The Australia Crisis of 1960 was a century coming.
When British Australia (known internationally as Ulimaroa) struck gold in 1859, Chinese miners were quick to arrive to seek their fortune as any other immigrant. European Ulimaroans bemoaned their presence and believed them to be an economic and cultural threat. In 1860, Queensland passed legislation taxing Chinese workers and banning the emigration of their families, launching the precursors to the Preservation Acts. 3rd Viscount Canterbury, John Manners-Sutton, declared in a letter to Parliament that 'Providence has seen to it with good fortune that the Anglo-Saxon race shall wield authority over the Southern continent'. The New Canterbury Rebellion (1868) had racial overtones, with the rebel government executing Chinese and Afro-Americans as foreign agents. Over the next decade, limits on the entry of non-white immigrants increased. In 1884, with the English colonies of the Pacific fearing French invasion, the Imperial parliament passed the Federation of Ulimaroa Act. The act allowed for the creation of a Federal Council consisting of New Albany, South Australia, and Doleritia. Under this council, the Preservation Acts came into law, with the explicit goal of preserving Ulimaroa's Anglo-Saxon culture.
New Pale feared loss of autonomy, and opted out of federation. The landed class in North Australia and Queensland feared the curtailing of non-European immigration as Melanesians and Afro-American labor formed the basis of their sugar industry. The New Zealand and Fiji colonies had developed a separate identity away from Ulimaroa, and ultimately would not participate in any future federation. The advent of the refrigerator changed the game for North Australia and Queensland, with ranching magnates and farmhand unions working together to contest the power of the sugar interests. The ranchers tended to identify with the Ulimaroan identity, and both Queensland and North Australia joined the Federation of Ulimaroa in 1899. In 1900, in order to undercut the power of the sugar farmers, a quota of foreign labor was instituted which stipulated numbers well below the contemporary number of laborers. Around 300,000 Afro-Americans, Indians, and Melanesians were deported to Singapore, and the 50,000 remaining laborers came under constant fear of deportation. Aboriginal Australians would generally avoid the fate, though there are notable cases of entire aboriginal families being sent to Singapore. They would however, come under significant stress from rancher encroachment onto vital territory, disease, and communal violence. The Bureau of Health and Welfare consolidated powers from the previous institutions over the Ulimaroan populace, including powers of deportation, sterilization, and under certain criteria eradication.
The French half of Australia (Nouvelle Hollande) on the other hand, developed significantly differently. Nouvelle Hollande was always multi-ethnic, with the arrival of several West Africans on Bougainville's Fourth Voyage as well as American whalers who had set up shop in what is now Saint Malo. The French population was stagnant, and their own natural growth could not sustain a large colony. So the French utilized their Australian colony as a penal colony for the entirety of their colonial Empire, and exiled Fula Kings, Italian cobblers, Berber nomads, and Vietnamese soldiers would meet in the red soil of Nouvelle Hollande. They brought with them crops and practices suited to the rigorous landscape. Camels, hardy varieties of goats and cattle, sorghum, and peanuts have taken well to New Hollandese life, and form staples for the majority of the populace. Irish and Italian settlers would form the majority, though significant populations from West Africa, East Asia, and North Africa would arrive as well. French interest beyond penal colony and naval base was initially limited, with pearl-diving and whaling bases allowed to turn profit on the land. The primary arrangement of society saw independent naval bases lording over great plots of land, with the immigrants working fields to profit and feed the French Navy.
The Mutiny of 1854 saw the transfer of political power from the Navy to a native european landed elite. These New Hollandese elites would petition the 3rd Republic for representation in the Metropolitan Parliament, which in 1860, granted an MP for each colony. New Hollandese soldiers would participate in colonial struggles in East Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, developing a collective sense of national identity. Ethnic violence was not infrequent, with clashes between the settlers and aboriginal people, French and non-French Europeans, Europeans and non-Europeans. Intense assimilationist programs were encouraged, however, and society began aligning more around a class-consciousness than a racial one, with different trade unions all working collectively against the primarily French and Italian upper class. Franchise and citizenship were extended to all New Hollandese men in 1879, with the first Japanese-Hollander being elected to French Parliament that year. A New Hollandese identity was created around the universal applicability of French culture, with New Hollandese culture incorporating several aspects of immigrant culture like siestas, brewing, and sorghum bread. The introduction of camels has allowed alternative avenues of life for many desert aboriginal people, and the French government has allowed them large tracts of (primarily desert) land. The New Hollandese school system and a subsidized public French course are the primary tools of assimilation, as most New Hollandese have an unwavering belief that anyone can be taught to be New Hollandese.
Anglo-French cooperation during the Great Eastern War and the Chinese Independence War led to the Australian Cooperation Council, with New Hollandese and Ulimaroan representatives seeking to work together on water management, immigration, military cooperation, economic development, and cross-border cultural ties. In 1920, with troubles in Hindustan causing an decrease in the supply of sugar, sugar farmers once again began to accrue political power in Ulimaroa, and the demand for foreign labor increased once more. The ACC passed an agreement allowing 40,000 laborers from Nouvelle Hollande to work in the fields of North Australia and Queensland. These laborers were primarily from the mixed race groups of Nouvelle Hollande (Gormie and Batare people, Irish-Malay/African and French-Aboriginal respectively). Over the next few decades, the borders began to open up between the two Australias, with as many as 470,000 New Hollandese laborers working in Ulimaroan agriculture in 1956. In 1958, there were close to 1.2 million New Hollandese in Ulimaroa, and around 980,000 Ulimaroans in Nouvelle Hollande. However, following the Economic Downturn of 1959 and a decisive loss dealt to Ulimaroan and New Zealander troops in the Battle of Port Elizabeth in the Xhosa Revolutionary War, the Ulimaroan electorate shifted rightward. The Conservative Party had to track rightwards to keep from losing votes to nationalist and right-wing populist candidates. The ACC and New Hollandese came under fire by xenophobic elements in Ulimaroan society, and the Bureau of Health and Welfare began rounding up New Hollandese citizens for deportation. The New Hollandese embassy was attacked by mobs chanting 'Black swans, no Black Johns'. North Australian law enforcement refused to begin round-ups, remembering the economic disruption caused last time, and elements in Williamsborough are talking openly of secession. Clashes between Federal BHW agents and Pandoran police erupted in January 1960 over the arrest of Ulimaroan citizens of New Hollandese descent.
On Friday, 26th of February 1960, Ulimaroan intelligence 'discovered' communications between Auguste and Williamsborough extending military aide and economic support to an independent North Australia. Ulimaroan PM John Welcoth sent Lord Ramsay from Bolton to Williamsborough with the Royal Armed Forces of Ulimaroa to stamp out secessionism in the North. Tensions are growing along 2,400 miles of border.
