vegetation cover is typically and recognizably “Australian.” Within this zone the southwestern corner of Western Australia is outstanding, both for the high proportion of Australian plants and for the richness of the plant life, while the vegetation of Tasmania is notable for its forests of southern beech and for its botanical links with New Zealand and South America. In marked contrast to the tropical rainforests, the predominant trees throughout most of the Temperate Zone communities are either Eucalyptus or Acacia. Much of the Temperate Zone vegetation has been cleared for agricultural purposes, leaving only the vegetation communities of infertile or inaccessible localities.

The vegetation of the Eremian Zone ranges from barely vegetated desert and hills through a variety of semiarid shrub savannas, shrub steppes, semiarid tussock grasslands, and sclerophyllous hummock grasslands. Many shrubs have adapted themselves similarly to the arid conditions, so that in their vegetative state many representatives of different families look alike. Acacia, Eremophila, and Casuarina are examples of genera that tend to displace Eucalyptus as the dominant tree or shrub. Much of this vegetation is badly degraded.

The distribution of climates, topography, and soils that has produced the zones and ecological variation of Australian vegetation has also been reflected in the distribution of animal life. Australia probably has between 200,000 and 300,000 species, about 100,000 of which have been described. There are some 250 species of native mammals, 550 species of land and aquatic birds, 680 species of reptiles, 190 species of frogs, and more than 2,000 species of marine and freshwater fish. The remainder are invertebrates, including insects.

In the varied environments of the Tropical Zone, species confined to the rainforests of the mountainous northeast include the tree kangaroos (kangaroo) (genus Dendrolagus) and the gorgeous bird-wing butterflies (Ornithoptera). Others favour more open habitats such as savannas and grasslands. Among this group are the agile wallaby (Macropus agilis) and Amitermes meridionalis, a termite that orients its mounds in a north-south direction by sensing the Earth's magnetic field.

The animals of the Eremian Zone are characterized by their ability to survive under extremely arid conditions and irregular rainfall. Examples include the marsupial mole (Notoryctes typhlops), a burrower in sand, and the water-holding frog of the genus Cyclorana. After rainy spells Cyclorana burrows deep in the soil, forming a chamber in which it lies in a cocoonlike sac filled with water formed from a special outer layer of its skin. The budgerigar (Melopsittacus) is adapted to irregular rainfall by being nomadic.

Some species occur in all zones. These include the galah (Cacatua roseicapilla; a species of cockatoo) and the Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen).

Extinction of native species is a matter of much concern. Some 20 mammal, 20 bird, and 70 flowering plant species are presumed to have become extinct during the period of European settlement. Some 50 terrestrial mammals and more than 1,000 flowering plants are officially listed as both endangered (endangered species) or vulnerable; that description is also applied to about 30 amphibians, 50 reptiles, and 50 birds. Estimates of the numbers of introduced species include 1,500 to 2,000 flowering plants, 30 freshwater and marine fish, and about 70 land animals and birds. There has also been a great reduction of range of most species inhabiting temperate or semiarid lands, except for those that have benefited from the extension of pastures and watering points. The latter species include the large kangaroos and the Australian magpie.

The high degree to which many species depend on a relatively narrow range of vegetation types means that animals of some zones have suffered more from human activity than others. Small and medium-size terrestrial mammals and ground-nesting birds of temperate and semiarid grasslands and shrublands have been most affected by clearing for pastures and cereal crops. In addition, they have suffered most from competition with and habitat destruction by introduced animals such as rabbits, sheep, goats, and cattle and from predation by the foxes and feral cats. Few parts of Australia are free from the effects of introduced animal species. In the tropical north the cane toad (Bufo marinus) is believed to be a major predator of small native vertebrates. Even the introduced honeybee, which is widely established in the feral state, is suspected of affecting native nectar-feeding insects, mammals, and birds.

The role of the Aboriginal (Australian Aborigine) people in causing the extinction of fauna before European settlement has been much debated. It is clear that at the time of European settlement Aboriginal hunting and burning had major effects on animal numbers, but a balance seems to have been maintained, possibly assisted by a system of social prohibitions that protected important species under certain conditions. But the effect of the initial Aboriginal entry on the continent is not yet clear. At that time, at least 60,000 years ago, the fauna contained many species of large animals (the Australian megafauna) and was considerably different from the fauna present at the time of European settlement. Such megafaunal animals as the rhinoceros-sized Diprotodon, giant wombats, the giant short-faced kangaroos (Sthenurus and Procoptodon), the so-called marsupial lion Thylacoleo, and giant flightless birds called mihirungs or Genyornis probably became extinct over a period between 27,000 and 12,000 years ago, possibly as late as 6,000 years ago.

It has been argued that Aboriginal overhunting, together with environmental changes caused by associated Aboriginal burning of the country, caused the extinction of these species. Others have suggested that climatic fluctuations at the end of the Pleistocene (some 10,000 years ago) were a more likely cause. Certainly, although there were no extensive ice sheets in Australia, the last glacial maximum (between 22,000 and 18,000 years ago) was a time of highly arid, as well as cold and windy, conditions. Deserts reached their greatest extent at that time, and there is no doubt that under such conditions the fauna (as well as humans) would have been under considerable physiological stress. No clear consensus has emerged, and, in view of the facts that there is no evidence of a sudden mass extinction and that Aboriginals seem to have occupied most of Australia for at least 20,000 years before the last megafauna disappeared, it is likely that a combination of all these factors played a part. By about 20,000 years ago, few mammals had survived that weighed more than their human predators.

Commercial hunting of only a few species of native fauna is allowed. It is confined to several species of the kangaroo family, muttonbirds (Puffinus tenuirostris), and some of the most common cockatoos and parrots; however, federal law does not permit live birds to be exported. Permits can be obtained to destroy pest species (such as kangaroos in certain circumstances). Sport shooting of game birds (ducks, quail, and snipes) and a few mammals is permitted in some states. Before controls were established, the numbers of several attractive varieties of parrots and cockatoos—as well as of crocodiles and such mammals as koalas, brushtail possums, ringtail possums, many wallaby species, and seals—reduced dramatically. Most have recovered, however. Quotas are set for the commercial taking of kangaroos each year for hides and for human and pet food. Numbers of kangaroos are constantly monitored, and there is no evidence of any reduction in the wild populations. Hundreds of thousands of muttonbirds are taken yearly for human consumption.

Fauna authorities and scientists responsible for conserving kangaroos support such commercial exploitation on scientific grounds. Many also believe that it would be in the interest of both conservation and agricultural practice to encourage husbandry of kangaroos. However, many others, both in Australia and elsewhere, are vehemently opposed to killing kangaroos for any reason. The issue has become highly political.

Australia has its share of potentially dangerous, as well as commercially useful, animals. The large saltwater crocodile (Crocodilus porosus) is known to eat humans. Of the many poisonous elapid snakes, the most dangerous to humans include taipans (Oxyuranus), smooth snakes (Parademansia), tiger snakes (Notechis), brown snakes (Pseudonaja), and death adders (Acanthophis); the latter, although smaller than the others, have large fangs, a lightning-fast strike, and highly toxic venom. About one-seventh of Australia's snake species pose a deadly threat to humans. There are many poisonous spiders, the best-known being the funnel-web spider (Atrax) and the red-back (Latrodectus). Both of these have caused human deaths, but only a minute proportion of Australia's spiders are dangerous. Antivenins are available for the venoms of both spiders and snakes.

Ticks and internal parasitic worms are mainly harmful to stock and domestic pets, and some blood-sucking insects are disease carriers. The larvae of the sheep blowfly Lucilia attack sheep and cause losses worth millions of dollars to the wool industry. Locusts, weevils, and insect larvae of various sorts do great damage in agriculture.

The Australian fauna (and that of New Guinea, which is part of the Australian lithospheric plate) is markedly different from that of the other adjacent land areas (Indonesia and other nearby islands). It is now known that this difference stems from Australia's long isolation and northward drift into its present geographic position. Thus, the Australian fauna has been derived to a large degree from the lands with which Australia was in contact when it was part of Gondwana. That part of the fauna derived from Asia, which includes the only extant native placental mammals (rats, mice, bats, and the dingo—the latter probably introduced by Aboriginals), entered Australia by island-hopping or accidental drifting. As might be expected, flying animals of Asian origin (e.g., bats and birds) reached Australia before the others, and they may have done so soon after Australia separated from Antarctica. Horseshoe bats (family Hipposideridae), which are related to typical Old World forms, appear in the Australian fossil record about 20 million years before the present.

The most ancient part of the Australian fauna predates even the formation of Gondwana. For example, the Queensland lungfish (Neoceratodus) has its closest relatives among the ancient fossil fauna of Europe, North America, and Asia. These elements are thought to have evolved between the Cambrian and the Devonian periods. Queensland lungfish are less closely related to the lungfish of Africa and South America (Lepidosirenidae) than to the extinct forms from Asia, Europe, and North America. Some insects, arachnids, onycophorans, land mollusks, and earthworms also are thought to have Pangaean origins. There are rich Australian fossil faunas from these ages, including the oldest known vertebrates, Arandaspis, a jawless fish from the Late Ordovician and superbly preserved armoured fishes and lungfishes from the Devonian.

Australian society is regarded in the wider world as essentially British (or at any rate Anglo-Celtic), and until the mid-20th century that portrayal was fairly accurate. The ties to Britain (United Kingdom) and Ireland were scarcely affected by immigration from other sources until then, although local concentrations of Germans, Chinese, and other ethnic groups had been established in the 19th century. But the complex demographic textures in Australia at the beginning of the 21st century contrasted quite sharply with the bland homogeneity of the country for much of the 20th century. Although some nine-tenths of Australia's population is European in ancestry, more than one-fifth is foreign-born, and there is a small but important (and growing) Aboriginal population. Of those born overseas, about half were born in Europe; though by far the largest proportion of those are from the United Kingdom, there are also more than 200,000 Italians. Among the larger non-European groups are New Zealanders and Vietnamese. The growth in immigration, particularly Asian immigration (from China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the Philippines) beginning in the last decades of the 20th century, combined with a subsequent flow of refugees from the Balkans, has altered the cultural landscape, imbuing Australia with a cosmopolitanism that it lacked in the mid-20th century.

In numerical terms the most important Aboriginal concentrations are located in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia, and Northern Territory. Until the later 1960s the Aboriginal population was not inaccurately described as being as rural as white Australia was urban. In the Outback, small numbers still lived in tribal societies and tried to maintain the traditional ways. Some were employed as highly skilled stockmen on the big stations (ranches), and welfare payments and charitable organizations supported others on mission stations and government reserves. From the 1970s and '80s the drift of Aboriginals to the towns and cities transformed the old patterns except in Northern Territory, where the rural distribution has remained predominant. Their migrations to the country towns have often left Aboriginal families as stranded “fringe dwellers,” a term with social as well as geographic connotations. In the larger centres, Aboriginal communities from widely differing backgrounds face innumerable hazards as they attempt to adjust to volatile urban politics. Perceptions of common grievances have encouraged a unity of purpose and a sense of solidarity between urban and rural groups.

The growth in the Aboriginal population has been exceeded by Australians born in Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. By the early 21st century, about one-third of all new settler arrivals had been born in Asia. Huge expenditures have been made on Aboriginal affairs, to the chagrin of much larger minority groups who have received less international visibility. Official federal policy has been to encourage self-help and local autonomy while improving the provision of essential services and the climate of opportunity. Obstacles to progress have included residual prejudice and neglect in the white (i.e., European) community and the lingering consequences of the vicious circle of poverty, ignorance, and disease in which native peoples became entrapped after their earliest encounters with whites.

English, Australia's official language, is almost universally spoken. Nevertheless, there are hundreds of Aboriginal languages (Australian Aboriginal languages), though many have become extinct since 1950, and most of the surviving languages have very few speakers. Mabuiag, spoken in the western Torres Strait Islands, and the Western Desert language have about 8,000 and 4,000 speakers, respectively, and about 50,000 Aboriginals may still have some knowledge of an Australian language. (For full discussion, see Australian Aboriginal languages.) The languages of immigrant groups to Australia are also spoken, most notably Chinese, Italian, and Greek.

Recorded religious adherence has generally mirrored the immigrants' backgrounds. In every census since the early colonial era, most Australians have professed to be Christian, principally Anglican and Roman Catholic, but simple materialism has become more influential than Christianity. The number of Roman Catholic (Roman Catholicism)s exceeded the number of Anglicans for the first time in the late 1980s. More than two-thirds of Australians identify themselves as Christian; about one-fourth are Roman Catholic, one-fifth Anglican, and one-fifth other Protestant (notably of the Uniting Church, Methodist, and Presbyterian denominations). The proportions registering as Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists increased sharply in the last decades of the 20th century; there are also small groups of Jews and Hindus. By the beginning of the 21st century, more than one-sixth of Australians professed no religion, and about one-tenth of citizens refused to disclose their religious affiliation on the national census form. In contrast to the European settlers, traditional Aboriginal communities are intensely spiritual. There religion gives meaning to life, and the coordinating theme is the sustaining connection between land and people.

The population debate—which is laden with considerable controversy—is a long-running affair that has drawn contributors from every walk of life since the beginning of the colonial era. After the mid-19th century, population growth was frequently adopted as an index of economic success and environmental adaptation, and the proximity of Asia's crowded millions deepened national insecurities. One of the first objectives of the new federal government, established in 1901, was to design a “White Australia (White Australia Policy)” policy, which aimed to prevent diluting Australia's Anglo-Celtic heritage. Although the policy was both unproductive and discriminatory, it was made more attractive by blending imperial and nationalistic sentiments that proclaimed “population capacities” of 100 to 500 million in Australia's “vast empty spaces.” In the interwar period the Australian geographer Griffith Taylor argued that there were stringent environmental limits that would restrict Australia's population to approximately 20 million people by the end of the 20th century. Taylor was vilified and finally hounded out of Australia, but his “environmental determinism,” like his remarkable prediction, was well-remembered, particularly since Australia's population only approached that benchmark at the beginning of the 21st century.

The battles in the Pacific theatre during World War II revived the “populate or perish” catchcry, and after the war a vigorous campaign was launched to encourage immigration from all parts of Europe. The government initially continued to emphasize the exclusivist White Australia policy, and the country's ethnic composition was only slightly affected. Over the succeeding decades, however, ethnic diversification gradually intensified, eventually setting off heated debates over the relative merits of publicly funded programs for assimilation and for multiculturalism.

The big cities received the bulk of the postwar immigration. Melbourne's early lead in industrialization was closely associated with the immigration boom, but Sydney eventually proved more attractive. The impact of immigration was not confined to these two centres; whereas the overseas-born population accounted for about one-third of the total for Sydney and Melbourne at the start of the 21st century, the national proportion was more than one-fifth and rising. Each of the other state capitals and the industrializing provincial centres also received their share of the influx. The impact was much smaller in the rural districts, except for the areas under irrigation.

At the outset, the federal government preferred to maintain British and Irish immigration at a high rate, but those sources were soon deemed insufficient to meet rising expectations, and further “assisted migration” and “private sponsorship” agreements were negotiated with other European and Middle Eastern governments. In addition, most major world crises have introduced fresh waves of immigrants: refugees from Hungary and Czechoslovakia after the uprisings in the 1950s and '60s; from Lebanon and from Chile and other Latin American countries in the 1970s; from Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) and China in the late 1970s and '80s; and from the Balkans in the 1990s. Since the end of World War II, some 600,000 refugees and displaced persons have arrived in Australia—more than one-tenth of the total number of new settlers. Consequently, about half of the population has been born overseas or has at least one overseas-born parent.

The White Australia policy was relaxed in 1966 and officially abandoned in 1973. Thereafter the share of non-European immigrants, particularly from Asia, began to increase. Most of the debates on immigration have focused on cultural and economic issues and only peripherally on ethnicity, and (with the exception of the complex Aboriginal issues) Australians largely have been spared the kinds of interracial conflict that have scarred other immigrant societies. Nevertheless, opposition to immigration and multiculturalism policies sparked the formation of the anti-immigrant One Nation Party in the late 1990s; although the party's success was limited, its position resonated with some Australian voters.

As discussed above, there was a dramatic increase in the indigenous population after World War II. This growth is usually attributed to greater pride in Aboriginality, the evolution of positive discrimination (affirmative action) policies in education, health, and welfare, and the official adoption of a generous definition of “Aboriginals” and “Torres Strait Islanders.” (For a further discussion of the labels, see Researcher's Note: “Aborigines” and self-designation.) The relatively youthful age-structures and high fertility rates of those enumerated as indigenous largely account for the continuing upward trend. Nevertheless, infant mortality is unusually high, and average life expectancy at birth is about 30 percent lower than that of the rest of Australia.

Australia's overall rate of natural population increase is less than half the world average, and its death and birth rates are also less than the world average. Life expectancy is high—in excess of 75 years for men and 80 years for women. Australia's population age 65 or over is substantial and growing, and about one-fifth of the population (many from the immigrant and Aboriginal communities) is under 15.

Australia has not yielded readily to development by Europeans. Even on the relatively favoured eastern periphery, the first European settlers were perplexed by the environment. Later, when they penetrated the mountains of the Great Dividing Range, they had to fight even harder against searing droughts, sudden floods, and voracious bushfires; they also continued to clash, often ruthlessly, with Aboriginal communities. Pioneer settlers took pride in conquering the continent's prodigious distances, and that became a national trait. The spread of railway networks in the latter part of the 19th century and the subsequent introduction of the automobile, the airplane, radio, television, and the Internet gradually reduced the friction of distance, but the conquest was far from complete even by the beginning of the 21st century.

The most densely populated 1 percent of the country contains nearly seven-eighths of Australia's total population. Since the early 19th century, the terms Outback, Interior, and Coastal (also Fringe, or Fertile Crescent) have been popular titles for the three broad regions of settlement. The term bush is applied indiscriminately to most rural or isolated districts regardless of their stage or type of development.

Extensive arid and semiarid areas in Western Australia, Northern Territory, and South Australia are routinely labeled as actually or virtually uninhabited. This description also applies to remote sections of west-central Queensland and to scattered patches of dry or mountainous wilderness in Victoria, New South Wales, and Tasmania. On the northern and central mainland some large Aboriginal reserves punctuate the open territory.

In the more useful but still arid and semiarid country, enormous cattle and sheep stations are held under complex leasehold arrangements, and property sizes generally range between 30 and 5,800 square miles (80 and 15,000 square km). Many of the larger holdings are now controlled by Australian banks and investment firms or by large domestic and foreign companies, though original pioneering families are still represented. The fulcrum of the typical big station is a compact base comprising the homestead headquarters and separate buildings for the manager, overseer, general and specialized workers, garage and machine shops, butchery, shearing shed, and small airstrip. These pastoral hamlets typically accommodate between 15 and 50 individuals; a few widely scattered huts or cottages might be available for outlying workers. Thus, the private enterprise development of areas much larger than some U.S. states or groups of English counties is essentially in the keeping of small groups of tightly focused communities—albeit under leasehold, not freehold, tenures.

The gradual improvement in the quantity and reliability of rainfall from this difficult interior to the coast is not uniform, but it is a noticeable tendency and is accompanied by progressively denser settlement. A standard sequence begins with wheat and sheep farming on the drier margins and moves on to more specialized wheat production and intensive livestock enterprises, dairy farming, and market gardening. Roughly equivalent gradations may be traced in the spacing of properties—for example, from large wheat-sheep enterprises that may exceed 2,500 acres (about 1,000 hectares) held in a mixture of freehold and leasehold tenures, down to freehold dairy farms and market gardens using about 100 acres (40 hectares) apiece and often much less than that. Irrigation developments interrupt the sequence in all states.

A combination of government enterprise and the initiatives of pioneer families had established the main outlines of this framework by World War I in the older states and a little later in Queensland and Western Australia. The existence of characteristic Australian farming and grazing belts from state to state can be exaggerated, but, to the extent that these exist, they are the product of common objectives in settlement policy and represent a gradual clarification, by people and governments, of the importance of regional environmental quality.

Prominent mining centres such as Mount Isa in Queensland and Broken Hill in New South Wales are exceptions to the rule that sizable towns cannot be supported in the Outback. But over the country as a whole, remarkably few Australians live in the rural districts, despite their national economic importance and their stereotyped images overseas. Small service centres are distributed through every region in proportion to the intensity of rural production. Insulated yet also restricted by remoteness, the economies of most of the larger towns incorporate food and fibre processing and assorted light industries. Several towns have been assisted by state and federal decentralization policies aimed largely at reducing the extraordinary concentration in the state and territorial capitals.

Aboriginal land rights campaigners in Northern Territory and in Western Australia and South Australia have achieved significant successes, contributing to the Australianization of the wider national Aboriginal community. Perhaps it is only a slight exaggeration to state that, taken in conjunction with decisions made at state and federal levels to begin rehabilitating soils and vegetation ravaged by two centuries of aggressive European settlement, the process signified the dawning recognition of a binding moral imperative. The Aboriginal communities that have been awarded freehold or near-freehold rights over extensive areas have been made well aware that their management skills are under close observation. On the other hand, a stirring nationwide “reconciliation” has held out the promise of improved relationships.

In another sense, there was no break in continuity. Reliance on foreign investment and a vulnerability to world markets made it difficult for Australians to divest themselves of their traditional roles as minor or peripheral players in an interconnected global system. As manufacturing began declining in the last decades of the 20th century, other aspects of this entrenched dependency status were exposed. Australia's governments have usually shown a pronounced readiness to intervene in the economy, but in general the economy has been dominated by foreign interests—first by those of the United Kingdom, then by the United States and Japan, and more recently by giant multinational corporations.

Nonetheless, there are two distinct and comparatively new features of Australia's economy. The first has been a grudging acceptance of the vital economic and strategic significance of the Asia-Pacific region and a rising awareness of the opportunities to be grasped there. Second, despite a measure of discomfiture in some quarters, Australia's corporate, financial, political, and bureaucratic cultures have steadfastly embraced a more rationalist economic philosophy that seemed to accept as inevitable a comprehensive globalization and deregulation of the country's economy.

Most of Australia's soils are mediocre or poor by world standards. There are no extensive areas of rich, adaptable soils that compare to those of the great intensive farming regions of other sizable countries (e.g., the Cotton and Corn belts of the United States). Chemical deficiencies are particularly common, and it is often necessary to apply generous amounts of phosphate and traces of numerous other nutrients.

With good reason, Australia is regularly described as the driest of the inhabited continents, and vast areas of the country are unsuitable for agricultural production. The average annual rainfall is approximately 18 inches (460 mm), and more than one-third of the mainland, principally the interior, receives less than 10 inches (250 mm). Aridity or semiaridity prevails over most of Australia, and evaporation rates are extremely high, so that less than 2 inches (50 mm) of the national total contributes surface runoff for natural and modified systems. The combined discharge from all Australian rivers including the Murray-Darling, the country's principal river system, is the equivalent of only about half that of China's Yangtze River, and records for both the Mississippi and the Ganges rivers indicate discharges greater than one and one-half times Australia's aggregate total.

In addition, there are wide regional disparities. In the sparsely populated northern sector, runoff draining into the Timor Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria accounts for half the national total, and the tropical north as a whole contributes about two-thirds. Subsurface resources are extensive. Good groundwater assets have been located in three-fifths of the country, including much of the dry interior. The Great Artesian Basin is the largest of its type in the world and gives a measure of security to one-fifth of the mainland.

Native flora and fauna have been dramatically undervalued. When Europeans began colonizing Australia in 1788, nearly one-tenth of the continent may have been covered by forest, and two-fifths by woodlands, including savanna woodlands. It seems likely that less than half of the forested area had commercial potential. Yet, until the late 20th century, clearing was done at a frenzied rate and often indiscriminately. In the late 1980s it was roughly estimated that, with the exception of Northern Territory, the proportions of forest and scrub cover cleared during two centuries of European occupation was between one-third and two-thirds in each state. Even if this is somewhat overstated, it suggests a thoroughly savage onslaught, given the relatively short period of European occupation and the European population's originally restricted distribution.

Overgrazing has caused some deterioration of the saltbush, stunted trees, and native grasslands of the interior, but in the tropics the productivity of the original pastures has been increased by introducing improved strains of grasses and heat- and tick-resistant cattle. Far too little has been done to farm the kangaroo and wallaby populations on a commercial basis; this might be preferable, on economic and environmental grounds, to the regular culling operations that mainly serve the pet-food trade.

Accelerated soil erosion, including rampaging gulleys and disfiguring landslips, were noted by the first generations of European settlers in the southeastern colonies. The threat of soil salinization was reported later, especially in the irrigation districts where it was associated with overwatering and poor drainage.

Land degradation became a major issue from the 1980s, when media coverage became intense and well-directed education programs proliferated. A “land care” decade was proclaimed for the 1990s, and a nationally coordinated schedule was drawn up to promote new cultivation methods, extensive tree planting, modest and adventurous engineering solutions, and wholesale changes in production systems. Even so, land was still being cleared nationally at a high rate, chiefly in Queensland.

Australia's total sheep population peaked in 1970, dropping by about one-third at the beginning of the 21st century. Nonetheless, Australia remains the world's leading producer of wool, regularly supplying nearly one-third of the global total—this despite a collapse in world prices that caused production to fall steeply during the 1990s. Concurrently, there was a precipitous drop in sheep farming's proportion of total agricultural revenues. By contrast, Australia's grain and combined grain and livestock production held stable at about two-fifths of agricultural turnover. During the early 1950s, agricultural production accounted for between one-sixth and one-fifth of the gross domestic product (GDP), but by the beginning of the 21st century that proportion had declined to less than 5 percent. Much of the decline was attributed to reorganized economic priorities; some of it, however, was the result of increasing competition from European and North American producers who took advantage of subsidies and enhancement programs.

The number and importance of small operations has also steadily declined. Roughly half of the country's farm establishments combined now contribute less than one-fifth of Australia's total agricultural output, but about one-tenth of the farm businesses account for roughly half of production.

Australia is an important source of export cereals, meat, sugar, dairy produce, and fruit. Landholdings are characteristically large, specialized, owner-operated, capital-intensive, export-oriented, and intricately interlinked through the activities of producers' associations and government organizations. Less than one-tenth of the country is used for intensive production; one-fourth is virtually unused, and three-fifths is employed for sparse grazing on natural or near-natural pastures. Only a minute fraction is irrigated. Wheat is the country's leading grain crop and is grown in every state, with production concentrated in the wheat belts of the southeast and southwest. Up to four-fifths of the grain is exported, chiefly to eastern Asia, the Middle East, and the Pacific region. In contrast to its Northern Hemisphere competitors, Australia does not have the standard winter or spring wheats and does not produce red-grained wheat; rather, all Australian wheats are white-grained, principally intended for breads and noodles, and are planted in the winter months of May, June, and July. The main harvest begins in Queensland in September or October and ends in Victoria and southern Western Australia in January; production is highly mechanized. The crop has become closely integrated with sheep grazing and the cultivation of barley, oats, and other grains and with the production of green fodder and hay for livestock.

Intensive sugarcane farming is significant in Queensland's coastal districts, on the northern coastal plains of New South Wales, and in the Ord Irrigated District in northwestern Western Australia. Production operations are highly sophisticated, from planting and harvesting to milling; the most arduous manual labour traditionally associated with this cultivation was replaced long ago by efficient mechanization. Sugar represents Australia's second-biggest crop export.

Other important crops include cotton (the second most valuable crop, after wheat), rice, tobacco, temperate and tropical fruits, corn (maize), sorghum, oilseeds, and a host of other items reflecting the expansive latitudinal range of farming operations. wine making for domestic and export markets is pursued in every state but is most significant in the southern parts of the country. The sector experienced spectacular growth in the 1990s, with production of wine grapes increasing by three-fifths during the decade to supply some 1,200 wineries. Nearly half of wine exports are directed to the United Kingdom. Other major markets include the United States, New Zealand, Canada, and Germany.

Australia's total cattle population peaked in the mid-1970s and has subsequently shrunk by about one-fourth. Most of Australia's beef cattle are raised in Queensland, Northern Territory, and New South Wales, but the industry is important in all productive regions. The favoured breeds are British in origin, predominantly Herefords and Shorthorns, but in the tropical areas resistance to heat, ticks, and insects is required, and zebu types such as Africander, Brahman, and Santa Gertrudis are used in crossbreeding programs. Management styles range from high-tech sophistication on numerous southern properties to a more rough-and-ready approach on giant northern cattle stations, where the annual musters (roundups) resemble hunting expeditions and the stockmen's horses have been replaced by helicopters, motorbikes, and four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Another characteristic of the Outback beef industry is that stock is transported long distances to meat-processing centres or pasture. The old dependence on a government-monitored system of wide “stock routes” plied by expert drovers has been replaced by modern trucking, including the distinctive “road trains” (large trucks, each pulling several trailers) of the north, and by reasonably maintained roads capable of supporting these behemoths.

Australia's governments are intimately involved in most aspects of rural production. Their purview extends from initiating pioneer settlement to conducting intensive scientific research and providing advisory and educational services. It also takes in organizing national and international marketing, price control, complex schemes for drought and flood relief, controlling and eradicating pests and diseases, and tailoring subsidies to facilitate economic, environmental, and social programs.

All state governments maintain large staffs to serve the major rural industries. The federal government coordinates much of the state-based research and is responsible for matters connected with national and international perspectives. Its main research arm is the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which has a formidable reputation worldwide. Producers' organizations work independently and alongside government bodies, and they constitute effective lobbying groups in the federal and state parliaments.

At the beginning of the 21st century, official (and controversial) estimates suggested that a total of one-fifth of Australia's land area was native forest, nearly a third of which was in private hands. Most of the private native forest is not actively managed for wood production, and much of the publicly owned area is set aside in national parks and other reserves. Roughly one-fifth of the overall total is managed for wood.

The chief commercial forests are in high-rainfall areas on the coast or in the coastal highlands of Tasmania, the southeastern and eastern mainland, and along the southwestern coast of Western Australia. The main types of tree are the evergreen members of genus Eucalyptus, providing timber of great strength and durability, and a great variety of rainforest trees. Since World War II several regions have been intensively exploited for wood pulp, partly for export to Japan. These activities have been opposed by the well-organized environmental movement, which consolidated its influence in political affairs during the 1970s and '80s.

Except for the temperate seas in the southeast and around Tasmania, Australia's extensive marine ecosystems are found in comparatively warm waters over a narrow continental shelf; by world standards their productivity is low, but they support a small domestic industry and are significant for tourism and recreation. Administered by the Australian Fisheries (commercial fishing) Management Authority, the 200-nautical-mile (370-km) Australian fishing zone—the third largest of its type—was proclaimed in 1979 as a safeguard against foreign incursions. It covers an area considerably larger than the Australian landmass and is difficult to police. Although the influx of Asian and southern European immigrants has enlarged the local market and diversified the catch, less than one-fifth of the marine and freshwater species are commercially exploited. The most valuable exports (primarily to Japan and other eastern Asian countries) are prawns, rock lobsters (marine crayfish), abalone, tuna and other fin fish, scallops, and edible and pearl oysters. Other important species caught include bream, cod, flathead, mackerel, perch, whiting, and Australian salmon. Fresh, frozen, and canned seafood is sold locally and to Asian, European, and North American markets.

Hydroelectric (hydroelectric power) generation is limited by highly variable river volumes and a predominantly level topography. The exception is Tasmania, where the economy has been built around hydropower by exploiting the island-state's rugged terrain and abundant water reserves. On the mainland, several major multiple-purpose dams have been constructed, including the world-renowned Snowy Mountains Scheme, a hydroelectric and irrigation complex serving New South Wales and Victoria, and Queensland's Burdekin Falls dam. However, the great bulk of electric power is generated by thermal stations that draw on Australia's vast coal reserves—a situation unlikely to change in the near future, despite strong opposition from the environmental movement to burning fossil fuels.

Inexpensive wind power, ubiquitous in pioneering times, offers great opportunities. Solar and tidal energy are other obvious options for alternative power sources in Australia. In each case, popular demand and political will are in shorter supply than technical know-how and natural advantages, and renewable energy resources contribute only a tiny fraction of total energy production.

Bulk loading and specialized shipping facilities are usual in the mining industry, and extraction methods are considered advanced by international standards. Highly mechanized open-cut techniques prevail in Queensland's massive coal-mining (coal mining) operations, whereas underground mining predominates in the long-established New South Wales coal industry. Western Australia's iron ore mines and Victoria's lignite (brown-coal) deposits are also worked on the open-cut principle, by gargantuan machines.

Australia has about one-fourth of the world's low-cost uranium (uranium processing) reserves, the largest known of which are found in northern and northwestern Queensland, Northern Territory, Western Australia, and South Australia. Yet, production has been small and discontinuous and has been limited by the minuscule domestic demand and by strenuous objections from environmentalists. Australia is not self-sufficient in crude oil production, but it does supply the bulk of its domestic needs. There are abundant reserves of coal and natural gas capable of meeting domestic and export demands over the medium term. Coal production is thought to be sustainable for more than three centuries, but natural gas deposits are expected to be depleted in the mid-21st century.

Australia is one of the world's top producers of iron ore, which is used partly in the domestic iron and steel industry but is largely exported to Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. Remoteness has disguised the staggering scale of the iron ore deposits. Western Australia's Hamersley (Hamersley Range) iron province contains billions of tons of ore in iron formations. The most extensive of the high-grade deposits are those of Mount Tom Price, Mount Whaleback, Mount Newman, and the Robe River area. Tasmania's Savage River deposits were also developed in the late 20th century.

Tungsten (tungsten processing), mined since colonial times, is a major export. It has been produced in Queensland and from wolframite and scheelite deposits located on King Island in the Bass Strait. Manganese is obtained from numerous small deposits and especially from the Groote Eylandt area on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Australia has some of the world's largest recoverable nickel (nickel processing) reserves. The rich Kambalda deposits, located 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Kalgoorlie, were discovered in 1964, and similar discoveries followed in that old goldfields belt. Other nickel deposits are at Greenvale (Queensland) and in the Musgrave region on the borders of Western Australia, South Australia, and Northern Territory.

Australia has the world's largest recoverable deposits of zinc (zinc processing) and lead (lead processing). The Broken Hill lode in western New South Wales has been an important producer since the 1880s. Lead, zinc, and copper ores were discovered at Mount Isa in western Queensland in 1923, and in the late 20th century new lead-zinc deposits were developed in Tasmania and on the McArthur River in Northern Territory. More than two-thirds of Australia's copper comes from Mount Isa. Enormous reserves of bauxite have been located at Weipa on the Cape York Peninsula, at Gove (Gove Peninsula) in Northern Territory, and in the Darling Range in Western Australia. Their exploitation enabled Australia to become the world's leading producer of bauxite and alumina. Australia is also the world's largest producer and exporter of natural rutile, ilmenite, zircon, and monazite, obtained from both east- and west-coast beach sands.

From a peak production of nearly four million fine ounces in 1904, Australia's annual output of gold declined through most of the 20th century. Production increased in the 1980s in response to world prices and economic conditions, and approximately four-fifths of the national output came from Western Australian mines. Australia is among the world's top gold producers, and gold is one of Australia's most valuable minerals in terms of annual production. Silver occurs in good quantities in the rich lead-zinc ores, mainly in the Broken Hill and Mount Isa districts. Small amounts of platinum and palladium have been located by nickel miners.

Australia has abundant reserves of such industrial minerals as clays, mica, salt, dolomite (limestone), building materials of all kinds, refractories, abrasives, talc, and asbestos. An intensive search for phosphates to offset the declining production of Nauru and Banaba (Ocean) Island yielded important discoveries in the Cloncurry–Mount Isa area, but it has not been economical to develop these deposits. Gemstones occur in many localities, and mechanized industrial prospecting and mining is common. Australian white opals, mainly from Andamooka and Coober Pedy in South Australia and White Cliffs in New South Wales, and the unique black opals, from Lightning Ridge in New South Wales and Mintabie in South Australia, are internationally famous. Sapphires and topaz from Queensland and the New England district of New South Wales are also well known. In 1979 a vast deposit of diamonds was discovered in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Australia soon became the world's leading supplier of gem, near-gem, and industrial diamonds; most of the output comes from the Argyle open pit in the Kimberley, which accounts for more than one-third of the world's production by volume.

Although manufacturing has been overshadowed by both academic and popular histories of mining and rural frontiering, it has been significant since the inception of European settlement. As in so many remote colonial outposts, Australia's earliest manufacturing industries were developed to supply the domestic market with food, shelter, and clothing. By the end of World War II, manufacturing contributed more than one-fourth of GDP, peaking at about one-third in 1959–60. Factory employment also rose over the same period and continued to do so into the 1960s. Declining sharply from this high point, manufacturing now employs about one-eighth of the labour force and contributes about one-eighth to Australia's GDP.

The greatest differences between manufacturing in the colonial period and in the years since 1900 were the degree of direct government intervention and the importance of foreign investment in the post-1900 era. Manufacturing became an instrument of development policy, and government assistance was provided in several forms, including by imposing protective tariffs designed to increase employment through import substitution and by the deliberate seeding of selected population centres with government-aided industries. Foreign investment increased steadily after 1950; overseas interests now control about one-third of the manufacturing sector.

Japanese and American corporations are prominent in the motor vehicle industry, which includes assembly and full-production plants. Motor vehicle manufacture is a principal source of employment in each of the mainland state capitals and has become closely associated with immigrant labour. The industry's complex interconnections with many smaller manufacturing concerns also underline its national importance. Motor vehicle ownership rates are high; more than four-fifths of households own an automobile. Iron and steel is a virtual monopoly held by the Australian-based multinational BHP Billiton (formerly Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd.). Other major manufacturing industries include food, beverage, and tobacco manufacture; printing and publishing; oil refining; and the manufacture of textiles, domestic appliances, and wood and paper products. About two-thirds of the employment in manufacturing is concentrated in New South Wales and Victoria.

Since the 1960s manufacturing has declined steadily. The change is attributable to the independent decisions of multinational corporations to move production offshore to Asian countries with lower wages, to reductions in protective tariffs and other controls on imports, and to increasing domestic labour costs. Early offshore moves bit deeply into a long list of old, established industries with assured domestic markets, including clothing, electrical goods, footwear, household appliances, leather goods, and printing and transport equipment. The continuing need for goods in these categories left Australia with punishing import bills.

Federal and state governments have gradually relinquished their traditionally close involvement in all aspects of the banking system. Although some 50 banks were operating at the beginning of the 21st century, more than half of the total banking assets were controlled by the four leading institutions—Australian and New Zealand Banking Group, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the National Australia Bank, and the Westpac Banking Corporation. There were also numerous credit unions, credit cooperatives, and building societies operating partly as banks, a variety of finance companies and money-market corporations, and some foreign banks. In the late 19th century, stock exchanges developed in each state capital. Stocks, options, and securities are now traded by the Australian Stock Exchange Limited (ASX), formed in 1987 to amalgamate the six state stock exchanges, via an all-electronic system.

Both federal and state governments have actively sought foreign investment, but, as Australians have become more focused on national identity, there has been growing concern about non-Australians steering critical sectors of the economy. The federal government has responded by monitoring and directing foreign investment, with mixed success. Foreign influence remains particularly strong in the minerals industry, real estate and property development, retailing, communications, and manufacturing.

While manufacturing entered a slump, the traditional services such as transport and retailing showed a little more resilience until an economic recession deepened at the end of the 1980s. Over the longer term, however, the main growth has been in education, finance, government, and insurance; the communications sector; health and welfare; property and business services, including legal services; and tourism and recreation. The housing and construction industry is a major employer in boom times, and its fortunes tend to ebb and flow with the state of the economy. Overall, the services sector (including finance, transport, and trade) contributes about four-fifths to Australia's GDP and employs more than three-fourths of the labour force.

The most prominent labour organization is the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), formed in 1927, which has some 50 affiliated trade unions. Similar to trends in most countries, union membership has been declining since the last decades of the 20th century, dropping from about half the labour force in the mid-1970s to about one-fourth by the early 21st century. Among the largest unions are the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the Community and Public Sector Union, the Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia, and the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union.

To ameliorate labour conflict, Australia employs an arbitration system that has aroused much interest in other countries. The system, unique to Australia and New Zealand, attempts to fix wages and working conditions by law. The national constitution gives the federal government the right to undertake conciliation and arbitration in industrial disputes. The arbitration system was first established in 1904 by the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, which created the Commonwealth Court of Reconciliation and Arbitration. Under the terms of the act, if a dispute cannot be solved by collective bargaining or conciliation, then either the employer or the trade union concerned can take the dispute to the relevant court for a judicial decision that has the force of law. Strikes are not forbidden, but a union striking in defiance of a judicial award may be held to be in contempt of court and fined accordingly. The system has been modified several times, though its broad outlines remain intact. In 1956 the court, which was vested with both judicial and arbitral powers (found to be in violation of the constitution), was replaced by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, which in turn was supplanted in 1973 by the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. Under the system in place from 1956 to 1988, the judges on the commission, after hearing argument from both sides, could set minimum wages and conditions for a large section of Australian industry. In 1988 the government repealed the 1904 act, replacing the commission with the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (which also took over the responsibilities of arbitration commissions covering airline pilots, public sector employees, and the maritime industry); though the arbitral procedures were revised, the overall system remained unchanged.

Taxes are levied by federal, state, and local governments. The federal government collects income taxes, customs and excise dues, sales taxes, and minor taxes for specific purposes. In 2000 the tax system was reformed, and a goods-and-services (value-added (value-added tax)) tax was introduced that replaced various indirect taxes. The states impose taxes covering motor vehicles, payrolls, land, water and sewerage, and stamp and probate duties. Each householder and property owner is expected to pay local government taxes, termed “rates,” which are based on property values.

Overseas trade (international trade) has been vital to the development of Australia since the early 19th century, and the export-import balance has exercised a direct influence on regional economies and national living standards. Domestic trade patterns have been less significant: for the most part they reflect the domination of Australian manufacturing by New South Wales and Victoria; seasonal movements of produce between tropical, subtropical, and temperate regions; and the alert responses of multinational corporations to interstate rivalries over encouragements to industry.

The value of Australian exports is the equivalent of approximately one-sixth of GDP. Minerals contribute nearly one-third of export income, with coal being the most important; also significant are gold and iron ore. The combined share of the mining and manufacturing sectors is more than double that for agricultural products—which accounts for roughly one-fifth of total exports—and provides another contrast between the colonial and modern economies. The leading imports are machinery and transport equipment (including motor vehicles), electronic and telecommunications equipment, miscellaneous manufactured items, chemicals and petroleum products, and foods and beverages.

Historical trends in trading patterns emphasize the colonial-to-modern transition. During the second half of the 20th century, Britain's share of Australia's exports shrank from roughly two-fifths to only 5 percent, and the rise in Japan's share from less than 5 percent to one-fifth during the same period hinted at a direct supplanting. Import trends were less clear-cut. Britain's share declined from nearly half to 5 percent, Japan's increased from less than 5 percent to one-eighth, and that of the United States more than doubled to about one-fifth. Other major trading partners now include China, South Korea, Germany, and New Zealand.

Some analysts have interpreted these changes as evidence of a substitution of one form of colonial status for another. Proponents of this view often refer to the close intertwining of Japanese industrial expansion and the direct influence exerted by Japanese investment in Australia, notably in the mining of coal and iron ore. The argument is complicated, however, by the continuing strength of Australian-U.S. connections and especially by expanding trade ties with several industrializing neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region. These trends, taken in the context of the preponderance of foreign interests in vital parts of the manufacturing sector, may suggest a chronic condition of economic dependence rather than colonialism in its narrowest sense.

Because of Australia's great size and its relatively small population, transport has always been costly and has absorbed an unusually high proportion of the workforce. Moreover, the main lines of road and rail transport were laid down in the second half of the 19th century, when Australia was a collection of separate colonies, each of which looked to Britain for most of its trade. The transport system was designed to maintain this trade, with roads and railways radiating from the main ports. Little thought was given to internal transport between the colonies. An unfortunate relic of this situation was that three different railway gauges were maintained. It was not until 1970 that it became possible to go by train from Sydney on the east coast to Perth in the west without changing trains. Air, rail, and water transport services were owned by the government until the 1980s, when a process of deregulation and privatization began.

Australia is almost entirely devoid of internal waterways. The Murray-Darling system supplied important arteries in the 19th century, when it was used to transport wool and other produce from the country districts of New South Wales and Victoria to the coast. Variable volumes in the rivers made such shipping hazardous and unreliable, and it soon succumbed to competition from the railways. In contrast, the great distances, low topography, and predominance of suitable weather conditions have made flying a comparatively safe and economical option.

Modern road networks perpetuate the historical pattern, radiating from the ports and especially from the state capitals. In the 1980s the federal government initiated a bicentennial program that improved many of the main roads, but the heavily used highways between the capitals required further attention to bring them up to the necessary quality. Modern expressways and throughways are becoming standard features in the larger capitals.

Rail transport has played a crucial role in the Australian economy, but most systems have suffered in competition with road and air services. During the late 20th century, there were widespread closures of rural and suburban rail lines. Freight and passenger services alike were progressively reformed and privatized through the 1990s, but a residual measure of government ownership remained. In 1991 the National Rail Corporation was established to take over all interstate traffic.

Australia is well connected to the global air network, with several dozen international airlines operating regular services to and from the country. Qantas (Qantas Airways Limited) (founded in 1920 in Queensland), the national carrier, was privatized in the 1990s, as were the major airports. The main national and international airport is Sydney (Kingsford Smith), opened in 1920; Melbourne's Tullamarine airport, opened in 1970, is the second busiest. There are many smaller airports serving other state capitals, Canberra, provincial centres, resorts, and mining developments. Both freight and passenger services have grown steadily.

Australia's telecommunications sector was highly centralized until the late 20th century. The national government took control of services in 1901, overseen by the Postmaster General's Department. An Overseas Telecommunications Commission, established in 1946, was given a monopoly in international telecommunications. In 1975 telecommunications functions were vested in Telecom Australia, which was given a monopoly for all domestic services. In the early 1980s satellite services were made the responsibility of AUSSAT, which was publicly owned and which started commercial services in 1985. In 1989 the government began implementing reforms, though the monopolies were maintained; by 1991, however, limited competition was introduced. Telestra (formed from Telecom Australia and the Overseas Telecommunications Commission) was partially privatized in 1996, and full competition in the sector ensued beginning in 1997. The industry is overseen by the minister for communications, information technology, and the arts, who wields significant regulatory authority, with the ability to impose conditions on telecommunications providers, and the Australian Communications Authority (ACA), established in 1999, which licenses carriers and reports to the minister for communications. With the opening of competition, by the early 21st century there were some 70 ACA-licensed providers.

Internet use climbed dramatically during the late 1990s in Australia. Whereas less than one-tenth of the population had Internet access in 1997, by the early 21st century more than half of all people used the Internet regularly.

Although the British monarch is Australia's formal head of state, the country is essentially independent. The sovereign's functions are almost entirely formal and decorative and, except when the monarch is in Australia, are exercised by a governor-general who resides in Canberra and by the state governors. Although formally the governor-general and the governors are appointed by the monarch, they are invariably recommended by the Australian governments. By convention, the prime minister (the leader of the party or coalition of parties victorious in the general election) is the country's head of government.

Australia's legislature is bicameral. The House of Representatives (the lower house) comprises 150 members, including two each from the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory. Members are elected for three-year terms and are responsible for choosing the government. The Senate consists of 76 members; each state has 12 senators, and there are two senators each from the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory. Senators representing the states serve six-year terms, while territorial senators serve three-year terms. Government ministers are drawn from both the House and the Senate.

There are hundreds of local government authorities in Australia. The powers of local authorities are derived from legislation adopted in each state and territory, and their functions vary considerably. Typically, these functions include waste and sanitary services, water, roads, land use, inspection and licensing, maintaining public libraries and recreational facilities, town planning, and the promotion of district attractions and amenities. In some areas, particularly the densely settled suburbs, its role includes the operation of transport and energy systems. Local governments receive funding from their respective states and collect taxes.

The Australian legal system is based on the common law of England, and many laws are identical with those laid down in acts of the British Parliament. The administration of the law is largely in the hands of the states, each of which has a series of courts culminating in a supreme court. Between them these courts have comprehensive responsibilities extending to all matters of state (and to most matters of federal) jurisdiction.

The High Court of Australia, the federal supreme court, consists of a chief justice and six other justices, each of whom is formally appointed by the governor-general. It exercises general appellate jurisdiction over all other federal and state courts and is given the special duty to decide disputes involving the interpretation of the federal constitution and acts of the federal parliament. The High Court also has original jurisdiction on matters such as Australia's obligations under international treaties, issues affecting foreign representatives, and disputes between states. The court is well respected by legal authorities both inside and outside Australia. The Federal Court of Australia combines the jurisdictions formerly exercised by the Federal Court of Bankruptcy and the Australian Industrial Court.

Australia has been a pioneer in election law. The secret ballot, generally called the Australian ballot, was first introduced in Victoria in 1855, and South Australia granted women the right to vote in 1892. Women have also made dramatic gains in representation, particularly since 1990. In modern elections, all citizens at least 18 years of age are eligible to vote. Voting itself is compulsory (with the exception of elections to South Australia's Legislative Council), and nearly all citizens cast ballots in elections. A small fine can be imposed for not voting. Aboriginals received the franchise in 1962, though voting did not become compulsory for them until 1984.

Electoral laws are quite unique. Australia utilizes both preferential and proportional systems. At the federal (House of Representatives) and state levels, members are elected in single-member districts utilizing the alternative-vote preference system, in which the voter numbers the candidates in order of preference on the ballot paper. This enables minor parties—even those unable to win any seats—an indirect influence on policy formation, since the votes of losing candidates may be reallocated in close contests. In elections to the federal Senate and in Tasmania, the single-transferable-vote proportional representation system is used. This method enables voters to rank order their preferences and ensures that a party is allocated seats in a manner somewhat proportional to its share of the vote. The proportional method generally provides minor parties with better representation in the federal Senate, where Senators for each state are elected in 12-seat districts, than in the House of Representatives.

Since the Australian federation was formed, politics has generally been a contest between the Australian Labor Party (ALP), established in 1901, and a number of anti-Labor parties. Notable among these are the Liberal Party of Australia (founded in 1944 by Sir Robert Menzies (Menzies, Sir Robert Gordon)), a generally conservative party that favours the interests of private enterprise, and the National Party (formerly the Country Party), which has received support from farmers, ranchers, and other groups in the rural constituencies. These two, in coalition, have formed the federal government for most of the years since 1949. The social-democratic ALP, linked closely with the country's trade unions, normally has retained the support of the working class; though it has always had a left wing that espouses various brands of socialism, it has generally favoured practical reforms to socialist theories. The Australian Democrats, formed in 1977, have drawn support away from the main parties, though in federal elections it has only won representation in the Senate. The environmentalist Australian Greens have also enjoyed some success in federal Senate elections.

In 1975 the elected ALP government was dismissed by the governor-general, calling into question the conventional assumptions about the relationship between the elected government and the British crown's representative. The complicity of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and of the British secret service in this event was widely alleged—and in some circles is still bitterly resented. Subsequently, there have been intense debates and proposals regarding both the country's relationship with the United States and the scope of powers and duties of the governor-general. An influential minority supports the severing of all remaining formal ties with the United Kingdom and favours Australia declaring itself a republic, in which case the post of governor-general would be abolished. In a 1999 referendum, however, voters favoured retaining the constitutional monarchy.

Australian defense policy emphasizes self-reliance within the limits of national resources and in the context of a supporting framework of international alliances and agreements. Australia's relationships with the countries of Southeast Asia and the southwestern Pacific are of fundamental strategic importance. Trilateral security arrangements with the United States and New Zealand are also considered crucial.

Australia has a strong military tradition, extending from the involvement of colonial troops in British engagements in Africa, China, and New Zealand and especially from the mythologized landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) on the Gallipoli Peninsula during the Dardanelles campaign of World War I. Since that time, Australian forces have served with distinction in both World Wars I and II and in Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and East Timor. The Australian Defence Force has played a pivotal role in international peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts in such places as Zimbabwe, the Sinai, Afghanistan, Rwanda, and Somalia. Military service is not compulsory.

The states manage police services, although there is a federal Commonwealth police force that performs general security duties in the Australian Capital Territory and is the principal agency for the enforcement of federal laws.

Australians enjoy the advantages of a modified welfare state and compare favourably with the rest of the world in terms of nutrition, living and working conditions, and general rates of life expectancy. Cardiovascular disease and cancers account for most deaths, but accidents, particularly road accidents, represent the largest single category of health hazards during the first half of life. Improvements in health care led to a rise of more than 50 percent in average life expectancy during the 20th century.

Health care provision is managed by the states and territories, though broad national policies are framed by the federal government through the Department of Health and Aging. The national government also influences health service standards through its financial arrangements with the states and territories, through grants and benefits to individuals and organizations, and by regulating health insurance. Health care is also delivered by local governments, semivoluntary agencies, and private enterprises. Public and private hospitals provide good-quality care and support medical research that has established an excellent international reputation. Private health insurance covers about one-third of Australians.

A compulsory health insurance system was introduced in 1974 by an ALP government. As amended by subsequent conservative administrations, the plan depends on a combination of direct patient charges, voluntary insurance, and a national Medicare program. The latter covers basic surgery visits and care in public hospitals and is funded by a compulsory levy on taxable incomes. Costs of drugs and other prescribed therapeutic substances are government-subsidized, but most patients are still required to pay for each prescription. Pensioners and the chronically ill receive major concessions.

There is the familiar spectrum of disability and rehabilitation pensions and family allowance supports, but particular provision is made for the needs of remote communities, especially for Aboriginal health and welfare. The Royal flying doctor service, established in 1928, provides emergency medical care to people living and working in Australia's remote areas; the service operates, in part, through subsidies by the federal, state, and territorial governments. Some Outback Aboriginal communities continue to endure poor living conditions that are reflected in a disease profile including trachoma, leprosy, tuberculosis, and a range of intestinal complaints, as well as diabetes. Successive governments have attempted to repair the mistakes of earlier generations that left the obdurate problems underlying this situation—inferior nutrition and hygiene, unemployment, and alcohol abuse—but there is much still left to be done.

Australia's welfare services system sprang from a deep concern for the general public. Traditionally egalitarian, Australians have been quick to resent any claims to privilege either by a class or by an individual. Australians place great pride in the fact that, by and large, they have avoided the worst extremes of capitalism. Some of this is delusive, but certainly they have had good reason for not seeing themselves as wage slaves. Innovative Labor governments and idealistic trade unionists are proud of their accomplishments, and Australians have historically maintained a comparatively small gap between rich and poor, though this gap widened appreciably in the late 20th century.

Except for universities, the governments of the states and territories manage all aspects of education. The federal government is responsible for funding higher education and provides supplementary funding to the states. The national government also develops national education policies and guidelines.

Basic literacy rates are high, and school attendance is compulsory throughout Australia between the ages of 6 and 15 years (16 years in Tasmania). Most children begin primary school at about 5 years of age. The final two years of schooling are noncompulsory. About seven-eighths of students complete 11 years, and some three-fourths complete 12; the number of students in the final year varies considerably by region, from less than half in Northern Territory to nine-tenths in the Australian Capital Territory.

Of students attending primary and secondary schools, most are enrolled in government schools; nearly one-third attend private institutions, mainly Roman Catholic schools. Secondary-school curricula tend to focus on compulsory cores in traditional subjects coupled with a generous list of options or electives. Specialist services include educational, psychological, and vocational counseling, assistance for Aboriginal children and adults, programs offering English as a second language, courses for gifted and disabled children, and programs to assist children in remote areas.

Despite an emphasis on multiculturalism, foreign languages traditionally have not been well represented, and several ethnic groups have felt obliged to organize independent programs. Since the late 1980s, the government has promoted the teaching of Asian languages, especially Indonesian, Japanese, and Chinese; it has also favoured applied science and technology and computer literacy.

Higher education is provided in self-governing universities and colleges and in institutions operating as part of the state-controlled TAFE (Technical and Further Education) systems. In 1988 the federal government launched an assertive restructuring program to produce fewer, larger institutions, with each institution offering a broader educational profile. To facilitate the process, student fees were reimposed, and central funding mechanisms were amended. However, progress was hampered by an economic downturn in the early 1990s and by opposition from academics. Most higher education institutions are funded by the Commonwealth government through charges on Australian students under a Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) and from international and other fee-paying students. About one-third of operating revenue comes from the HECS income and other fees.

The original state-sponsored system guaranteed an even spread of universities, and it is still somewhat unusual for undergraduates to attend universities outside their home states. Most of the older public universities were founded in the colonial era, and all were established before World War I. In chronological order of establishment, they are the Universities of Sydney (1850), Melbourne (1853), Adelaide (1874), Tasmania (in Hobart, 1890), Queensland (Brisbane, 1909), and Western Australia (Perth, 1911). The Australian National University in Canberra, a research-oriented institution, was established by the federal government in 1946.

There are some 40 higher educational institutions with operating grants from the Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs. There is also an Australian Film, Television and Radio School, a National Institute of Dramatic Art, and an Australian Defence Force Academy. Two private universities, Bond University in Queensland and Notre Dame University in Western Australia, also provide higher education instruction. Except for the Australian National University and the Australian Maritime College, universities operate under their respective state and territory legislation and are regarded as autonomous institutions.

Until World War II, Australian culture was almost exclusively Anglo-Celtic. The Aboriginal population was small and persecuted, and the Commonwealth government's exclusivist White Australia policy helped to maintain the continent's striking cultural homogeneity. However, in the second half of the 20th century, immigration rules were relaxed, and large influxes of both immigrants and refugees from eastern Asia, the Middle East, and various continental European countries made their way to Australia, each leaving an indelible imprint on the continent's culture. Likewise, a revival of Aboriginal identity and positive measures from the government to redress past wrongs, along with a dramatic increase in the Aboriginal population, unleashed a renaissance in the Aboriginal arts.

Australians are proud of their heritage and progress—proud of the fact that a nation of convicts and working-class folks could build a modern egalitarian society in a rough and inhospitable land. They typically disdain the pompous and ostentatious, and they are often characterized as informal and “laid back,” an impression fostered by the typical and now internationally recognized greeting among “mates” and “sheilas”: G'day (Good day). Their tastes in popular fashions and entertainment differ little from those in Europe and North America, and their humour is often characterized as sarcastic, ironic, and self-deprecating.

Drinking and gambling have long been important aspects of Australian popular culture, despite persistent government attempts to regulate and limit them. Beer has traditionally been the drink of choice, but the explosion of Australian wine production has somewhat altered patterns. Since World War II, laws generally have been liberalized in favour of more “civilized” drinking and greater access to gambling, often through government-owned agencies. However, whereas an older generation turned to the pub for socializing, many of the young are likely to seek out the disco or trendy bar or restaurant.

Australian cuisine is a product of international trends and the contributions of its Aboriginal and immigrant communities. Nevertheless, it has been heavily influenced by the country's Anglo-Celtic heritage, with the traditional British supper still common. Barbecues (“the barbie”) are a quintessential Australian pastime, and meat is ubiquitous. Traditional Aboriginal (Australian Aborigine) Outback cuisine consists of such unique foods as kangaroo, wombat, turtle, eel, emu, snake, and witchetty grubs (larvae of the ghost moth). Vegemite, a salty, dark-brown yeast extract, has long been a staple of the Australian diet.

The calendar is well endowed with public holidays, making the long weekend an institution. ANZAC Day (April 25), marking the Australian and New Zealand landing at Gallipoli in 1915, is observed throughout Australia. Australia Day (January 26) celebrates the 1788 arrival of the British First Fleet at Sydney Cove and the proclaiming of Australia as a British possession. The British monarch's birthday is also celebrated in June (October in Western Australia). In addition, the states have several regional holidays.

Australia hosts many festivals, which often attract a wide international audience. Particularly noteworthy arts events are the Sydney Festival (January), which features concerts and theatre and is accompanied by fireworks displays; the biennial Adelaide Festival of Arts (March); and the Melbourne Festival (October). Aboriginal arts festivals include the Barunga and Cultural Sports Festival (June) and Stompin Ground (October), held in Broome. Sydney's vibrant Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, held annually in February, attracts hundreds of thousands of revelers from around the world and is considered the world's largest celebration of its kind.

The original inhabitants of Australia used the oral tradition, including song and dance with gestural storytelling, to entertain, instruct, guide, and reveal spiritual truths, as well as physical geography and the location of life-sustaining resources. (See Australian literature.) This tradition, disrupted and more or less destroyed by the arrival of the British, was replaced by a literature that imitated European models. In the mid-19th century, the Australian landscape, flora, and fauna became the setting for many novels, and, soon after, the colonial experience became a popular subject. Although the bush, or Outback, loomed large in the national consciousness, Australia has been a characteristically urban society, even from its days as a penal colony. Writers as diverse as Robin Boyd, Donald Horne, and Hugh Stretton, as well as the satirist Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage), drew attention to the significance of the suburban ethos in Australian culture. Patrick White, Australia's greatest novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973, explored the negative potentialities of a country in the process of defining itself. Contemporary Australian writers such as Thomas Keneally (Keneally, Thomas), Thea Astley (Astley, Thea), David Malouf (Malouf, David), Peter Carey (Carey, Peter), Hal Porter (Porter, Hal), Janette Turner Hospital (Hospital, Janette Turner), Elizabeth Jolley (Jolley, Elizabeth), and Tim Winton continue to draw an international following.

Perhaps best-known among Australia's dance troupes is the world-renowned national company, the Australian Ballet (founded 1962). Like the state-sponsored Queensland Ballet (1960) and West Australian Ballet (1953), it presents both classical and contemporary programs, though unlike them it tours internationally as well as regionally. Also noteworthy are Australian Dance Theatre (1965; contemporary dance), Dance North (1970), One Extra Dance Company (1976), Sydney Dance Company (1979), TasDance (1981), Legs on the Wall (1984), and Buzz Dance Theatre (1985). Bangarra Dance Theatre (1989), which blends the ancient traditions and spirit of the first Australians with the contemporary concerns of indigenous peoples, reached a large international audience when it performed in the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympic Games.

For indigenous Australians, the corroboree comes closest to a modern concept of theatre, but this participatory public performance of songs and dances represents much more than entertainment; it is a celebration of Aboriginal mythology and spirituality. Groups such as Bangarra Dance Theatre bring a modern sensibility to bear on the storytelling and ritual essential to Aboriginal culture. European-based contemporary Australian theatre is characterized by its emphasis on smaller, regional theatre groups. Australia's larger cities offer fringe theatre as well as mainstream and alternative performances. Most of these troupes are committed to presenting the work of Australian playwrights, including Alexander Buzo, Jack Davis, Tim Robertson, and David Williamson (Williamson, David).

Throughout most of the 19th century, Australian artists utilized European, particularly British, styles and themes. In the 1880s and '90s, however, Australian art began to forge its own identity when Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin, and others in the so-called Heidelberg school (named for the town outside Melbourne where they often painted) began to depict uniquely Australian subject matter, usually the landscape, in their plein-air canvases. This focus on the Australian landscape continued into the early 20th century; for the most part, Australia was slow to embrace avant-garde European movements such as Cubism or Surrealism. After World War II, painters such as Sir Russell Drysdale and Sir Sidney Nolan (Nolan, Sir Sidney) were drawn to the dramatic isolation of the Outback. Nolan became known especially for his series of iconic works depicting the notorious 19th-century bushranger (bandit) Ned Kelly. Beginning in the 1960s, painter Fred Williams gained notice for his dense, nearly abstract depictions of the Australian landscape. While artists focused on Australian themes achieved the most renown within Australia, other artists subsequently followed international avant-garde trends—from Pop art to conceptual art to postmodernism.

For the original inhabitants of Australia, architecture traditionally was thought of more as sacred spaces and natural places than as built structures. Aboriginal history and identity was intimately connected to the land and to the ancestral beings that formed the natural world (e.g., rocks and waterholes). For them, mythology, landscape, geography, and ecology were inextricably intertwined to form an organic, self-sustaining whole.

The exhibition and production of motion pictures arrived in Australia at the beginning of the 20th century. The early decades of Australian film were dominated by the development of two genres: the bushranging film, as exemplified by The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), which depicted the life of Ned Kelly; and the “backblocks” farce, a genre that satirized farming families of the era. The most significant film of the silent era was The Sentimental Bloke (1919), a tale of a working-class fellow in search of romance that embraced the slang and culture of Sydney. Film production from 1930 to 1950 was limited mostly to documentaries developed under the guidance of the Commonwealth Film Unit. After World War II feature film production increasingly involved collaborations with British, American, and other foreign companies, and films thought of as “Australian,” such as On the Beach (1959) and The Sundowners (1960), were simply shot in Australia.

Formed in 1970, the Australian Film Development Corporation (AFDC) was a government-funded agency charged with helping the film industry create commercial films for audiences at home and abroad. The success of Stork (1971) gave birth to a rash of “ocker” comedies, a genre that centred on boorish male characters and their antisocial behaviours. The AFDC was replaced by the Australian Film Commission (AFC) in 1975, and a more culturally refined Australian film style emerged. Period films such as Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career (1980), and Bruce Beresford's Breaker Morant (1980) were well received by critics and audiences and brought international acclaim. The success of George Miller's Mad Max (1979) and The Road Warrior (1981), both violent road movies set in the near future, made an international star of Mel Gibson (Gibson, Mel) and forced the AFC to abandon the more staid historical films it seemed to prefer. In 1986 the light comedy Crocodile Dundee, starring popular comedian Paul Hogan as a bushranger displaced in New York City, also became a major worldwide hit. Australian cinema continued to mature and produced such notable films as Proof (1991), Muriel's Wedding (1994), Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Shine (1996), and Moulin Rouge (2001). A second wave of actors and directors from the Australian filmmaking industry were making Hollywood pictures at the turn of the 21st century, most notably Nicole Kidman (born in Hawaii, U.S.), Russell Crowe (born in New Zealand), Cate Blanchett, and Baz Luhrmann.

Australia enjoys a wealth of excellent libraries and museums. The Australia Museum (founded 1827), the country's first, is renowned for its exhibits of natural history and cultural artifacts. Sydney is home to the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Australian National Maritime Museum (opened 1991). The Melbourne Museum, which opened in 2000, is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and houses a diverse range of cultural and scientific exhibits. The National Museum of Australia in Canberra (opened 2001) maintains an extensive collection of exhibits exploring the history of the land and peoples of the country. The National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Library, and the National Archives are also based in Canberra. The Outback is celebrated at the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame, located in western Queensland.

Sports play an integral role in the lives of many Australians, and the temperate climate of the most populated areas has always encouraged outdoor activities. Organized sports, including tennis, swimming, golf, basketball, and horse racing, flourish throughout the country. The major summer sport, however, is cricket. Introduced by a British ship's crew, cricket arrived in Australia in 1803, and play among cricket clubs began in the mid-1820s. The country has produced a wealth of great cricketers, including the brilliant Don Bradman (Bradman, Don). The national team captured World Cup titles in 1987 and 1999.

Newspaper readership in Australia is high, with daily and weekly newspapers enjoying wide circulation. Particularly influential are the daily newspapers The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, and The Sydney Morning Herald (all published in New South Wales); the Herald Sun and The Age (Victoria); The Advertiser (South Australia); and The West Australian (West Australia). Newspaper ownership is highly concentrated, with only a handful of media groups controlling the vast majority of the country's newspapers. Australia also has a lively publishing scene, though most publishing houses, apart from the university presses, are foreign owned.

The Australian Broadcasting Authority is responsible for regulating television and radio. There are two primary public broadcasters, both of which are funded by but independent from the national government: the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which operates an extensive television and radio network; and the Special Broadcasting Service, which provides radio and television broadcasts to Australia's various ethnic communities and offers sophisticated international coverage. There are also dozens of commercial radio and television broadcasters. Australia's media is served by the Australian Associated Press news agency. The Australian press is free from most forms of government censorship.

This article discusses the history of Australia from the arrival of European explorers in the 16th century to the present. For a more detailed discussion of native Aboriginal culture, see Australian Aboriginal (Australian Aborigine).

The quest for wealth and knowledge might logically have pulled the Portuguese to Australian shores; the assumption has some evidential support, including a reference indicating that Melville Island, off the northern coast, supplied slaves. Certainly the Portuguese debated the issue of a terra australis incognita (Latin: “unknown southern land”)—an issue in European thought in ancient times and revived from the 12th century onward. The so-called Dieppe maps present a landmass, “Java la Grande,” that some scholarship (gaining strength in the early 21st century) has long seen as evidence of a Portuguese discovery of the Australian landmass, 1528 being one likely year.

Viceroys of Spain's American empire regularly sought new lands. One such expedition, from Peru in 1567, commanded by Álvaro de Mendaña, discovered the Solomon Islands. Excited by finding gold, Mendaña hoped that he had found the great southern land and that Spain would colonize there. In 1595 Mendaña sailed again but failed to rediscover the Solomons. One of his officers was Pedro Fernández de Quirós, a man of the Counter-Reformation who wanted Roman Catholicism to prevail in the southland, the existence of which he was certain. Quirós won the backing of King Philip III (Philip III) for an expedition under his own command. It left Callao, Peru, in December 1605 and reached the New Hebrides. Quirós named the island group Australia del Espirítu Santo, and he celebrated with elaborate ritual. He (and some later Roman Catholic historians) saw this as the discovery of the southern land. But Quirós's exultation was brief; troubles forced his return to Latin America. The other ship of the expedition, under Luis de Torres, went on to sail through the Torres Strait but almost certainly failed to sight Australia; and all Quirós's fervour failed to persuade Spanish officialdom to mount another expedition.

Late in 1605 Willem Jansz of Amsterdam sailed from Bantam in the Dutch East Indies in search of New Guinea. He reached the Torres Strait a few weeks before Torres and named what was later to prove part of the Australian coast—Cape Keer-Weer, on the western side of Cape York Peninsula. More significantly, from 1611 some Dutch ships sailing from the Cape of Good Hope to Java inevitably carried too far east and touched Australia: the first and most famous was Dirck Hartog (Hartog, Dirck)'s Eendracht, from which men landed and left a memorial at Shark Bay, Western Australia, October 25–27, 1616. Pieter Nuyts explored almost 1,000 miles of the southern coast in 1626–27, and other Dutchmen added to knowledge of the north and west.

Most important of all was the work of Abel Tasman (Tasman, Abel Janszoon), who won such respect as a seaman in the Dutch East Indies that in 1642 Governor-General Anthony van Diemen of the Indies commissioned him to explore southward. In November–December, having made a great circuit of the seas, Tasman sighted the west coast and anchored off the southeast coast of what he called Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). He then explored the island of New Zealand before returning to Batavia, on Java. A second expedition of 1644 contributed to knowledge of Australia's northern coast; the Dutch named the new landmass New Holland.

The Netherlands spent little more effort in exploration, and the other great Protestant power in Europe, England, took over the role. In 1688 the English buccaneer William Dampier (Dampier, William) relaxed on New Holland's northwestern coast. On returning to England, he published his Voyages and persuaded the Admiralty to back another venture. He traversed the western coast for 1,000 miles (1699–1700) and reported more fully than any previous explorer, but he did so in terms so critical of the land and its people that another hiatus resulted.

The middle decades of the 18th century saw much writing about the curiosities and possible commercial value of the southern seas and terra australis incognita. This was not restricted to Great Britain, but it had especial vigour there. The British government showed its interest by backing several voyages. Hopes flourished for a mighty empire of commerce in the eastern seas.

This was the background for the three voyages of Captain James Cook (Cook, James) on behalf of the British Admiralty. The first, that of the HMS Endeavour, left England in August 1768 and had its climax on April 20, 1770, when a crewman sighted southeastern Australia. Cook landed several times, most notably at Botany Bay and at Possession Island in the north, where on August 23 he claimed the land, naming it New South Wales. Cook's later voyages (1772–75, 1776–79) were to other areas in the Pacific, but they were both symptom and cause of strengthening British interest in the eastern seas.

Cook's voyages led to settlement but did not complete the exploration of the Australian coasts. Marion Dufresne of France skirted Tasmania in 1772, seeing more than had Tasman. The count de La Pérouse (La Pérouse, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de), another French explorer, made no actual discoveries in Australia but visited Botany Bay early in 1788. In 1791 the British navigator George Vancouver (Vancouver, George) traversed and described the southern shores discovered by Pieter Nuyts years before. The French explorer Joseph-Antoine Raymond de Bruni, chevalier d'Entrecasteaux, also did significant work, especially in southern Tasmania.

Two Britons—George Bass (Bass, George), a naval surgeon, and Matthew Flinders (Flinders, Matthew), a naval officer—were the most famous postsettlement explorers. Together they entered some harbours on the coast near Botany Bay in 1795 and 1796. Bass ventured farther south in 1797–98, pushing around Cape Everard to Western Port. Flinders was in that region early in 1798, charting the Furneaux Islands. Late that year Flinders and Bass circumnavigated Tasmania in the Norfolk, establishing that it was an island and making further discoveries. Several other navigators, including merchantmen, filled out knowledge of the Bass Strait area; most notable was the discovery of Port Phillip in 1802.

Meanwhile Flinders had returned home and in 1801 was appointed to command an expedition that would circumnavigate Australia and virtually complete the charting of the continent. Over the next three years Flinders proved equal to this task. Above all, he left no doubt that the Australian continent was a single landmass. Appropriately, Flinders urged that the name Australia replace New Holland, and this change received official backing from 1817.

France sponsored an expedition, similar in intent to Flinders's, at the same time. Under Nicolas Baudin, it gave French names to many features (including “Terre Napoléon” for the southern coast) and gathered much information but did little new exploration. It was on the northern coast, from Arnhem Land to Cape York Peninsula, that more exploration was needed. Two Admiralty expeditions—under Phillip Parker King (1817–22) and John Clements Wickham (1838–39)—filled this gap.

The British government determined on settling New South Wales in 1786, and colonization began early in 1788. The motives for this move have become a matter of some controversy. The traditional view is that Britain thereby sought to relieve the pressure upon its prisons (penal colony)—a pressure intensified by the loss of its American colonies, which until that time had accepted transported felons. This view is supported by the fact that convicts went to the settlement from the outset and that official statements put this first among the colony's intended purposes. But some historians have argued that this glossed a scheme to provide a bastion for British sea power in the eastern seas. Some have seen a purely strategic purpose in settlement, but others have postulated an intent to use the colony as a springboard for economic exploitation of the area. It is very likely that the government had some interest in all these factors.

Whatever the deeper motivation, plans went ahead, with Lord Sydney (Thomas Townshend), secretary of state for home affairs, as the guiding authority. Arthur Phillip (Phillip, Arthur) was commander of the expedition; he was to take possession of the whole territory from Cape York (York, Cape) to Tasmania, westward as far as 135° and eastward to include adjacent islands. Phillip's power was to be near absolute within his domain. The British government planned to develop the region's economy by employing convict labour on government farms, while former convicts would subsist on their own small plots.

The First Fleet sailed on May 13, 1787, with 11 vessels, including 6 transports, aboard which were about 730 convicts (570 men and 160 women). More than 250 free persons accompanied the convicts, chiefly marines of various rank. The fleet reached Botany Bay on January 19–20, 1788. Crisis threatened at once. The Botany Bay area had poor soil and little water, and the harbour itself was inferior. Phillip therefore sailed northward on January 21 and entered a superb harbour, Port Jackson, which Cook had marked but not explored. He moved the fleet there; the flag was hoisted on January 26 and the formalities of government begun on February 7. Sydney Cove, the focus of settlement, was deep within Port Jackson, on the southern side; around it was to grow the city of Sydney.

Phillip at once established an outstation at Norfolk Island. Its history was to be checkered; settlement was abandoned in 1813 and revived in 1825 to provide a jail for convicts who misbehaved in Australia. (It served a new purpose from 1856 as a home for the descendants of the mutineers of the HMS Bounty, by then too numerous for Pitcairn Island.)

Phillip remained as governor until December 1792, seeing New South Wales through its darkest days. The land was indifferent, disease and pests abounded, few convicts proved able labourers, and the Aboriginals were often hostile. The nadir came in autumn 1790 as supplies shrank; the arrival of a second fleet brought hundreds of sickly convicts but also the means of survival.

While much change proceeded throughout this period, authoritarian and hierarchical elements remained strong. The reception of convicts continued and was a major fact in social and economic life. Entrepreneurs strove hard but did not yet develop a staple industry. Farmers and graziers began to fill out an arc 150–200 miles around Sydney; this area was designated as the Nineteen Counties in 1829, and settlement beyond that limit was discouraged.

Following the discovery of Bass Strait, and in order to secure southern waterways, new settlements were established in the south. From Britain, David Collins sailed in 1803 to settle Port Phillip (Port Phillip District). His sojourn there was unhappy, and in mid 1804 he moved to the Derwent River in southern Tasmania, already settled (September 1803) by a group from Sydney under John Bowen. Collins resettled the amalgamated parties at Hobart. In November 1804 William Paterson founded a settlement in northern Tasmania, the precursor of Launceston. These settlements united in 1812; they were still under supervision from Sydney, although only nominally from 1825. Among penal outstations settled from Sydney were those at Newcastle (1804) and Moreton Bay (1824), the forerunner of Brisbane. Britain (British Empire) extended its possession over the whole of the continent in the 1820s, again fearing French (or even American) intervention. The western boundary of the governor's commission shifted to 129° in 1825 to include Bathurst and Melville islands in the far north, and there was a small settlement in this region (1824–29). At Western Port, east of Port Phillip, another settlement was made (1826–27), while in January 1827 Edmund Lockyer began permanent settlement at Albany, Western Australia. His instructions stated that Britain now claimed all Australia.

As remarked above, the constitutional structure was authoritarian. The governors were all service officers. There were no representative institutions, but Acts introduced in 1823 and 1828 provided for executive and legislative councils, with the major officers of government serving in both and an equal number of private individuals, chosen by nomination, in the latter. More significant at this stage was the articulation of a judicial system, especially the establishment of supreme courts (New South Wales, 1814; Tasmania, 1824); normal trial by jury did not obtain.

Within this rigid structure, sociopolitical factions developed. Most important in the early years was the assertion of the New South Wales Corps, stationed at Sydney from 1791. Some officers of the corps sought power and profit with an avidity that led to clash after clash with the early governors. This culminated in the events of January 26, 1808, when John Macarthur (Macarthur, John), a former officer of the corps, led an uprising known as the Rum Rebellion that deposed Governor William Bligh (Bligh, William) (served 1806–08), earlier famous for the Bounty mutiny. In due course the imperial government reacted and recalled the corps; but Governor Lachlan Macquarie (Macquarie, Lachlan) (served 1810–21) also clashed with the colony's Exclusives (Exclusive)—former officers and a handful of wealthy free immigrants. Macquarie associated himself with the Emancipist faction, a group that argued in favour of former convicts having a particular claim upon government and the colony's resources.

Macquarie's attitude disturbed the imperial government. After an official inquiry (1819–21) by John Thomas Bigge, the government encouraged the migration of men of some standing and wealth to both New South Wales and Tasmania. Such men received substantial grants of land and appeared to be the natural leaders of social and economic development. The Emancipists continued to be strong, however, especially through the leadership of William Charles Wentworth (Wentworth, W.C.) (himself the son of a convict woman), whose newspaper, the Australian (founded 1824), was the spearhead of opposition, especially to Governor Ralph Darling (served 1825–31). In Tasmania factions never formed so clearly, but there, also, the press led criticism of the government.

The maintenance of convicts was essentially the economic resource of the colony for many years; this function entailed very considerable expenditure by the British government. Wealth was won by supplying government stores with food and grain or by controlling internal trade—or both. The officers of the New South Wales Corps were skilled in filling these roles, although civil officers, private settlers, former convicts, and even serving convicts all had their own means of doing business, and the amount of petty commercial activity was large. Farming was pursued on a widely ranging scale. John Macarthur (Macarthur, John) was the most notable of those who early believed that wool growing would be a major economic resource; he himself received a substantial land grant in 1805 to pursue this hope, and he persuaded Bigge of its validity. By 1830 these hopes were still some distance from fulfillment: sheep long returned more value from their meat than from their wool, and the breeding of wooled sheep suitable to the environment took time. The 1820s saw that process quickening, with relatively greater strength in Tasmania. Sealing and whaling also proved profitable, although the richest seal fields (especially in Bass Strait) were soon thinned; and not until the 1820s did colonists have the wealth to engage seriously in whaling, although British and Americans early used Australian ports for this purpose. Maritime adventure led early colonists to make contact with Pacific islands, most importantly Tahiti.

The period saw some notable exploration by land. From early days in Sydney settlers sought a way over the mountains, some 50–100 miles west. The task was accomplished in 1813; the young Wentworth led the party. A surveyor, George William Evans (Evans, George William), followed their route to Bathurst (founded 1815) and reported rich pastoral country. John Oxley (Oxley, John) further mapped the inland plains and rivers, especially the Lachlan and Macquarie, and also explored the southern coasts of the future Queensland (1823), while Allan Cunningham (Cunningham, Allan) was the great pioneer of that state's hinterland (1827). Meanwhile, in 1824–25, Hamilton Hume and William Hovell went overland southward to the western shore of Port Phillip. Charles Sturt (Sturt, Charles) in 1828–30 won still greater fame by tracing the Murray-Murrumbidgee-Darling river system down to the Murray's mouth.

The writings of explorers and pioneers were Australia's first contributions to literary culture. While catering to the European appetite for natural history, they sometimes achieved literary grace. Pictorial illustrations of the new land, some by convicts, also dated from the earliest years. David Collins's An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales (1798) and Wentworth's (Wentworth, W.C.) Description of New South Wales (1817) were literate, informed, and impressive. Wentworth showed skill as a versifier, too, especially in his Australasia (1823). Newspapers were founded as early as 1803, and they contributed to cultural as well as political history. Outstanding was the architecture of Francis Greenway, a former convict, who, under Macquarie's patronage, designed churches and public buildings that remain among the most beautiful in Australia.

The three decades between 1830 and 1860 saw rapid change. The impact was most evident in politics and the economy, but culture was no less affected. Not until 1825 did the European population pass 50,000; in 1851 it was about 450,000, and by 1861 it had reached 1,150,000.

Four of Australia's six states were formed between 1829 and 1859. A British naval captain, James Stirling (Stirling, James), examined the Swan River in 1827 and interested English capitalist-adventurers in colonization. Two years later he returned to the Swan as governor of the new colony of Western Australia. The Colonial Office discouraged schemes for massive proprietorial grants; still the idea persisted, with Thomas Peel—kinsman of the future prime minister Sir Robert Peel—investing heavily. But colonization was grim work in a hot, dry land, with the government reluctant to expend resources. Western Australia's story for decades was survival, not success.

Yet enthusiasm quickly generated around proposals to establish a colony in South Australia, inspired by the British social reformer Edward Gibbon Wakefield (Wakefield, Edward Gibbon). He argued that, if land were sold at a “sufficient” price, its owners would be forced to maximize its value by cultivation, while labourers would have to lend their energies to that task before being able to become landowners themselves. Wakefield's ideas appealed to the liberal intelligentsia and to dissenting groups in England. Both of these elements backed nascent South Australia. The first colonists arrived in 1836, and Adelaide was settled the following year. The colony experienced many hardships, but lasting significance resulted from its founders' emphasis on family migration, equality of creeds, and free market forces in land and labour.

The northern and southern portions of New South Wales formed separate colonies. Settlement into the Port Phillip district in the south proceeded very quickly, starting from the mid 1830s, with colonists coming both from north of the Murray and from Tasmania. The settlement of Melbourne began in 1835, and the place boomed immediately. Throughout the 1840s there were calls for constitutional independence; this was granted in 1851, at which time the Port Phillip District took the name Victoria. The Moreton Bay District in the north was never quite so buoyant, and the creation of Queensland had to wait until 1859. Short-lived settlements included Port Essington (1838–49) and Gladstone (1847).

All the colonies except Western Australia gained responsible self-government. New South Wales led the way when an imperial act of 1842 created a two-thirds elective legislature. The Australian Colonies Government Act (1850) extended this situation to Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania. The act made allowance for further revision of the colonial constitutions, and in 1855–56 this took effect in the four colonies, Tasmania then abandoning the name Van Diemen's Land. Queensland followed after its separation from New South Wales. All had bicameral legislatures, with ministers responsible to the lower houses, which by 1860, except in Tasmania, were elected on a near-democratic basis (all adult non-Aboriginal men were eligible to vote). In Victoria and South Australia the secret ballot was introduced in 1856 (see Australian ballot).

While the imperial power thus responded to colonial cries for self-rule, on the way there were some tense moments. Virtually all colonists abhorred paying taxes for imperial purposes, including the costs of maintaining convicts locally; a good many disliked convictism altogether; most disputed the imperial right to dictate land policy; and many, especially in South Australia, disapproved of the imperial government's directing that aid be given to religious denominations.

From the outset of the period, the imperial government fostered a freer market in land and labour throughout the colonies, not merely in South Australia. Thus, grants of land ceased in 1831, replaced by sale. Attempts to create a pastoral-lease system caused much friction, with colonists generally hostile to any demand for payment. In New South Wales in 1844, new regulations even prompted talk of rebellion.

With regard to labour, colonists agreed with imperial encouragement of free migration, but friction arose over the convicts (penal colony). British opinion in the 1830s became increasingly critical of the assignment of convicts to private employers as smacking of slavery; it was abolished in 1840, and with it transportation of convicts to the mainland virtually ceased, although increased numbers were sent to Tasmania. The end of assignment removed the chief virtue of transportation, from the colonists' viewpoint, and so contributed to a vigorous movement against its continuation. The British government ended transportation to eastern Australia in 1852. In Western Australia transportation began in 1850, at the colonists' behest, and continued until 1868. Altogether some 151,000 convicts were sent to eastern Australia and nearly 10,000 to Western Australia.

In the early 1850s the most dramatic political problem arose from the gold rushes (gold rush). Diggers (miners) resented tax imposition and the absence of fully representative institutions. Discontent reached a peak at Ballarat, Victoria, and in December 1854, at the Eureka Stockade, troops and diggers clashed, and some were killed. The episode is the most famous of the few occasions in Australia's history involving violence among Europeans.

Common suspicion of the imperial authority modified, but did not obliterate, internal tension among the colonists. Divisions of ideology and interest were quite strong, especially in Sydney, where a populist radicalism criticized men of wealth, notably the big landholders. The coming of self-government marked a leftward (although far from revolutionary) shift in the internal power balance.

The three decades leading to 1860 saw booms of the two bonanzas of Australian economic growth—wool and minerals.

Only then did men, money, markets, and land availability interact to confirm that Australia was remarkably suited for growing fine wool. Occupation of Port Phillip was the most vital part of a surge that carried sheep raising 200 miles and farther in an arc from beyond Adelaide in the south, north, and east to beyond Brisbane. The “ squatter” pastoralist became an archetype of Australian history. Although it suffered some depression in the early 1840s, the industry kept growing, and the whole eastern mainland benefited as a result.

The first significant mineral discovery was that of copper in South Australia (1842 and 1845). The discovery had the effect, to be repeated time and again, of suddenly redeeming an Australian region from stagnation. Much more remarkable, however, were a publicized series of gold discoveries made from 1851 onward, first in east-central New South Wales and then throughout Victoria. As a result Australia became a land of golden attraction. The Victorian economy benefited from the flood of men and money, although the smaller colonies suffered. The Eureka Stockade incident not withstanding, the diggers proved more rowdy than revolutionary.

Both governments and citizens paid considerable heed to improvement of soul and mind. From the mid 1830s, generous aid helped all Christian churches to expand. The Church of England had the highest nominal allegiance, but in the eastern mainland colonies Roman Catholicism was notably strong; Methodism had vigorous advocates throughout; Congregationalism and other forms of dissent dominated in South Australia; and Presbyterianism had its chief strength in Victoria. Most churches attended to education, especially the provision of superior schools, while the state struggled to provide a primary system. The Universities of Sydney and Melbourne were founded in 1850 and 1853, respectively. Mechanics' institutes, museums, and botanical gardens also were built.

Architects created much beauty in early Australia. Artists were active; drama and music developed in all towns. At the same time, a distinctive Australian literature began to develop. The first Australian (Australian literature) novel, Quintus Servinton (1830–31), was written by a convict, Henry Savery; Henry Kingsley (Kingsley, Henry)'s Geoffrey Hamlyn (1859) is often judged the first major Australian novel. John West's History of Tasmania (1852) was a work of remarkable scope and insight.

Various forms of science had their investigators, but land exploration remained the richest field of discovery. Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell (Mitchell, Sir Thomas Livingstone) confirmed Sturt's work on the river systems and first opened the way from New South Wales to the rich lands of western Victoria (1836). The Western Australian coastal regions were mapped by George Grey (Grey, Sir George) (1837–40) and by Edward John Eyre (Eyre, Edward John), who went overland from Adelaide to Albany (1840). Eyre and Sturt both vainly attempted to reach mid continent from Adelaide; this was at last achieved in April 1860 by John McDouall Stuart, who in 1862 went still farther, to Darwin. Meanwhile, the central north and the northeast had been penetrated from Sydney; the most famous explorer was Ludwig Leichhardt (Leichhardt, Ludwig), who led two successful expeditions (1844, 1846–47) before disappearing in an attempt to traverse from the Darling Downs to Perth. An equal and more celebrated tragedy ended the expedition of Robert O'Hara Burke (Burke, Robert O'Hara) and William John Wills, who crossed from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1860–61 but starved to death on the return. Later explorations of Western Australia in the 1870s added the names of John Forrest (Forrest, Sir John) and Ernest Giles to the pantheon of explorer-heroes.

Economic development by Europeans had as its necessary complement the ravaging of Aboriginal life. Especially if it is accepted that the pre-1788 native population exceeded one million and that living standards were high, the subsequent history must all the less appear as one of colonial “growth” and all the more as one of forced transfer (or theft) of wealth from Aboriginal to European.

Some tension always threatened as the two groups met, but often the Aboriginals were accommodating and responsive. A kind of coexistence might have evolved had not European pastoralism generated an inexorable demand for land. Aboriginals responded with guerrilla war, often fiercely and tenaciously: ultimately more than 20,000 Aboriginals and almost 2,000 Europeans are estimated to have died as a consequence. Disease and alienation, often allied with massive physical displacement, wreaked further havoc.

Some European consciences were troubled—most notably those of British Evangelicals in the 1830s. There had always been a stream of humanitarian and Christian concern for the Aboriginals in European Australia. In Tasmania only a very few persons of full Tasmanian Aboriginal descent survived by 1860, and they were the last. The “protectorates” (reserved areas) that imperial policy had established in several mainland colonies served little purpose.

Between 1860 and 1900 the colonies had little formal relation with each other; instead they concentrated their attention inward on their capitals. The separate histories of each state therefore have particular importance for this period. Withal, patterns were similar, and federation at length came about in 1901.

Democracy was largely established, save that the upper houses remained elitist in franchise and membership. Governments often had short and inchoate lives, but the constitutions survived. Political groupings were extremely intricate, often personal or power-seeking in origin, but allowing some expression for liberal or conservative ideology.

The liberals made the colonies quite advanced in matters of social reform, if not the average man's paradise that some glib publicists depicted. Breaking up the large “squatter” estates and replacing them with yeoman farming was a constant concern, meeting many difficulties yet achieving some effect where market and environment allowed. Reformers put much faith in education and strove toward providing adequate primary schooling for all. “Free, secular, and compulsory” was a slogan and roughly the final result; this entailed hot controversy with the Roman Catholic church, which scorned the “godless” schools and made enormous efforts to provide its own. Other forms of state aid to religion tapered away. Factory legislation and rudimentary social services developed; however, restriction of nonwhite, especially Chinese, immigration was enforced, for Europeans feared these labourers would reduce living standards, but the restriction was also a matter of sheer racism.

Overall the economy prospered, with the European population rising to 3,370,000 in 1901. Wool and metals continued as the great export income earners. Pastoralism flourished, especially up to the mid 1870s; despite land legislation, this was the heyday of the squatter “aristocracy.” Expansion of sheep and cattle growing into the more distant hinterland continued the heroic-pioneer theme of earlier years. Railway construction aided rural industry and proceeded remarkably quickly, notably in the 1880s: between 1875 and 1891 the mileage rose from 1,600 miles to above 10,000 and reached as far as 500 miles inland. Most of the required capital was raised overseas on behalf of governments, contributing to the extremely important role played by the public sector in economic growth. The 1890s were less prosperous. This resulted in part from a worldwide decline in wool prices and investor confidence. Local circumstances also contributed, however, as capital, often borrowed from overseas, increasingly went into speculative and unprofitable ventures.

Victoria's gold (gold rush) and South Australia's copper maintained their significance as new techniques allowed more sophisticated exploitation. Gold was found in southern Queensland in the later 1860s and then in the Northern Territory and in tropical Queensland: the Palmer River goldfield pulled men to the far north in the mid 1870s. By then Cobar, in central New South Wales, had proved the most important of many new copper fields. Tin also became significant, Mount Bischoff in Tasmania being the world's largest lode at its discovery in 1871. The 1880s were predominantly the decade of silver (silver processing); western New South Wales proved richest, and in 1883 Charles Rasp, a German migrant, first glimpsed the varied riches of Broken Hill. The silver, lead, and zinc ores found there were to make that city almost fabulous and to prompt the establishment of Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP Billiton) Ltd.—in time, Australia's largest private enterprise. Also from 1883 dated another big and ramifying discovery, the gold of Mount Morgan, Queensland. Gold also became Western Australia's great bonanza in the early 1890s, the Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie fields winning international attention; the copper of Mount Lyell (Lyell, Mount), Tasmania, was another highlight of that decade. These discoveries were both product and instigator of much wider activity, creating speculation, mobility, boom, and slump of extraordinary impact.

Urban expansion and the growth of secondary industry, while less distinctive to Australia and contributing little to export income, were remarkable. By the criteria of investment, employment, and relative acceleration, the growth of secondary industry outstripped that of primary industry. Secondary industry multiplied its growth some 10 times over during the period, so that manufacturing and construction accounted for one-fourth of the national product in the 1880s. The population ratio shifted decisively from country to town, establishing an extreme capital-city concentration and eventually placing Melbourne and Sydney among the world's large cities. Urban building and services attracted much capital, and most manufacturing was directed to providing food, furniture, and clothing for the relatively affluent townspeople. City speculation contributed more than its share to overcapitalization, and the main impact of the depression of the 1890s was in the urban industrial sector.

The history of the respective colonies sharpens some points in this general background. In the later 19th century regional characteristics consolidated, and they changed little at least until the 1960s.

With its longer background, New South Wales changed less during this period. Its master politician, Henry Parkes (Parkes, Sir Henry), first came into prominence in the 1840s. Parkes was involved in sectarian disputes, which were especially vigorous in the colony. Another major theme of political debate was protection versus free trade—the latter retaining greater favour, in contrast to Victoria. Sydney had its share of scandals and scalawags, especially late in the period, contributing to its rambunctious image.

Expansion westward and northward dominated the history of Queensland. Cattle and sugar became industries of substantial importance. A class of small farmers aspired to settle the tropics, which had been considered unsuitable for small-scale farming by Europeans. Conversely, the established “kings” of the tropical region relied on Kanakas (labourers from the Pacific islands). The continued immigration of Kanakas provoked hot debate, which was not resolved until after federation, when the young commonwealth imposed an absolute prohibition.

In 1863 the colony took over the administration of the area thereafter known as the Northern Territory, which earlier had been technically part of New South Wales; the change entailed adjustment of boundaries. (The territory became the concern of the federal government in 1911.)

The 1860s imprinted a sleepy image on Tasmania, which persisted. The mineral discoveries at Mount Bischoff and elsewhere were important in reviving the economy. Nevertheless, living standards generally remained lower than elsewhere, and there were still property qualifications for voting in 1900. The colony contributed to democratic practice, however, by experimenting with proportional representation.

Working-class and radical movements stretched back to the 1830s, although substantial trade union organization came only after the mid century.

The unions won some job benefits, including widespread adoption of the eight-hour workday. The 1870s and '80s saw extensive mass unionism, notably among miners and sheepshearers. Trades halls arose in the cities, and organizations extending beyond colonial boundaries began to knit together. The unions early considered using political pressure and gaining political representation. This inclination strengthened in the early 1890s, helped by tougher times and by employers' stiffening resistance to union demands. Thus arose the labour parties, which gained quick success, especially in New South Wales and Queensland. At first the labourites' aim was simply to influence ministries, but for a few days in December 1899 Anderson Dawson was Labor (Australian Labor Party) premier in Queensland.

Other radicals reacted differently to the pressures of the 1890s. A few hundred of them set off for Paraguay in 1893 to establish there a utopian “New Australia”; they failed. Republicanism was fairly strong in the 1880s and '90s, sometimes accompanied by a nearly Marxist militancy.

Federation was another ideal of the times. Most important politicians supported the cause, with more or less altruism. They could invoke more positive factors than common background and apparent common sense. Especially since the Crimean War (1853–56), Australians had feared incursion from the north by Europeans or Asians or both; the most emphatic result came early in 1883, when the government of Queensland, fearful of Germany, took possession of Papua, forcing Britain's reluctant connivance. Better defense was one motive for association, and so was the prospect of more effective Asian immigration restriction; intercolonial free trade was another desideratum. The Australian Natives Association (the Australian-born comprised nearly two-thirds of the population in 1901) rallied to the cause.

Yet the events progressed slowly. A federal council was established in 1885 but was only a standing conference without executive power. New South Wales never joined the council; the senior colony was jealous of a movement that would reduce its autonomy, the strength of which was in Victoria. Conventions met in 1891 and 1897–98 to prepare drafts for a national constitution. The final draft was confirmed by referendum, and the Commonwealth of Australia came into existence on January 1, 1901.

The constitution was federal, with the states (as the colonies now became) forsaking only limited and specified powers to the commonwealth government; these included defense, immigration, customs, marriage, and external affairs. While the lower house, the House of Representatives, consisted of single-member constituencies of roughly equal size, each state had an equal number of representatives in the upper house, the Senate. Ministers were to be members of parliament. A high court would interpret the constitution. woman suffrage was enacted in 1902. Aboriginals, however, were denied citizenship rights under the constitution.

Men of learning had contributed to the nationalist surge. Especially in the 1890s and through the Sydney Bulletin, verse and prose portrayed the Outback as the home of the true Australian—the bush worker: tough, laconic, and self-reliant but ever ready to help his “mate.” The Bulletin was nationalist, even republican, and much more radical than the federalist politicians. Henry Lawson (Lawson, Henry) and Joseph Furphy (Furphy, Joseph) were the supreme writers of the nationalist school. Painters and poets also extolled the nationalist ideal.

Not all cultural achievement belonged to the nationalist context, however. Henry Kendall (Kendall, Henry) was a lyricist of nature, and Adam Lindsay Gordon (Gordon, Adam Lindsay) wrote of horses and countryside with a skill that won him a memorial in Westminster Abbey. “Rolf Boldrewood” (Thomas Alexander Browne) wrote tales of Outback adventure, while the great 19th-century Australian novel was Marcus Clarke (Clarke, Marcus)'s For the Term of His Natural Life (1874), based upon convict records and legends. The older universities remained small but had some outstanding men on their faculties; the Universities of Adelaide (1874) and Tasmania (1890) were new foundations. Ferdinand von Mueller was an outstanding botanist who worked primarily at the Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. That city was the home of the great coloratura soprano Nellie Melba (Melba, Dame Nellie).

Popular culture followed the British model, with music halls, novelettes, and especially sport to the fore. Australian rules football developed first in Melbourne and became strong throughout southern Australia. In cricket, a victory over the mother country in 1882 established one area of colonial equality. Admiration combined with fear to create a sporadic cult of the bushranger (highwayman); its most famous expression came with the capture of Ned Kelly (Kelly, Ned)'s gang and Kelly's execution in 1880. Urban youths joined in gangs, or “pushes,” and won the epithet “larrikin,” or rowdy.

The Aboriginal experience continued to be grim. The estimated number of persons of predominantly Aboriginal descent declined from about 180,000 in 1861 to less than 95,000 in 1901. In accordance with contemporary ideas of racial superiority (racism), many Europeans believed that the Aboriginals must die out, and they acted in such a way as to ensure that outcome. Frontier violence continued, or even intensified, in northern Australia. In the more settled south, people of mixed race became common. A feeling of despair prevailed among the nonwhite population, for, although the newly self-governing colonies made some sympathetic protestations, they rarely took appropriate or effective action. Even the shelter of mission and government “stations” diminished from the 1880s as policy makers decided to disperse Aboriginals, especially those of predominantly European descent. As a result, a growing number of people suffered the miseries of ghetto life on the margins of capital cities and country towns. Aboriginals served as workers and servants in the Outback, where they were often crucial to the pastoral economy, but they rarely received due respect or reward.

The world's passions and conflict of the early 20th century were to shape the new nation's history, despite its physical distance from their epicentres. In some respects this was the least positive of the major periods of Australian history. Nationalism grew in strength, but it killed and sterilized as much as it inspired; egalitarianism tended to foster mediocrity; dependence on external power and models prevailed. Yet creativity and progress survived, and Australia's troubles were small compared with those of many contemporary societies.

Drabness was most evident in economic affairs. At the broadest level of generality, the period did little more than continue the themes of the 1860–90 generation. The most important such themes were the increasing industrialization and improvement of communications; railways reached their peak of 27,000 miles in 1941, and meanwhile came the motor boom. In the agricultural sector there was significant expansion of exports, with wheat, fruits, meat, and sugar becoming much more important than theretofore. But just as manufactures received increasingly high tariff protection, so the marketing of these goods often depended on subsidy. Hence, the sheep's back continued to be the nation's great support in world finance. Metals, gold especially, were important in the early years, but thereafter this resource conspicuously failed to provide the vitality of earlier and later times. The worldwide economic depression of the 1930s affected Australia, especially its primary industries; otherwise, the overall rate of growth, and probably of living standards, too, scrambled upward—more quickly than average in the years around 1910 and again in the early 1940s.

In national politics, candidates fought for office with increasing vigour and resource, while their administrative performances generally began well but then ebbed. A constant theme was the strengthening of the central government against the states. This complemented the high degree of homogeneity, especially in personal and social matters, that extended through Australia's great physical spread; it was expressed primarily through the Commonwealth's financial powers—at first especially relating to customs and excise duties but later by direct taxation. From World War I (1914–18) both levels of government imposed income taxes, but in 1942 the federal government virtually annexed the field, with the high court's approval. The establishment of a national capital at Canberra, where parliament first sat in 1927 after having met in Melbourne since federation, symbolized this situation. The strengthening of the Commonwealth was scarcely a product of popular enthusiasm. Several constitutional referenda upheld the rights of the states, each of which had its own distinct political, cultural, and social characteristics.

The first two prime ministers were Edmund Barton (Barton, Sir Edmund) (1901–03) and Alfred Deakin (Deakin, Alfred) (1903–04), who had headed the federation movement in New South Wales and Victoria, respectively. They were liberal protectionists. Their ministries established a tariff, an administrative structure, and the White Australia (White Australia Policy) immigration policy that excluded Asians. They also established the High Court and initiated legislation for a court of conciliation and arbitration. This carried to the highest point in the world the principles of industrial arbitration and judicial imposition of welfare and justice through wage and working-condition awards.

In 1904 John Christian Watson (Watson, John Christian) led the first, brief Labor cabinet, followed by George Houston Reid (Reid, Sir George Houston)'s conservative free-trade ministry. Deakin led again (1905–08), and Andrew Fisher (Fisher, Andrew) was Labor's second prime minister (1908–09); his ministry was defeated when liberals and conservatives “fused” in Deakin's third term (1909–10). Labor then won its first clear majority at election, which it barely lost in 1913 and regained, still under Fisher, in 1914. These changing ideologies did not hinder—perhaps even prompted—ambitious governmental policies. Social services were extended with old-age pensions (1908) and maternity grants (1912); protection rose markedly in a 1908 tariff; the Commonwealth Bank was established; and an army and navy developed.

The new nation was psychologically as well as physically prepared for war. Fear of attack became increasingly directed against Japan, prompting pressure on Great Britain for a firmer policy in the New Hebrides (since 1886 supervised jointly by Britain and France); this was achieved in 1906–07. Although many Australians criticized Britain when the latter appeared negligent of local interests, the dominant note was profound loyalty to the empire. Colonial troops had fought in both the Sudan and South African (Boer) wars. In 1914, when World War I began, politicians of all hues rallied to the imperial cause.

Some 330,000 Australians served in World War I; 60,000 died, and 165,000 suffered wounds—few nations made such relatively heavy sacrifice. The most famous engagement of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps ( ANZAC) was in the Dardanelles Campaign (1915); the day of the landing at Gallipoli—April 25—became the preeminent day of national reverence. Even before Gallipoli, Australian troops had occupied German New Guinea, and the Australian warship Sydney sank the German cruiser Emden near the Cocos Islands (November 9, 1914). After the Dardanelles Australians fought primarily in France; Ypres, Amiens, and Villers Bretonneux were among the battles, all marked by slaughter. In Palestine the Australian light horse and cavalry corps contributed to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire.

The war profoundly affected domestic affairs. Economically, it acted as a super-tariff, benefiting especially textiles, glassmaking, vehicles, and the iron and steel industry. Such products as wool, wheat, beef, and mutton found a readier market in Britain, at inflated prices. But the shock of war affected politics much more, especially by giving full scope to the furious energy of William Morris Hughes (Hughes, William Morris), who supplanted Fisher as Labor prime minister in October 1915. Soon afterward he visited Britain. There his ferocity as a war leader won acclaim, and he became convinced that Australia must contribute still more. He advocated military conscription for overseas service, but a referendum in October 1916 repudiated this proposal, and immediately afterward the Labor parliamentary caucus moved no confidence in Hughes's leadership. He continued as prime minister of a “national” government, however, even after losing a second conscription referendum in December 1917. The referenda in particular and war stress in general made these years uniquely turbulent in Australian history. The Labor Party lost other men of great ability along with Hughes. The split solidified a long-standing trend for Roman Catholics to support the party. Hughes's enemies also included the small but growing number of extremists—most notably the Sydney section of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)—who opposed the war on doctrinaire grounds.

The aftermath of war continued, but finally resolved, this turbulence. Some radicals hoped that returning servicemen would force social change, but instead the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia (later called the Returned Services League of Australia) became a bastion of conservative order, some of its supporters ready to use physical force against local people they considered “bolsheviks.” The Labor Party faltered, its members adopting a more radical socialist type of platform in 1921, but with far from uniform conviction. (In 1918 the name Australian Labor Party 【ALP】 was adopted throughout Australia.) When the challenge came to Hughes's leadership early in 1923, it arose partly from the conservative-business wing of Hughes's own Nationalist Party (its representative, Stanley Melbourne Bruce (Bruce, Stanley Melbourne Bruce, Viscount), becoming prime minister) and partly from the Country Party (National Party), which from late 1922 held a crucial number of parliamentary seats. Although led by wealthy landowners, the Country Party won support from many small farmers; it benefited too from its former-soldier image and from widespread country-versus-city feeling. Its leader, Earle C.G. Page (Page, Sir Earle), had considerable, if erratic, force.

Bruce continued as prime minister until 1929, with Page his deputy in Nationalist-Country coalitions. Bruce strove to buoy the economy by attracting British investment and fostering corporative capitalism. Tariffs, bounties, prices, and public indebtedness all rose. There was considerable administrative innovation—e.g., the Loan Council regulated all government borrowing—and the successful Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (later called the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation 【CSIRO】) was established in 1926 to apply scientific expertise to developmental problems. The worldwide development of consumer industry had its impact: the revolution in transportation provided by the automobile is the best example, although full-scale car production was still in the future.

With much economic activity subsidized—the exception being one primary product, wool—Australia was particularly vulnerable to the Great Depression of the 1930s. It struck hard: unemployment exceeded one-fourth of the work force and imposed a degree of social misery rarely known in Australian history. The rate of recovery was uneven, manufactures doing better than primary industry. Population growth slowed; at the nadir, emigration exceeded immigration.

Politics reflected the impact. James Henry Scullin (Scullin, James Henry) succeeded Bruce as prime minister in October 1929, but his Labor ministry suffered the real squeeze of events; within the ALP there was considerable division as to how government should react to the Depression. Some favoured a generally inflationist policy, with banks facilitating credit issue and governments extending public works. Right-wing Labor distrusted such a policy; radicals would have gone further by renouncing interest payment on overseas loans. Conservative opinion argued for deflationary policies—curtailed government expenditure, lower wages, balancing the budget, and the honouring of interest commitments. In June 1931 the Commonwealth and the state governments agreed on a plan, called the Premiers' Plan. Although the plan had some inflationary features, it foreshadowed a one-fifth reduction in government spending, including wages and pensions—a considerable affront to Labor's traditional attitudes.

Against this background the government disintegrated. Before the Premiers' Plan, some Labor right-wingers, led by Joseph Aloysius Lyons (Lyons, Joseph Aloysius), had crossed to the opposition. In November some leftist dissidents voted against Scullin, forcing his resignation. In the elections that followed, Labor suffered a heavy defeat. The new prime minister was Lyons, whose followers had coalesced with the erstwhile Nationalists to form the United Australia Party (UAP). Lyons led a wholly UAP government until 1934 and UAP-Country coalitions until his death in 1939.

The Lyons governments provided stability and not much more. Recovery was uneven and sporadic, quicker in manufacturing than in primary industry, aided more by market forces than by governmental planning. Two policies failed to fulfill expectations—the Imperial Economic Conference, held at Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in 1932, improved trade slightly, but the integrated economic community for which some had hoped never developed. Australia's trade diversion policy of 1936, which tried to redress the imbalance of imports from Japan and the United States, offended those countries and actually reduced exports further. A plan for national insurance, the Lyons governments' most ambitious social legislation, also aborted. These mishaps did not much bother the electorate; improvement, even if meagre, was enough to retain favour.

Internal division was the greater threat to the government. This became manifest after Lyons's death. The UAP elected Robert Gordon Menzies (Menzies, Sir Robert Gordon) its new leader (and therefore prime minister); but the decision was hard fought, and it was criticized publicly and vehemently by Page, still leader of the Country Party. Nevertheless, Menzies retained office; but internal division persisted, the coalition's parliamentary majority was tiny, and Menzies resigned in August 1941. Arthur William Fadden, the new leader of the Country Party, then took office, but in October he gave way to John Curtin (Curtin, John) and a Labor ministry.

While the electorate generally voted conservative, Australia shared the common Western experience of the interwar years in the rise of a small, vigorous communist movement. Founded in 1922, the Australian Communist Party made most headway in the big industrial unions and in Sydney; it also had some influence and supporters among the intelligentsia, especially in the 1930s. The party suffered a share of internal factionalism but for the most part was able to present a united face to the public.

Fascism achieved no formal political recognition in Australia, but there were hints of sympathy toward fascist attitudes—D.H. Lawrence wrote of such in his novel Kangaroo, based on a brief visit in 1922; and an “Australia First” movement began in literary nationalism but drifted into race mystique and perhaps even treason. An intellectual movement of more lasting force developed among a group of young Roman Catholic intellectuals in Melbourne in the mid 1930s. They developed a commitment to social justice and against communism, somewhat in the manner of G.K. Chesterton. This was known as the Catholic Social Movement, and it had considerable influence.

Whereas Australia had been virtually spoiling for war before 1914, passivity became the international keynote after 1920. At the Paris Peace Conference that formally concluded World War I, Hughes was his fire-eating self, especially in defense of Australia's interests in the Pacific. Thus he won a mandate for erstwhile German New Guinea and Nauru (an atoll in the central Pacific) and effectually opposed a Japanese motion proclaiming racial equality, which he thought might presage an attack on Australia's immigration laws. In the League of Nations, Australia was an independent member from the outset. Yet in following years “the empire” became the object of even more rhetoric and more desperate hope than earlier. Australia did not ratify the Statute of Westminster (Westminster, Statute of) (1931, embodying the 1926 Balfour Report as to the constitutional equality of the dominions) until 1942. The UAP governments followed Britain closely in its attitude toward the totalitarian expansion of the 1930s; if Australian influence counted for anything, it was to strengthen appeasement of Germany and Japan. Although fear of Japan continued, that country's accession to the fascist camp did not provoke a tougher governmental line. The government suspected that Britain could not control the Eastern Hemisphere but found no answer to that dire problem. The Labor Party meanwhile was even more incoherent and variable in matters of foreign policy than were its social democratic counterparts elsewhere in the Western world: isolationism and antifascism were equal and opposing forces.

When war came again, however, the nation's response was firm—some 30,000 Australians died in World War II (1938–45), and 65,000 were injured. From early in the war, the Royal Australian Air Force was active in the defense of Britain. The Australian Navy operated in the Mediterranean Sea (1940–41), helping to win the Battle of Cape Matapan (March 1941). Australian troops fought in the seesaw battles of North Africa. In mid 1941 Australians suffered heavy losses both in the Allied defeats in Greece and Crete and in the victories in the Levant. Meanwhile, the German general Erwin Rommel was scoring his greatest triumphs in North Africa. Out of these emerged the successful Allied defense of Tobruk, carried out substantially by Australians (April–December 1941), and the decisive victory at the battles of El-Alamein (Alamein, El-), in which an Australian division played a key role.

After the Japanese attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (December 7, 1941), however, the focus shifted homeward. The Japanese victories of the following months more than fulfilled the fantasies that fear and hate had long prompted in Australia. On February 15, 1942, 15,000 Australians became prisoners of war when Singapore fell to Japanese forces, and four days later war came to the nation's shores when Darwin was bombed. Then came a Japanese swing southward that by August threatened to overrun Port Moresby, New Guinea.

The United States became Australia's major ally. In a famous statement (December 1941), Prime Minister Curtin declared: “I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free from any pangs about our traditional links of friendship to Britain.” A sharper note of independence from Britain came when Curtin insisted (February 1942) that Australian troops recalled from the Middle East should return to Australia itself and not help in the defense of Burma (Myanmar), as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Churchill, Sir Winston) wished. Conversely, American needs prompted total response to Curtin's call. U.S. General Douglas MacArthur (MacArthur, Douglas) established his headquarters first in Melbourne and then in Brisbane. In May the Australian navy assisted in the American victory in the Battle of the Coral Sea, which was a turning point in the war, and the two countries' troops thereafter fought in many joint land battles. The American soldier became a common figure in the Australian state capitals, forging the biggest single link in the social relations between the two countries.

On land the fortunes of war turned against the Japanese in August–September 1942, beginning with an Allied (primarily Australian) victory at Milne Bay, New Guinea. More prolonged—and of more heroic dimension in Australian eyes—was the forcing back of the Japanese from southern New Guinea over the Kokoda Trail. Then followed a long attrition of Japanese forces elsewhere in New Guinea and the islands, with Australia initially playing a major role and subsequently playing a role secondary to American forces. Australian volunteers and conscripts fought in these campaigns, the government and people having accepted the legitimacy of sending conscripts as far north as the Equator and as far west and east as the 110th and 159th meridians.

The war brought some passion into domestic affairs, albeit less than in World War I. Curtin's government exercised considerable control over the civilian population, “industrial conscription” being scarcely an exaggerated description. Overall this was accepted—partly because of the crisis, partly because the government showed purposefulness and capacity. Curtin easily won the 1943 elections; thereafter his ministry and the bureaucracy gave considerable thought to postwar reconstruction, hoping to use war-developed techniques to achieve greater social justice in peace.

The war carried industrialization to a new level. The production of ammunition and other matériel (including airplanes), machine tools, and chemicals all boomed. Meanwhile, primary production lost prestige, aid, and skills, so that the 1944 output was but two-thirds that of 1939–40. Urban employment was bountiful, and concentration in the state capitals became more marked than ever; many families had two or more income earners. Thus, affluence quickened; federal child endowment from 1940 and rationing of scarce products helped distribute this wealth. The gross national product increased by more than one-half between 1938–39 and 1942–43 and by the end of that time was nearly triple what it had been at the end of World War I.

The period produced not only Joseph Furphy (Furphy, Joseph)'s Such Is Life (1903) but also the work of Henry Handel Richardson (Richardson, Henry Handel) (pseudonym of Ethel F.L. Richardson, later Robertson), another contender as “the great Australian novelist.” In The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (three volumes, 1917, 1925, 1929), Richardson told the anguish of the central character, modeled on her father, as he sought to come to terms with Australian life. The tension of dual loyalties to Britain and Australia was a major concern also of Martin Boyd (Boyd, Martin), whose long career as a novelist began in the 1920s. A more exclusively nationalist tone pervaded many tales of Outback life and historical novel sagas. An early notable novel of urban life was Louis Stone's Jonah (1911); a later contributor to this genre was Vance Palmer (Palmer, Vance) (especially The Swayne Family, 1934), who, with his wife Nettie, won fame as a literary critic and selfless patron of the aspiring young.

The most significant contribution in poetry came from a group in Sydney influenced by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the late 19th-century French innovators. Outstanding was Christopher John Brennan (Brennan, Christopher), a major theorist of Symbolism. While calling on their Australian background, these men gave a sophistication to their poetic world that lifted it far from Outback balladry. Associated with this group was Norman Lindsay (Lindsay, Norman), an artist, novelist, and sculptor. The novelist Christina Stead (Stead, Christina) was another product of this milieu.

In art the rural landscape dominated. Revolutionary changes in European art were relatively slow in affecting Australia, but a few artists did produce some notable work of imaginative technique. In Percy Grainger (Grainger, Percy) Australia produced (but did not retain) a musician of remarkable originality and ability. Architecture promised an interesting chapter with the selection of the American Walter Burley Griffin (Griffin, Walter Burley)'s design for the city of Canberra. In practice his design was much mutilated, but Griffin did do some important work in both Melbourne and Sydney.

One outstanding new area to which the universities contributed was anthropology; a chief protagonist was A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (Radcliffe-Brown, A.R.) (professor of anthropology at the University of Sydney (Sydney, University of), 1925–31). Australians increasingly filled faculty posts, although most who did so were graduates of either Oxford or Cambridge universities, while some of the most able native intellects worked overseas. The University of Western Australia (Western Australia), founded in 1911, drew on one of the most substantial philanthropic bequests in Australian history (from the newspaper editor Sir John Winthrop Hackett) and initially charged no fees. Other university foundations were Queensland (1909) and colleges at Canberra and Armidale. State-owned secondary schools developed throughout the period, although the achievement was scarcely comparable to the development of primary education in the early period.

Australia was in the forefront of filmmaking early in the century, but this early promise soon faded. A.B. Paterson (Paterson, A B)'s "Waltzing Matilda" became Australia's best-known song—part folk hymn and part national anthem. Radio had an impact in Australia equal to that elsewhere; radio stations became a mark of urban status, and the Australian Broadcasting Commission became a major force in culture and journalism. Radio helped make the 1930s probably the most sports-conscious decade in Australia's history. Cricket, tennis, swimming, boxing, and horse racing were areas of athletic excellence. Aviation moved from sport to enterprise to business; Charles Kingsford-Smith, who established several long-distance records, was the most famous hero, and Qantas (Qantas Airways Limited) the most successful airline.

Early in the century governments tended to be still more authoritarian and intrusive in their policies on Aboriginals. This was notably so in Western Australia, where the most brutal of direct clashes continued. Reports of such events in the later 1920s stirred those Christian and humanitarian forces that had always recognized the violence and injustice of Australia's racial experience; the new anthropology abetted such concern. Commonwealth governments gave these voices some heed, especially after 1937, although only in the Northern Territory did the government control policy. In 1932 the formation, under William Cooper, of the Australian Aboriginals League spurred black political action—which had some history back to the 1840s. Cooper and William Ferguson organized protest against Australia's sesquicentennial celebrations in January 1938: “There are enough of us remaining to expose the humbug of your claims, as White Australians, to be a civilised, progressive, kindly and humane nation.”

World War II generated economic vigour that continued into the 1970s. While some groups suffered disadvantages, that period, the 1960s especially, ranked as something of a golden age. The population nearly doubled by 1976, with expenditure per head increasing by roughly the same proportion. This prosperity reflected the general Western experience and depended much upon the export of basic commodities—notably wool in the 1950s and minerals thereafter. Domestic manufacturing also expanded remarkably and with considerable sophistication: manufactured goods included iron and steel wares, electric and electronic goods, and automobiles (production of “Australia's own car,” the Holden, began in 1948). Output per worker increased, and working hours were lessened.

The number of private automobiles increased eight-fold by 1970, and the car joined the personally owned home as a lodestone of most Australian lives. Tourism and travel enriched traditional leisure patterns, which continued to be strong. The holding of the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 symbolized the nation's enthusiasm for sport and its production of world champions, notably swimmers. Television in Australia effectively began with the broadcast of the 1956 Olympics and soon came to exercise its characteristic influence.

On John Curtin's death in July 1945, he was succeeded as prime minister by another ALP stalwart, Joseph Benedict (Ben) Chifley (Chifley, Joseph Benedict). Influenced by Keynesian theory, their governments maintained close control of the economy and even contemplated nationalization of the private banks. Welfare policies expanded, as did the dominance of the commonwealth government over the states, although the latter remained important. At all these levels, and elsewhere, it was evident how much larger and more expert the federal public service had become.

As the Cold War intensified Chifley's policies seemed dangerously radical to conservative eyes. Such apprehension fed on the disruptive tactics pursued by Communist Party supporters, especially in trade unions. Robert Menzies (Menzies, Sir Robert Gordon), who in 1944 had founded the Liberal Party (Liberal Party of Australia) as a successor to the United Australia Party, addressed these issues. In December 1949 he was elected prime minister. His and all future non-Labor governments were coalitions of the Liberal and Country parties, with the former dominant.

Menzies stayed in office until 1966. A man of great political competence, he also benefited much from the period's prosperity. His governments continued to monitor the economy to useful effect. Menzies personally did much to increase spending on education and on the development of Canberra. He continued to present himself as a crusader against communism and to allege that Labor's leaders failed to check its evil. (The 1954 defection of Vladimir Petrov, a Soviet diplomat-agent in Canberra, strengthened Menzies' hand.) The ALP floundered under the erratic leadership (1951–60) of Herbert Vere Evatt (Evatt, Herbert Vere); an anticommunist element, somewhat influenced by the Catholic Social Movement (see above), split away to form the Democratic Labor Party. This party won only a few seats but drastically weakened the ALP.

Menzies was succeeded by his longtime lieutenant, Harold Holt (Holt, Harold), who had little time to make any distinctive impact before his sudden death in December 1967. His successor, John Grey Gorton (Gorton, Sir John Grey), proved more assertive, especially of a sharper national interest in economic and diplomatic affairs. Gorton lost ground with both the electorate and parliamentary colleagues, and in early 1971 he gave way to another Liberal, William McMahon (McMahon, Sir William).

Meanwhile Labor had found new force under Edward Gough Whitlam (Whitlam, Gough). He personified the importance within the party of an intelligentsia, radicalized in modest degree by liberationist and countercultural forces of the day as well as by more traditional left-wing sympathies. The failure of McMahon to become a convincing leader gave Labor its long-denied chance, and in December 1972 Whitlam became prime minister.

Whitlam's governments were extremely active, if not always effectual. Many initiatives vitalized intellectual and cultural pursuits. A stronger sense of Australian identity prevailed, and some imperial symbols were abandoned. The government encouraged wage increases (including equal pay for women) and spent much on social services, notably health and urban amenities. To many, it appeared as if Whitlam were shaping a new and better Australia.

Others saw the government as reckless and dangerous. Some of its members did lean toward irresponsibility. Critics fought hard and bitterly, especially after the accession to opposition leadership in March 1975 of the Liberal John Malcolm Fraser (Fraser, Malcolm). The government lacked a majority in the Senate, which accordingly deferred approval of revenue supply, the intent being to force Whitlam to call an election. The complex constitutional issue that thus arose required the adjudication of the governor-general, Sir John Kerr (Kerr, Sir John Graham), the formal head of state under the crown. Kerr had been nominated (for the Queen's approval) by Whitlam, but on November 11, 1975, he dismissed Whitlam and appointed Fraser interim prime minister. Kerr's actions sparked excitement, and among Whitlam's admirers, outrage. An election in December gave a handsome victory to Fraser.

Both world wars encouraged, even forced, Australian governments to assert themselves internationally. The ALP had generally tended toward a forthright international policy. Appropriately, therefore, the Curtin and Chifley governments, especially in the person of Evatt (Evatt, Herbert Vere), took a significant part in founding the United Nations. Evatt helped secure recognition of the rights of smaller nations in the United Nations and served as president of the United Nations General Assembly in 1948–49. The Labor governments also had some sympathy for Asian nationalist movements, most importantly in Indonesia.

With the accession of Menzies (Menzies, Sir Robert Gordon) and the deepening of the Cold War, attitudes became more conservative. Sentimental ties of empire remained strong enough for the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1954 to provoke mass emotion. Menzies, an ardent royalist, upheld the British position in the Suez Crisis of 1956. Yet overall the stronger theme was Australian acceptance of U.S. dominance—all the more inexorable as the United Kingdom abandoned much of the modest interest it had cherished for Australia. The U.S. alliance crystallized in the 1951 Australia–New Zealand–United States (ANZUS (ANZUS Pact)) Pact, reinforced (1955–77) by the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Only the Whitlam government chafed at the alliance, and then but in part. Australia followed the United States' lead in such crises as the Korean (1950–53) and Vietnam (1955–75) wars and, a generation later, the Persian Gulf War (1990–91). Australia did not recognize the People's Republic of China until 1972–73. U.S. satellite-tracking stations and other facilities functioned on Australian soil.

Relations with Japan were particularly important. Antagonism ran strong in the postwar years and lingered for decades. Nevertheless, trade recommenced in 1949 and grew rapidly; by 1966–67 Japan had surpassed the United Kingdom as the nation receiving the largest share of Australia's exports, and it was second only to the United States as the largest supplier of imports.

While the influence of Asian communism was feared and Japan was regarded with suspicion, more genial relationships developed in the Hemisphere. The Colombo Plan, which went into effect in 1951, provided for Australia to give aid to its friends within the region and began an inflow of Asian students into Australia that became a permanent and considerable phenomenon. The minister for external affairs between 1951 and 1960 was Richard Gardiner Casey. He was unique among Australians in his experience of traditional diplomacy, yet he was ready and able to come to terms with the new Asia. As Indonesia became an ever more populous, and sometimes assertive, nation, there was wariness in Australia, but the fall of Sukarno in 1966 helped stabilize relations for many years. The grant of self-government to Papua New Guinea by the Whitlam government came early enough to provide some basis for goodwill into the future.

Meanwhile vast population changes had begun. Traditionally Labor had been suspicious of mass immigration, seeing it as a threat to established wages and standards. Yet in 1946 the ALP government initiated a policy that assisted the entry not only of people from the United Kingdom but also of many others from war-distressed Europe. The peak year of net immigration (about 150,000) was 1950, while the greatest numbers of assisted migrants (about 100,000 per annum) came in the later 1960s. While it has been modified many times, this overall policy has remained in place. Closer ties with Australia's Asian neighbours, however, moved toward abandoning the policy of virtual exclusion of “coloured” immigrants. From the late 1960s such restrictions were eased. The acceptance of refugees from Indochina was the most palpable evidence of the new policy. The diversification of ethnicity and culture provoked both critics and enthusiasts.

In general the new migration proved an economic boost. Many newcomers suffered alienation and discrimination; tensions existed between the new migrant groups as well as between “old” Australians and new—but on the whole this was one of the happier chapters in the Australian experience. Continuing debate pondered the relative merits of “assimilation” as against “multiculturalism”—i.e., minimizing or encouraging the migrants' retention of their native customs. Especially after 1970 the latter policy had official favour, but migration had surprisingly only marginal impact on established sociopolitical structures. Many tongues were heard and many cuisines eaten, but suburban living near the big cities was as compelling a goal for most migrants as for their Anglo-Celtic forerunners, and their values were shaped accordingly. It made Australia a more interesting place, if one of less social ease.

It was suggested above that “New Left” ideas had some part in the victory and policies of Whitlamite Labor. While this radicalism, like its precursors, never went to extremes in Australia and soon passed its peak, its influence lingered. It found formal expression in a new political party, the Australian Democrats, which was founded in 1977 and succeeded to the Democratic Labor Party's role as a minority party of significant effect. The new radicalism also helped shape thought and action in other, more diffuse, ways.

Aboriginal (Australian Aborigine) activism became more assertive than it had been since the days of physical attack on European settlers. The estimated number of persons of Aboriginal descent had risen from a nadir of 73,828 in 1933 to more than 170,000 in the early 1980s; in 1962 Aboriginals received the franchise and, for the first time, were to be counted in the national census. Aboriginal claims moved from wage equality with Europeans to land rights over territory with Aboriginal associations. The South Australian government acted in this direction from 1966, and the federal Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1976), applying to the Northern Territory, was particularly important. In 1967 the general electorate overwhelmingly supported a constitutional amendment to increase Commonwealth powers in Aboriginal matters. Equality in formal civic rights, wage payments, and social welfare benefits became the norm. Some groups received considerable royalties from mining activities on their land.

The Whitlam government in particular encouraged a variety of ethnic organizations, most importantly the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (founded in 1973, from 1977 renamed the National Aboriginal Conference). These organizations contributed to a growing strength and pride in Aboriginality. Early in the period Aboriginals became known for their contributions to sport (boxer Lionel Rose (Rose, Lionel), tennis player Evonne Goolagong Cawley). Later Aboriginals became celebrated in the fields of public administration (Charles Perkins, Patricia O'Shane), art (Yirawala, Michael Jagamara Nelson, Emily Kngwarreye), literature (Kath Walker (Walker, Kath), Colin Johnson (Johnson, Colin), Sally Morgan), and politics (Neville Thomas Bonner, senator, 1971–83, and Aden Ridgeway, senator from 1999).

While various researchers had been expanding knowledge of the antiquity and richness of Aboriginal life, not all Aboriginals accepted the right and capacity of white scholars to comprehend the tribal past, but this attitude itself affirmed their independence. School curricula began to provide sympathetic teaching of Aboriginal culture to all Australians. Such policies reinforced a shift away from assimilationist ideas. This shift applied nationwide but had particular relevance in sustaining the surviving remnants of tribal life. In the late 20th century the number of Aboriginals with some experience of traditional Aboriginal life was estimated to be about 10,000.

Increased awareness of past depredations against the Aboriginals helped shape a wider-ranging critique of the Australian experience. Dissidents influenced by the New Marxism of the later 1960s (notably Humphrey McQueen in his A New Britannia, first published in 1970) saw the nation as ever dominated by petty bourgeois standards—mean, acquisitive, racist, and authoritarian. Many earlier commentators had perceived such traits, but now they were attacked with more fundamental repugnance. The dismissal of Whitlam in 1975 encouraged the belief that essentially Australia was not a democracy and that it suffered much from a heritage of subservience to British (British Empire) imperial standards. While this radical critique lost some acerbity after 1980, it left an impression, especially on the liberal intelligentsia. One result was greater emphasis on the dignity and autonomy of Australian-centred cultural studies. Robert Hughes's The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding (1987), a vivid account of the experiences of both transported convicts and colonists that became an international best-seller, explored Australia's origins as a colony and its search for a national identity.

Environmental activism (conservation) developed, often spurred by repugnance to the exploitative development that radicals saw, with much truth, as central to Australian history since 1788. Some aspects of environmentalism gained support across a wide spectrum. Most state governments introduced controls about 1970. There was a particularly emotional campaign to save beautiful Lake Pedder in Tasmania from conversion into a hydroelectric dam. The campaign failed in 1973, but in that year the federal government established an inquiry into the national estate, from which resulted the Australian Heritage Commission Act in 1975. In 1982 the High Court agreed that the Commonwealth had power to override states on environmental matters should the issue in question come within the purview of an international covenant to which Australia was a party. Environmentalists have exercised considerable influence as pressure groups and have made some essays into parliamentary politics: in 1989 a “Green” group acquired the balance of power in Tasmania, aided by the system of proportional representation prevailing there. While Australia contributed only a little to the mainstream of environmental theory, Peter Singer of Monash University won international renown for his exposition of animal rights.

Miriam Dixson in The Real Matilda (1976) argued that Australian women had suffered an inferior status, markedly below that of women in Western society at large. Her case was arguable, but the increasing volume of feminist studies more often stressed the achievements of women, though often against great odds, in many sectors of society and culture. Feminists played an important part in the expansion of Australian studies; women increased their share in Australian literary work, often writing on feminist themes. Germaine Greer (Greer, Germaine), born in Melbourne, achieved eminence for her writings.

The number of women physicians and lawyers in Australia rose significantly, but more sizable still was the impact of women in the public service. Some succeeded in federal politics, and a greater number at the state level: in 1990 Carmen Lawrence (in Western Australia) and Joan Kirner (in Victoria) were the first women to become leaders of governments.

Gay and lesbian activism followed much the same path in Australia as elsewhere; Sydney was said to have become one of the major “gay” cities of the world. Seemingly in inverse relation to sexual activity, or at least to discussion of it, there was a decline in marriage and fertility rates. One in three marriages contracted after 1970 seemed likely to end in divorce. Into the 1990s there remained doubt as to how fundamental the changes in attitude and social structure associated with such developments might prove.

Patrick White (White, Patrick)'s winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1973) most obviously indicated a new level of cultural attainment. Among Australia's renowned writers are the poets Les Murray (Murray, Les) and Judith Wright (Wright, Judith); novelists Peter Carey (Carey, Peter), David Malouf (Malouf, David), Thomas Keneally (Keneally, Thomas), and Thea Astley (Astley, Thea); and playwright David Williamson (Williamson, David). The painter Sir Sidney Nolan (Nolan, Sir Sidney) produced a vast body of compelling work, often inspired by Australian themes. Fred Williams worked within a narrower range but produced intense, novel, and entrancing representations of the Australian landscape. Aboriginal painter Albert Namatjira (Namatjira, Albert) created world-renowned watercolour landscapes depicting the terrain of central Australia.

The work of Australian composers such as Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards, and Richard Meale approached world standing. The soprano Joan Sutherland (Sutherland, Dame Joan) emulated Melba with her superb coloratura voice. Many of Sutherland's triumphs took place at the Sydney Opera House, the supreme shrine of culture in Australia, completed (after many problems) in 1973. Art exhibitions and cultural festivals much enriched Australian life, most substantially in the smaller capitals. The Australian Broadcasting Commission (called the Australian Broadcasting Corporation after 1983) remained very important as a sustainer of orchestral music and sponsored most of the somewhat meagre amount of quality television. Governments were much more generous than their precursors in Australia (although scarcely more so than many counterparts elsewhere) in funding opera and ballet. The film industry had a notable florescence in the 1970s, and continued fairly active thereafter.

The 1960s was the golden age for tertiary education. Universities expanded enormously. The Institute of Advanced Studies at the Australian National University (one of the visionary achievements of the 1940s Labor governments) was unique in being research-oriented, but its activity was matched elsewhere. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization also grew rapidly in the 1960s and '70s. In addition to Patrick White, Australia's Nobel laureates were Sir John Cornforth (1975), for chemistry, and Sir Macfarlane Burnet (1960), Sir John Eccles (Eccles, Sir John Carew) (1963), and Peter C. Doherty (1996), for work in the medical sciences.

Fraser served as prime minister until March 1983; then the Labor Party (Australian Labor Party) returned to office, and Robert (Bob) Hawke (Hawke, Robert)'s term lasted still longer. Under pressure from colleagues, Hawke resigned in December 1991, and Paul Keating (Keating, Paul) succeeded him as party leader and prime minister. The electorate switched in March 1996, and John Howard (Howard, John Winston) led a coalition of Liberal and National (National Party) (formerly, until 1983, Country) parties that remained in power for 11 years. Every government won at least two successive elections, and most more than that, testifying to mainstream contentment. The Labor Party came to have virtually as many middle-class professionals among its leaders as did the Liberals, and—at least when in office—gave scarcely less priority to running the economy according to the dictates of economic rationalism. By those standards the economy fared well, albeit suffering occasional setbacks (notably about 1990). Manufacturing declined considerably, but that had some balance in greater diversification and efficiency. Export of basic commodities remained vital, and international price fluctuations had less immediate impact than in the past. Unemployment figures were higher than in the previous generation, but more women were in the workforce. Many Australians enjoyed comfort, even affluence. A UN survey in 2000 placed Australia fourth in terms of quality of life worldwide.

There always remained some poverty and desolation. While dominant discourses stressed human rights, equality, freedom, and potential, older notions of social homogeneity seemed, if anything, yet further from realization. One division to widen was that between the big cities and rural Australia. This tension helped create the most remarkable phenomenon of the 1990s, the One Nation movement. Led by Pauline Hanson, One Nation invoked an older and not altogether mythical Australia of Anglo-Celtic ethnicity and sturdy independence. Hanson herself won election to the federal parliament in 1996, and in the Queensland state election of mid 1998 several of her followers also succeeded. Hanson lost her seat in 1998, and her movement subsequently fell apart, but its very existence told something of the national mood.

A much-publicized decision in 1992 (the Mabo case) seemed to promise a radical legitimation of indigenous (Australian Aborigine) land-rights claims. It confirmed that Australia was already occupied in a manner recognizable under British law when the first white settlers arrived. The court also ruled that, while native title had been exterminated over vast areas, it might still exist over leaseholds and unoccupied crown land. The resulting Native Title Act (1993) was unsuccessfully challenged, and subsequently, under its judgment in 1996 (the Wik case), the High Court decided that native title and pastoral leasehold could coexist. Aboriginal descent became a matter of pride, and by the early 21st century the number affirming themselves to be Aboriginal was some half million.

Meanwhile, despite such advances, the bleakness of much Aboriginal experience remained stark and disturbing—illness, alcoholism, and violence all having their part. The many deaths of Aboriginal men while in official custody added to such feeling, and still more so invocation of the long history of Aboriginal families being forcibly separated. While all governments upheld the desirability of racial reconciliation, they remained reluctant to make a formal apology for past wrongs.

Debate as to constitutional change quickened in the late 1990s, many seeing the time as opportune for a shift to republican status. However, when the matter came to referendum vote in 1999, republicans divided over how radical their intended change should be. With many other Australians still attached to traditional and even monarchical sentiment, the referendum failed decisively.

Following four consecutive electoral wins, John Howard and the Liberal-National coalition were swept from power with the November 2007 election victory of Kevin Rudd (Rudd, Kevin) and the Labor Party. Under Rudd, Labor advocated proactive domestic policies to preserve the environment, to improve education, public hospitals, and the country's infrastructure, and to establish a fair and flexible work environment for all Australians. Rudd also favoured a plan to extricate Australian soldiers from Iraq, where they had been assisting in the U.S.-led war effort. In a historic address on Feb. 13, 2008, Rudd issued a formal apology to Aboriginal (Australian Aborigine) peoples for abuses they suffered under early Australian administrations.

Australia gave enthusiastic welcome to 2000. The Summer Olympic Games (Olympic Games) were held in Sydney, and the country made use of the centenary of the creation of the federal Commonwealth of Australia as an occasion of both celebration and soul-searching.

Before 1940 Australia had had only a tiny diplomatic (diplomacy) service, but thereafter this arm of government (often associated with trade-oriented services) had expanded. The nation's new ethnic diversity increased the need for professional diplomats. Successive prime ministers were busy travelers, ready to develop Australia's image in world eyes. Activity continued within the UN and the British Commonwealth, but increasingly emphasis lay on Australia's role in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. While this stance was appropriate to Australia's geopolitical reality, it entailed problems. Malaysia had long scorned Australia's claims to empathy with Asia. Relations with Indonesia fluctuated and were never so tense as in 1999–2000, when Australia abandoned its earlier (and much-criticized) acceptance of the absorption of East Timor within Indonesia and led the UN forces that oversaw East Timor's independence. Troubles in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands, all provoking violence in 2000, posed difficulties to which there were no easy answers.

By the early 21st century about one-third of “settler” immigrants were Asian, a situation that became strained as criticism arose—from across the sociopolitical spectrum—of policies that seemed likely to result in an ever-expanding population. Moreover, many would-be migrants differed from the model of skill, youth, and sociability that governments inevitably preferred. While basic immigration patterns continued, greater scrutiny and selectivity prevailed, especially of those seeking refugee status.