Black-and-white footage of a train travelling through a rugged landscape.
(Locomotive horn toots)
REPORTER:
Imagine you're on a train, travelling for hours across the vast Australian continent, and part way through your journey this happens.
TICKET CHECKER:
Immigration. Papers please.
Dramatisation of travellers having their papers checked.
REPORTER:
Back in the late 1800s, making a trip between Australian colonies was a bit like travelling to a different country. You could be stopped at the border by Immigration and searched.
Wearing a period costume, the reporter steps off the train.
REPORTER:
In fact if you were travelling between, say, New South Wales and Queensland, you would have had to change trains because the rails were different sizes.
Map of Australia.
REPORTER:
Australia wasn't a country, it was just the name of a continent divided into six very separate British colonies. They had different leaders and different laws. They even had their own armies!
Black-and-white photos of troops and community leaders.
REPORTER:
But there were some people pushing to change that. One was Henry Parkes, five times Premier of New South Wales.
BOY:
The great question you have to consider is whether the time has not now arisen for the creation on this Australian continent of an Australian Government.
REPORTER:
In 1889, he made this famous speech in the town of Tenterfield about Federation - the push to unite the colonies as a single country. It wasn't the best speech ever, by all accounts.
BOY:
Hey!
REPORTER:
But it made an impact. Parkes convinced the leaders of the colonies to get together and talk about Federation. Some came from New Zealand. It was a British colony too and it could have joined the new country. After much negotiating, in 1891, the delegates drew up a draft constitution for the Commonwealth of Australia. But the idea didn't take off. It wasn't a good time for the colonies. The economy wasn't doing well, plus there was a feeling that the draft constitution wasn't democratic enough, that it didn't give ordinary people enough of a say. Time went on and the colonies kept changing. Many kept fighting for the cause of Federation, like Alfred Deakin. He was part of a new generation, born and bred in Australia, who thought the continent should be a united country. Eventually, he helped to convince the colonies to give it another shot. This time people got to vote for representatives who'd help to draw up a new constitution. There was a lot of arguing. The bigger, richer states were worried that they'd have to share money with the poorer ones and the small states worried they wouldn't have a say in decisions. South Australia had recently given women the right to vote and it wanted the whole country to have that right. Then there was the issue of where the nation's capital should be.
BOY 1:
Sydney is the obvious choice for the capital of this nation.
BOY 2:
Don't be absurd! Melbourne is far superior!
REPORTER:
New Zealand had decided to stay out of it and Western Australia wasn't too keen on Federation either. But eventually, a new constitution was drawn up and most colonies let their people vote on whether or not they wanted in. In 1899, all of the colonies, except Western Australia, said yes. Australia was about to become a nation. Western Australia did agree to join a year later, but the constitution had already been written and agreed to by the Queen. That's why you can still see a line in here, saying WA gets to be a part of the Commonwealth if 'Her Majesty is satisfied that the people of Western Australia have agreed thereto'.
Black-and-white footage of a procession.
REPORTER:
In 1901, in Sydney's Centennial Park the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed a Federation with six states - the Northern Territory and the ACT would come along a few years later. The states would keep a lot of their law making and tax collecting powers, while the federal government would run things like defence and immigration. The first Prime Minister was Edmund Barton, who'd helped to write the new constitution.
Photo of Aboriginal men chained together.
REPORTER:
Not everyone benefited from Federation. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people weren't included in the constitution, and the new government made it harder for people who weren't European to immigrate to Australia. But it was a major point in Australia's history and the first step towards the country we know today.
The Australian flag.