AUSTRALIA’S GOVERNMENT

FROM PAST TO PRESENT

OUR GOVERNMENT

• Australia is a federal parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy• Based on your understanding and learning from last week, write down what

this means in your own words• Breaking it down into key words may help

HOW DID WE GET TO THIS POINT?

• 22 August, 1770• Captain Cook claims Australia in the name of King George III

• ‘terra nullius’: Latin for ‘land belonging to no one’• King George gave Capt. Cook specific instructions in accordance with British law• These instructions concerned whether a land was discovered that was either:

• Occupied/had no sovereign (means ruler) and no system of land ownership• Uninhabited

• If the land was occupied, Capt. Cook was required to negotiate with the indigenous peoples encountered

‘TERRA NULLIUS’: LAND BELONGING TO NO ONE?

• British knew there were Aboriginal people living in Australia• They considered Aboriginal social organisation and culture to be very primitive• And therefore that they were incapable of owning land• This meant they applied the doctrine of ‘terra nullius’ was applied to Australia• The international law at the time said that this meant that the land could be taken

over and owned by a colonial power• The land and resources became owned by the colonial power (in this case Britain)

and the Indigenous inhabitants becoming its subjects

• If the country was not ‘terra nullius’ (ie. It had inhabitants)• They would have to negotiate and draw up a treaty • May have involved purchasing land from the natives or taking it by conquest

• King George III’s instructions to Capt. Cook:

You are also with the consent of the natives to take possession of convenient situations in the country, in the name of the King of Great Britain, or if you find the country uninhabited take possession for His Majesty by setting up proper marks and inscriptions as first discoverers and possessors.

A TRIO OF LAND CLAIMS & THEIR EFFECTS

1. Capt. Cook decided not to seek and obtain the consent of the Indigenous Australians

2. In 1788, Capt. Arthur Phillip settled in Sydney Cover, with the eastern coast of the continent being declared Crown land (land belonging to the sovereign)

3. 90 years later, the colony of Queensland (not yet considered a state) claimed ownership of the Torres Strait Islands

1. Dispossessed Indigenous Australians of their land through ‘terra nullius’

2. Began the British ‘settlement’ of Australia and imposed the laws of the British Government upon all the inhabitants

3. Dispossessed the Torres Strait Islanders of their land

• How did we become federated?

• 1788: First fleet landed in Botany Bay

• Free settlers had no say in the government of New South Wales• As the number of free settlers grew,

they demanded a greater say in the governing of the colony• The colonists expressed their belief in

a representative democracy (voting in people to represent you)• Each of the six colonial governments

was made responsible for a whole range of government activities – such as road repairs• Thus, we became federated, a

federation of individual states under one government