AHC: German Australia

The challenge is to make Australia a German colony, instead of a British one. Bonus if it has an alternate name.
 
I imagine you could do this with a POD in the ARW. Say the British win, or the war is avoided altogether - with a stronger focus on America, and pushing west, I would expect to see the British focus on the rest of the world minimal at best. They had claims to Eastern Australia around this time, but there's no reason those claims couldn't be given up;

Fastforward to German unification; Australia, under whichever government, is underdeveloped and thinly populated. Germany, looking for a 'crown jewel' on par with British India, either purchases Australia from whoever owns it, or sets up its own claims, depending on the situation. The South Pacific wasn't really claimed until the 1840s+ anyway iOTL.
 
The Dutch colonise it as part of the Dutch east Indies and then got taken into Germany / lose it in a war against Germany.
 

Pangur

Donor
If you are willing to settle for a state then have more Germans go to SA and at Federation reject it and instead become a protectorate of Germany
 
You could make it a Danish colony, then in the Schleswig wars have Denmark offer to trade Australia for continued possession of Schleswig-Holstein.

The Danish Colonial Empire had islands in the Bay of Bengal so this isn't out of the question.
 
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