Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Federation & WWI
On 1 January 1901, Australia became a federation. When the bewhiskered members of the
new national parliament met in Melbourne, their first aim was to protect the identity and
values of a European Australia from an influx of Asians and Pacific Islanders. Their solu-
tion was the infamous White Australia policy. Its opposition to nonwhite immigrants would
remain a core Australian value for the next 70 years.
For European settlers, this was to be a model society, nestled in the skirts of the British
Empire. Just one year later, in 1902, white women won the right to vote in federal elec-
tions. In a series of radical innovations, the government introduced a broad social-welfare
scheme and protected Australian wage levels with import tariffs. This mixture of capitalist
dynamism and socialist compassion became known as the 'Australian Settlement'.
When war broke out in Europe in 1914, thousands of Australian men rallied to the Em-
pire's call. They had their first taste of death on 25 April 1915, when the Anzacs (the Aus-
tralian and New Zealand Army Corps) joined an Allied assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula
in Turkey. Eight months later, the British commanders acknowledged that the tactic had
failed. By then, 8141 young Australians were dead. Soon, Australians were fighting in the
killing fields of Europe. When the war ended, 60,000 Australian men had died. Ever since,
on 25 April, Australians have gathered at the country's many war memorials for the sad
and solemn services of Anzac Day.