The continent of Australia, with the island
state of Tasmania, is approximately equal in area to the United States
(excluding Alaska and Hawaii). Mountain ranges run from north to south
along the east coast, reaching their highest point in Mount Kosciusko
(7,308 ft; 2,228 m). The western half of the continent is occupied by a
desert plateau that rises into barren, rolling hills near the west coast.
The Great Barrier Reef, extending about 1,245 mi (2,000 km), lies along
the northeast coast. The island of Tasmania (26,178 sq mi; 67,800 sq km)
is off the southeast coast.
Government
Democracy. Symbolic executive power is vested in
the British monarch, who is represented throughout Australia by the
governor-general.
History
The first inhabitants of Australia were the
Aborigines, who migrated there at least 40,000 years ago from Southeast
Asia. There may have been between a half million to a full million
Aborigines at the time of European settlement; today about 350,000 live in
Australia.
Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish ships sighted
Australia in the 17th century; the Dutch landed at the Gulf of Carpentaria
in 1606. In 1616 the territory became known as New Holland. The British
arrived in 1688, but it was not until Captain James Cook's voyage in 1770
that Great Britain claimed possession of the vast island, calling it New
South Wales. A British penal colony was set up at Port Jackson (what is
now Sydney) in 1788, and about 161,000 transported English convicts were
settled there until the system was suspended in 1839.
Free settlers and former prisoners established
six colonies: New South Wales (1786), Tasmania (then Van Diemen's Land)
(1825), Western Australia (1829), South Australia (1834), Victoria (1851),
and Queensland (1859). Various gold rushes attracted settlers, as did the
mining of other minerals. Sheep farming and grain soon grew into important
economic enterprises. The six colonies became states and in 1901 federated
into the Commonwealth of Australia with a constitution that incorporated
British parliamentary and U.S. federal traditions. Australia became known
for its liberal legislation: free compulsory education, protected trade
unionism with industrial conciliation and arbitration, the secret ballot,
women's suffrage, maternity allowances, and sickness and old-age
pensions.
Australia fought alongside Britain in World War
I, notably with the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) in the
Dardanelles campaign (1915). Participation in World War II brought
Australia closer to the United States. Parliamentary power in the second
half of the 20th century shifted between three political parties: the
Australian Labour Party, the Liberal Party, and the National Party.
Australia relaxed its discriminatory immigration laws in the 1960s and
1970s, which favored Northern Europeans. Thereafter, about 40% of its
immigrants came from Asia, diversifying a population that was
predominantly of English and Irish heritage. An Aboriginal movement grew
in the 1960s that gained full citizenship and improved education for the
country's poorest socioeconomic group.
In March 1996 the opposition Liberal
Party–National Party coalition easily won the national elections,
removing the Labour Party after 13 years in power. Pressure from the new,
conservative One Nation Party threatened to reduce the gains made by
Aborigines and to limit immigration.
In Sept. 1999, Australia led the international
peacekeeping force sent to restore order in East Timor after
pro-Indonesian militias began massacring civilians to thwart East Timor's
referendum on independence.
In Nov. 1999, Australia's 11.6 million voters
rejected a referendum that would have ended Australia's formal allegiance
to the British Crown. In 2000, Prime Minister Howard instituted a new tax
system, lowering income and corporate taxes, and adding sales taxes on
goods and services.
John Howard won a third term in Nov. 2001,
primarily as the result of his tough policy against illegal immigration.
This policy has also brought him considerable criticism: refugees
attempting to enter Australia—most of them from Afghanistan, Iran,
and Iraq and numbering about 5,000 annually—have been imprisoned in
bleak detention camps and subjected to a lengthy immigration process.
Asylum-seekers have staged riots and hunger strikes. Howard has also dealt
with refugees through the “Pacific solution,” which reroutes
boat people from Australian shores to camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
In 2004, however, the government began easing its policies on
immigration.
Prime Minister Howard sent 2,000 Australian
troops to fight alongside American and British troops in the 2003 Iraq
war, despite strong opposition among Australians.
In July 2003, Australia successfully restored
order to the Solomon Islands, which had descended into lawlessness during
a brutal civil war.
