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50 000 years ago: Aboriginal roots
The first inhabitants of Australia were Aboriginal people who came from South Asia about 50 000 years ago. They lived there as hunters and were divided in thousands of clans and spoke many different languages ans dialects. Aborigenes have a spiritual connection with land and believe in a timeless dreamtime. -
Penal colony
Explorers sailed the coasts of Australia till Captain James Cook claimed it for Britain in 1770. Afterthat, this territory was used as a penal colony. From 26 January 1788 to 1868, at least 160 000 people, men and women, came to Australia as convicts. Their life was hard (sexual exploitation, brutally, ciminality...). -
Squatters
Australian inhabitants ( soldiers, emanciped convicts...) live now in big productive farms. New migrants, known as "squatters", move from Britain to work. In the 20s and 30s a lot of modern-day cities were bought by settlers like: Perth, Melbourne or Adelaide. -
The gold fever
After the discovery of gold mines in Australia in 1851, thousand of people from the colonies but also prospectors from China rushed in New South Wales and central Victoria to found the precious metal. There was a lot of violence on the goldfields but thanks to gold and also wool, some Australian cities as Melbourne or Sydney became bigger an modern. -
One single nation
The 1 January 1901, Australia became a nation with a single constitution (before the country was divided into six different states). -
Involvement in World War 1 and 2
WW1 (1914-1918): Almost 400 000 men volunteered to go and fight in the war. Over 60 000 of them died and thousands were wounded,it had a devasting effect on Australian population. WW2 (1939-1945): Australia contributed to the Allied victory with actions in Europe, Asia and the Pacific. The generation who fought returned to Australia proud of theirr country capabalities. -
After-war period: Economic growth
After World War 2, thousands of migrants came to Australia and joined the workers of the manufacturing sector. Thanks to Australia's exports of ressources as metals, wool, meat and wheat, Australia's economy grew troughout the 50s. -
Aborigenes' condition: a national referendum
In the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1960s, Australia wanted political, economic and social changes. In 1967, Australians voted "yes" in a national referendum to create laws for Aboriginal Australians. This referendum coincided with Australia's new ethnic diversity. -
New leadership: the Labor Party
In 1972, The Australian Labor Party was elected to power.This new government ended conscription, abolished university fees and introduced free universal health care: a wave of changes in only three years! It also abandoned the White Policy, embraced multiculturalism, introduced no-fault divorces and equal pay for women. -
Economic reforms
From 1996 to 2007, the liberal-national coalition government enacted a number of economic reforms (taxation, relation systems...).
In 2007, the Labor Party was elected and wanted to reform the industrial relation system, climate change policies and health and education sectors.
