Australian Federation Research Paper

Prior to the 1900s there was no country known as Australia which held the six states together united as one country. Instead there were six colonies of New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, and Western Australia that existed on the Australian continent as separate countries, also including Tasmania, the island colony. It was also governed as separate countries by Britain given that Australia was still under the rule of the British Empire. Initially there was absolutely no interest what so ever of a federation uniting Australia as one because each colony was interested in being responsible for their own economic interest and couldn’t come to an agreement. However due to many factors such as attaining a united defence to have

However the founders of this new nations felt threatened so therefore this kind of utopia that they planned to create was for one race only which was the White. Ironically the felt the need for exclusion of those who they saw as not White, these included the Chinese, Pacific Islander workers and the indigenous Australians who were deemed as a dying race. After becoming a federation one of the first pieces of Commonwealth legislation passed was the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 introduced by Australia’s first Prime Minister Edmund Barton. His views were inspired by a book called national life and character by Charles Pearson. In his book Pearson write about how if not prevented the yellow, black and brown races will overthrow the white which will be such a humiliating trauma. Barton shares Pearson’s outlook and believes in his study so he proposes all migrants wanting to enter Australia must have to pass a 50 word dictation test to prevent the other civilisations from destroying this newfound progressing democracy. This was a model already used in South Africa for the prevention of anyone non-white coming into the

Their leader Chris Watson warns about racial contamination along with his party colleague Billy Hughes who adds more fuel to the situation by demanding a White Australia. This new law had to be approved by the Britain, secretary of the colonies Joseph Chamberlin agrees with the dictation test but says he’ll not support an outright ban on non-white immigrants. On the 26th of September 1901 the vote is taken and the immigration Restriction Act is officialised. The first people to be immediately deported back under this new legislation were the Pacific islanders who worked on the sugar cane plantations. They were brought from the South Pacific to work as slaves, they were tricked and fooled into coming to Australia. Though they were brought here for labour work, some of these Pacific islanders settled in Australia bought housing and married Aboriginal women. Their dream was completely fulfilled as there were still immigrants from mostly Asian countries coming into Australia. So of course under this new legislation for them to enter Australia they had to pass the 50 word dictation test which consisted of complicated passages. Since some immigrants were passing the test because they were educated they had to make the test even harder by making it in any European language. But there were those