Australian Federation Essay

Why was the Australian Federation a triumph for Australian Unification?

The Australian Federation was a collection of separate British people called colonists who lived in colonies, there were 6 colonies that were like 6 little countries. After federation we were one country called ‘Australia’ and all of the people within the colonies called themselves Australians. The intention of this essay is to argue that Australian federation was a triumph for Australian unification. The unification of defence, trade, and transport was a ‘triumph’ because it brought us together as a nation, and helped us to develop our country.

Firstly, what was the Australian federation? Before Federation, Australia was a collection of separate British people called colonists who lived in colonies. The colonies wanted to join together to form one big nation. In order to do this, we had to create an official document (That was given to the British) stating our intention to become a united nation called Australia. The unification of defence, trade, and transport was a ‘triumph’ because it brought us together as a nation, and helped us to develop our country. If we didn’t come together as one big nation we would not have developed a nation, we wouldn’t be strong in our defence, we would find it hard to trade goodies, and we wouldn’t have a constitution. The father of federation was Henry Parkes

(1815-1896) he is the father of federation because his role of a long time agitator of the cause. Henry Parkes was the five times premier of New South Wales, he was one of the most important men in colonial politics. Henry Parkes died before Australia was born and everyone saw themselves and an Australian. Quotes- ''With our splendid harbour, our beautifully situated city, our vast territories, all our varied and inexhaustible natural wealth, if we don't convert our colony into a great and prosperous nation, it will be a miracle of error for which we shall have to answer as for a gigantic sin.'' [1] ''Our business being to colonize the country, there was only one way to do it—by spreading over it all the associations and connections of family life.'' [2] This evidence sums up how we federated and the man that made it happen.
Secondly, what came from the federation of Australia?

Once we became one nation we created a national army, before federation we were individual colony army’s, New South Wales army, Queensland army and so on. After federation we were known as the Australian army. After federation we were able to trade more things because we had to link all of our railway tracks. Before federation we had different railway tracks, after the railway tracks were connected, Sporting teams were able to travel into different states. And soon after we became a nation all of the colonists started seeing ourselves as

Australians.
Transport- Before federation, the transport was absolutely terrible. Each colony had different railway tracks which means if you lived in one colony and you wanted to travel to another colony you couldn’t due to the railway tracks being different. If you wanted to travel to another colony you would have to have horse-drawn transport or by coastal shipping services. 1854 the first steam railway started between Melbourne and Port Melbourne. Most track and rolling stock was imported but by the 1880’s, most of the stock was being made locally. After federation and all of the colonies joined together as one every railway track was the same. This means you could travel into different states by train, this means it was very efficient for sporting teams to travel interstate.
Defence- Before federation each colony had their own small individual army, for example New South Wales had their own army, Queensland had their own army and so on. After Australian federation all of the 6 colonies- New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania came together with their army’s and formed the ‘Australian Army’.
National Identity-
Constitution-
Lastly, why is federation still important to this day? Without federation we wouldn’t have a constitution, a constitution is a set of rules by which a country or state is run. The constitution helps us run our country to this very day, it also helps us to understand how we should run our country. The six states that were colonies are now renamed as states by the constitution. The states retained legislative power over all other matters that occurred within their borders, including police, hospitals, education and public transport. The constitution is the most important document in Australia’s history.
It is clear that Australian federation was a triumph because it gave us national trade, national identity, defence and transport.