WI - Australia Never Federated

[darcykelso]

What would happen if, for some reason or other, Australia's colonies never federated and either stayed part of Britain or gained independence individually? Would there be wars between independent states? In OTL, Australia federated on January 1st, 1901.

 

[Spens1]

Probably the states as they are now are independent countries, i highly doubt many, if any of the colonies would remain under the UK government for too long (maybe up until WWII or a little past that, because the colonies would be restless of course and 2, can't see the UK being bothered to keep it, sure theirs minerals but its the other side of the world and they're not the french), the only place i could see being under the UK still is maybe the smaller population centre's (Northern Territory, Tasmania, those two on their own would probably struggle more economically). I'd imagine some border skirmishes and even some low end wars may occur as a result of trying to gain land/resources. Possibly some of the colonies merge because of Economic reasons (Victoria and Tasmania).

NSW I'd imagine would be the most powerful of the potential nations, followed by Victoria, Qld (maybe Qld ends up with the entirety of Papua, its possible), W.A. Then S.A. Economically they'd all be very different and over time i'd imagine even culturally and the types of economy they run (even politically) they would be very different.

 

[Riain]

Without OTL Federation I imagine some other sort of federation would occur because the drivers of low population, lack of viability for independence and poor security remain. Maybe some other candidate such as Fiji and New Zealand would federate with a colony, particularly once WW1 showed how vulnerable such poorly populated and non industrialised colonies are to more powerful neighbours without British support.