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New South Wales

New South Wales is located on the eastern side of Australia, north of Victoria and south of Queensland. New South Wales is more commonly referred or abbreviated to NSW. NSW is Australia's most populous state and the Capital City is Sydney. It was founded in 1788 and originally comprised much of the Australian mainland, as well as New Zealand, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island. During the 19th century large areas were successively separated to form the British colonies of Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and New Zealand.

Sydney's city center offers visitors a huge variety of attractions, including designer boutiques, fine restaurants, hip bars and lavish department stores. Clusters of modern office towers look down on the action and over Sydney's historic precincts, such as The Rocks. The city center has some of Australia's best shopping arcades and malls. To find your way there, just look for Sydney Tower, with its 360-degree views stretching as far as the Blue Mountains on a clear day. Pitt Street Mall is a good spot to pause for some impromptu lunchtime entertainment. Many of Sydney's main streets, such as Phillip, Macquarie, Hunter, Bligh, Liverpool, Sussex and George, are named after early English governors to acknowledge the city's colonial heritage. The city fans out from the focal point of Circular Quay. This transport hub is within walking distance of the city's star attractions - the Harbour Bridge, opened in 1932, and the Sydney Opera House, hailed as a 20th-century architectural masterpiece and classified as World Heritage site.

The colony of NSW at various times occupied all of continental Australia except Western Australia, as well as New Zealand. From their beginning as a convict colony under autocratic military, the Australasian colonies came to lead the world in the development of democracy in the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, particularly in relation to the rights of women. While New Zealand chose to develop separately, the five mainland colonies and Tasmania managed to put aside their intercolonial rivalries sufficiently to come together as a single Federated nation as the twentieth century began on 1 January, 1901.

In 1787 Viscount Sydney, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, resolved on the foundation of a colony in that portion of the Great Southern Continent which Cook had rather inaptly termed New South Wales. In virtue of the sovereignty established by Captain Cook, the islands of New Zealand were included as part of the British dominions, in the Royal Commission appointing the Governor of the new colony. There is no doubt that the selection of Botany Bay as a place of penal settlement was largely due to Cook's official report as to the suitability of the locality; but it was keenly debated in the House of Commons whether Cook's New Zealand or Cook's Botany Bay should be the site of the first experiment in penal colonisation. "New Zealand," says an early historian, "escaped the perilous distinction, possibly on account of fears entertained that the existence of her ferocious cannibal population might prove incompatible with the safe keeping and probationary discipline of the prisoners, and that in some fatal outburst of the cannibal passion, convict, governor, and guard might undergo the common lot, prematurely, in the native oven."

In May 1787 the "First Fleet," which was to convey the expedition, was got together. It comprised the 20-gun frigate "Sirius," with its tender the "Supply"; the storeships "Golden Grove," "Fishburn," and "Borradale"; and six transports-the "Alexander," "Scarborough," "Lady Penrhyn," "Prince of Wales," "Friendship," and "Charlotte." The largest of these vessels measured not more than 450 tons, whilst the smallest was not more than 270 tons. The six transports had on board 564 male and 192 female convicts; 178 marines, officers and men; medical men, a few mechanics, 40 women, wives of the marines; and 13 children. In January 1788, the fleet arrived in Botany Bay. A very short examination proved that the place was ill-suited for the settlement about to be founded. The fleet now sailed round to Port Jackson, and on the 26th January, 1788, the vessels anchored in Sydney Cove, the colonists were disembarked, and Captain Phillip formally proclaimed the new colony.

The initiation of wool-growing, one of the most important events in Australian history, took place during the administration of Philip Gidley King, from 1800 to 1806. Captain John Macarthur of the New South Wales Corps had received a grant of 10,000 acres of land on the Cowpasture River, near Camden, and with praiseworthy enterprise secured a small flock of Spanish merinos and commenced the experiments in wool-growing which eventually resulted in material gain not only to the originator of the idea, but also to Australia generally.

The new Governor, Captain Bligh, who assumed office in 1806, had previously won for himself a reputation for coolness and daring by his noteworthy voyage after the mutiny of the "Bounty," and subsequently at the bombardment of Copenhagen, had gained the publicly-expressed encomiums of Lord Nelson. The Governor immediately on his arrival issued a stringent proclamation forbidding the bartering of strong liquors in exchange for commodities, and applying the injunction to all persons without distinction. This drastic action was viewed with the deepest resentment by a large section of the colonists, who mutinied and deposed Governor Bligh.

The Blue Mountains had hitherto formed an impassable barrier to the extension of colonisation towards the west, and many attempts had been made to find a practicable route across them. In 1813, however, Messrs. Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth succeeded in crossing the range, and opening the way to the vast plains of the interior.

The immediate result of the discovery of Gold in 1851 was extremely unpleasant. The squatters were deserted by their shepherds and laborers, work in the various trades was paralysed for want of hands to attend to it, while a general suspension of ordinary business seemed about to result from the wild rush to the diggings. However, in a few years matters resumed a more sober aspect, and gold-mining took its place among the settled industries of the colony. Discovery followed upon discovery in various parts of the colony in 1858, one of the most famous being that of Burrangong, or Lambing Flat, which was subsequently to give the Government no little trouble in connection with the rioting of the diggers over the influx of Chinese.

The year 1859 saw the separation of the Moreton Bay district and its erection into a separate colony under the name of Queensland. The agitation for separation had continued on the part of the northern settlers for many years; but they encountered a determined opposition at the hands of the representatives of the southern communities. The new colony was formally proclaimed on the arrival of George Ferguson Bowen as its first Governor, and separation from the mother-colony was an accomplished fact.

The condition of the country districts had grown to be alarming in the extreme. Acts of bushranging (or of "robbery under arms") were of daily occurrence, and the police appeared powerless to cope with the eviL Highway robbery is an invariable practice in young countries where means of communication and transit are limited. From the earliest times it had been the experience of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, where a large prison population and the scattered nature of settlement made it an extremely difficult task to deal effectively with criminal escapees. It was not until the colonies were traversed by railroads and threaded by telegraph wires that life and property could be considered as being at all safe.

The colony gave proof of its power and its resources in the despatch of a military contingent to the British Army which had been working its way up the Nile in an endeavour to rescue General Gordon. The prevailing uncertainty as to the fate of the gallant Governor of Khartoum caused profound anxiety in the colony, and the Acting Premier, the Hon. William Bede Dalley, offered the armed assistance of New South Wales. It was thought that an expedition from Suakim to the Nile was about to be undertaken, and under this impression the New South Wales Government suggested the despatch to Suakim of a force of infantry and artillery, together with the necessary supply of horses. The offer of the colony was accepted. On the 3rd March, 1885, the Australian Contingent, as it was called, although it was really the New South Wales Contingent, sailed from Sydney. The little army returned in safety on the 24th June, nearly four months from the date of their setting forth, without having seen much service; but the impression produced in England by the spontaneous loyalty of the colonies was extraordinary.

The year 1891 was distinguished by the appearance of Labor as an element in practical politics. New South Wales was the first country in the world which endeavoured to settle labor grievances through the ballot-box, and to send a great party to Parliament with a direct representation of Labor. From the year 1885 the colony began to suffer from a stoppage in the tide of prosperity, which people had fondly accustomed themselves to regard as permanent. In 1886 employment became difficult to obtain, and wages consequently fell. In the years 1886-7 work was suspended in some of the Southern collieries by strikes and disputes. In September, 1890, the Broken Hill silver-mines closed down through a renewal of the strike. Soon after this a conference of employers issued their manifesto. The Intercolonial Labor Conference held its first meeting on the same day (12th September), and on the next issued a manifesto in reply to that of the employers. Fully 40,000 men left off work in response to the demands of the Conference, and on the 16th thene were joined by various trolly and dray men. This was in the height of the wool season, and the carriage of wool through the city had to tie undertaken by volunteer drivers. Shortly afterwards a shearers' strike took place, involving some 20,000 men. Again, in 1892, the miners at Broken Hill turned out on strike, and the silver-mines had to lie idle for over four months. On the 4th July, 1893, a general strike of seamen on the intercolonial steamers began, and ultimately ended in the defeat of the workers.

Throughout 1895 and 1896 there was abundant evidence that the country had recovered in great measure from the depression which culminated in the crisis of 1893. The pastoral, agricultural, and, dairying industries were in a flourishing state, while the labour market was relieved by the opening of a new field of enterprise in Western Australia.

The Depression, set off by the October 1929 Wall Street stock market crash, hit the NSW economy with great severity. Unemployment, already high at 10% in mid 1929, was 21% by mid 1930 and rising, hitting almost 32% in mid-1932. Factory output fell almost 10% in 1929-30 and another 30% in 1930-31. The Government, which had borrowed heavily for public works, also had the highest level of public expenditure in Australia, especially because of social services payments. In 1930 the budget rapidly went from a surplus to a deficit greater than all the other Australian states put together. Accompanying this economic collapse, of course, was great social disruption and distress. Many struggled on part-time work, or depended on charity or the dole.

In September 1939, Bertram Stevens was deposed as Premier of NSW by Alexander Mair. The United Australia Party - United Country Party coalition Government had begun to show its internal strains. In the same month the Labor Parties, still split as a result of the Lang Government crisis that had led to its dismissal in 1932, dumped Jack Lang as Leader of the Opposition and replaced him with the far less controversial William McKell. From McKell's victory in 1941 until the Liberal-National Party Coalition led by Robin Askin won the 1965 election, the Australian Labor Party held office in NSW without interruption. The Labor government's steady but unexciting progress had some highlights, such as the start to the Sydney Opera House but even leadership changes did little to infuse new blood. There was developing an increasing sense that the real focus of events was elsewhere - in Canberra and the world beyond - and that NSW politics had less vitality or relevance. The unbroken quarter century of Labor governments came to an end in 1965 and the period that followed up until 1988 almost equally divided between the Liberal/National Party and Labor, and dominated by two men, Askin and Wran, who both served record terms as Premiers.

The gaining of the Olympic Games for Sydney in the Year 2000 was a triumphal moment for the Fahey government and it dominated much government activity in the years to follow. Preparations and implementation of the massive construction program proceeded well on schedule, but funding issues and recurring controversy dogged the process. Sydney, although effected by the major downturn of Asian economies in late 1997 through to mid 1999, had become a major tourist destination which, together with the Olympics, brought a boom in hotel, sports and public facilities, business and premium housing construction. The state had also become a major financial center.