A few Australia-related questions

By 'settler', in this context, you actually mean 'European'... Yes?
There were certainly plenty of Indian settlers there...

Well, sort of. I specifically mean British/Irish Europeans, as opposed to other Europeans, as Australasia was principally settled by such.

I don't really know a lot about Indian migration to Fiji, but I've always categorised migration by way of indentured service as different than migration by way of desired settlement. Apparently back in the 19th century British migrants preferred to be known as settlers, as opposed to using some derivation of migrant
 

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
I don't really know a lot about Indian migration to Fiji, but I've always categorised migration by way of indentured service as different than migration by way of desired settlement.

So would Australia's convicts and indentured Irish be considered settlers?
 
Depending on your POD (haven't read through the whole thread) the best time for NZ and Australia to federate is probably during the 1930s or 40s. At the end of the 19th Century what caused a rift between NSW and NZ was the difficulty in communication; mail sent from Sydney to Wellington went via London. One year later, you get your mail.

It would be heinously difficult to police and govern NZ from Australia when the entire Tasman Sea is between them, but in 30s, 40s, 50s, you could have them federate in the name of defence or something like it.
 
So would Australia's convicts and indentured Irish be considered settlers?

Not initially no, according to my eariler definition! Forced migration vs voluntary migration etc.

That being said, there is a racial overtone here as well. Australia and NZ were for a long time really just wanting British migrants/settlers, and while other Europeans did settle, it wasn't encouraged long term like say in Argentina or Brazil
 
Thank you all for your replies.

1- canbera was created to have a neutral place as capital so have the adelaide settlement failed and then the emplacement readopted.

I'm not quite sure what you man here. Could you rephrase?

4- Most of the territory is not the most suitable place for attracting people in term of agriculture so you would need the mining boom to occur much earlier to have a population growth
Fair enough. How did the mining industry in the Northern Territory take off OTL? To make a change I need to understand why it happened in the first place.

5- follow the same way it was under control of australia in OTL but have it get first a status similar to the northern territory then in the 70's have it changed to a state following a referendum.
Lovely referendums.

thekingsguard said:
More people immigrating to Australia would be a good start... what TL this for?

It's not for a TL really, at least I haven't thought much about creating a cohesive timeline for the world this Australia exists in. I just have a QBAM I've been fiddling with on the rare downtime I've had these last few weeks.

I have thought about having Europe be a more unstable, violent, and repressive place through the nineteenth century, which naturally leads to more people leaving for greener pastures.

Just maybe have your second point happen. If that was to happen Adelaide just might be the nearest city that is equi-distant between all your states

Would equidistance be something taken under consideration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries?

NZ is relatively easy as the inclusion of NZ in federation was actively considered in the 1890's I think Fiji was as well but I am not sure. ASAIK NZ dropped of the list due to distance so make distance not to be seen as an `killer' issue and keep Fiji in the mix
IMO, physical distance is a bit overrated as an issue. The mountains and a thousand miles of prairie didn't stop BC from joining Canada. An ocean can be overcome.

Have a read up on how what was once NSW was split up into Qld and NSW or the various changes in borders between the NT and SA
Have any handy sources?

You need far higher emigration for the former and as for the latter have the bulk of the emigrants not to be Anglo's That been the case as the writer you can have your new state and as a statement of no longer being a Territory they change the name of their capital
I have thought about making Europe and uglier place in the nineteenth century, so more settlers should be too hard to get.

Stick to LoN - why get the same result with another means? It may be worth thinking about the Aussies taking high losses evicting the Germans, (emotional ties for Aussie to PNG) and then have gold found really quick (financial ties)
Gold is always a good draw.

Most if not all of these states were a part of the Council of Australasia, a pre-federation inter colonial body that resembled the EU in many ways.
The goal of the council was to eventually form a federation within the British empire comprised of all member states, though this did not come about with notably Fiji and New Zeland choosing to remain seperate colonies.

It was happening on the wiki article for that which gave me the idea of an Australian Fiji, actually.
As for Queensland it is important to note that when Australia was first being divided into seperate colonies there were many variations that did not last into the presetn day, including a colony known as North Australia that I believe comprised the entirety of the present day Northern Territory and Queensland. One could simply have North Australia being reduced in territory as per OTL but remaining in existence as what is today the northern half of Queensland.
Good idea.
New Zeland came very close to becoming part of the federation OTL, so much so that to this day there is still a part of the Constitution that outlines New Zealand as being a prospective state and as a result it can join at any time.
Yeah, I remember reading something about NZ going the Newfie route and declaring an interest in joining, just not at that time.

Fiji could quite easily have gone the same way, however I do believe that as others have suggested a great many more Britons would have to migrate, perhaps have it become a disputed point between the Uk and another power so that London has motivation to populate it. France displaying interest in what would eventually become the Swan River Colony was part of the reason Britain sent over colonists to populate my future home state.
Good idea. I have thought about ways to make Europe a much worse place for the average person to be, one factor being an evil(er) France and an evil(er) Russia being stronger and much more belligerent on the world stage. Could be enough to entice Fiji to stay in the fold. Though I should put some thought into what the nature of the Franco-Russian belligerence is, and how they got to be more powerful, but that's for another thread.

Papua is more difficult due to the large native population, I would suggest a similar position as with Fiji with Germany. If I recall correctly Queensland in the present possesed the southern part of PNG for quite some time, I believe that that area does have substantial resources and if some enterprising explorer should discover them Greed will do the rest.
I hope this has been helpful.

Have a nice day.
-MRegent
Very helpful, thanks.


I did breeze through that article. It's how I found out northern Queensland has the same issues with southern Queensland as northern Ontario has with the south. It's interesting how many parallels exist in the histories and politics of Canada and Australia.

That's pretty hard, Canberra was made the capital because it was neutral. Adelaide isn't in a brilliant palce for a capital especially when you want Fiji and New Zealand to join.

The same shitty problem of having neutral ground for the capital that affected Canada around Confederation. The idea for Adelaide to be the capital came from breezing through the wiki article on Southern Australian history, and just how progressive it was. I was wondering if that progressiveness could translate in it being chosen as the capital. As well as a cost saving measure, given that it avoids the need to build a whole new city somewhere. IMO its distance from Fiji and NZ is the easiest issue to overcome, given that it isn't exactly impossible to get on a boat.

Maybe by haveing New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia join the Federal Council of Australasia in 1885 and have that the mechanism which unites the Australian Colonies, Fiji and New Zealand.
This seems to be the consensus on getting NZ and Fiji on board.


Have William Kingston motion to split Queensland in 1897 pass OTL it was close until absent members where able to have their vote recorded the next day. Sadly this was the closest North Queensland has ever got to being free of Brisbane, honestly its a travesty that its still apart of Queensland the most common proposed border for North Queensland is well over 600km away from Brisbane and the population of the proposed state is larger then South Australia.
I'll look into that.

The only thing I can think of is more immigrant from countries outside of Europe increasing the states population. that could be achieved by less rascit laws in Australia which could also help to have New Zealand and Fiji join Australia at federation.
Overcoming racism in this time period is a challenging prospect, but I've been tinkering with the idea of a more brutal Europe sending out a lot more people than OTL, so racism might not be much of a problem in this.

Well it was an Australian mandate OTL maybe as a result of better or no racist laws in Australia instead of independence in '75 it is given a referendum where it chooses to become a state.
It is becoming more apparent a referendum on the issue is the best way to go. A YES vote victory shouldn't be too hard to create.

Outside of dumb luck, I think you'd need a POD earlier than the 1890s to have a realistic chance of NZ committing to federation. The consensus is that it was a dead issue in NZ politics by the 1890s for all sorts of reasons.

What reasons? I would really like to know.

Why would you want to make Fiji part of Australia?

Why? For the same reason I want to make Guyana a part of Canada. I like the idea, nothing more. :p

In the late 19th century. Fiji was a member of the Federal Council of Australasia which also had every colony in Australia bar New South Wales. The Federal Council of Australasia was the first real official apparatus for inter colony cooperation before federations a kind of early pre cursor to federal government. Now the Federal Council of Australasia failed for a few reasons namely New South Wales wasn't a member but it can't be denied it was a major push for the colonies towards federalisation with things like the Federal Council of Australia act which can roughly be considered an early draft of the Australian Constitution.

Its not unreasonable to have New South Wales join the Federal Council of Australasia and Fiji already a member being drawn into federation.

Fiji is kind of the smaller forgotten New Zealand of the what might have been Australian states.

Yeah, it seems an expanded Council is the best route to take.

The difference is that Fiji never had a reasonable settler population, whereas all the other provinces did.

It's been suggested that a keen French interest would cause London to dump a lot of loyal settlers on the islands to keep it under control, similar to what happened in western Australia. I feel like that is a good way to go.

...At the end of the 19th Century what caused a rift between NSW and NZ was the difficulty in communication; mail sent from Sydney to Wellington went via London. One year later, you get your mail.

Fuck, really? What kind of pea-brained idea...

Was there some sort of official policy that resulted in that delay in communication? If there was, consider it butterflied away.

It would be heinously difficult to police and govern NZ from Australia when the entire Tasman Sea is between them...[/QUOTE]

How so? Is the Tasman Sea an exceedingly turbulent part of the ocean? At any rate, the NZ state(s) in federation should have the authority to govern and police itself with a considerable amount of autonomy.

That being said, there is a racial overtone here as well. Australia and NZ were for a long time really just wanting British migrants/settlers, and while other Europeans did settle, it wasn't encouraged long term like say in Argentina or Brazil

Really? In Canada, while there was a greater desire for immigrants from the British Isles, it really didn't matter where in Europe a settler came from, we wanted all who could come. Wilfred Laurier had a vision of increasing population by tenfold by the end of millennium, and to that end the government opened up recruitment centres for immigration from Reykjavik to Moscow, and everywhere in between.

I can't imagine there being much difficulty in replicating this Down Under. How did the idea for focusing solely on British migrants take hold? To overturn it I need to know why it came to be in the first place.
 
One wiki site that I saw said NZ stayed out because they respected their treaty committments to the Maori, and were worried that an Australian-majority federal government might try to insist on treating the Maori in the same way that 'settler' govenments in Australia were already treating the Australian aborigines.
 
Last edited:

Pangur

Donor
Would equidistance be something taken under consideration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? .

Maybe, Canberra was selected on that basis (between Sydney and Melbourne) I could not think of any other way to achieve what you wanted
 
Really? In Canada, while there was a greater desire for immigrants from the British Isles, it really didn't matter where in Europe a settler came from, we wanted all who could come. Wilfred Laurier had a vision of increasing population by tenfold by the end of millennium, and to that end the government opened up recruitment centres for immigration from Reykjavik to Moscow, and everywhere in between.

I can't imagine there being much difficulty in replicating this Down Under. How did the idea for focusing solely on British migrants take hold? To overturn it I need to know why it came to be in the first place.

Actually, that was a huge change in canadian policy. It would be easy to butterfly aay people as visionary as laurier and sifton (i rememberd it as siftons policy not lauriers, from my childhood schooling in sk, wher its hugely important).
 
Top