1901
A Federation flag
Australia begins
This flag measures 485 mm by 710 mm and depicts Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Union Jack. The Southern Cross links them. The flag was made for the festivities that surrounded Federation in 1901 and perfectly depicts how White Australia saw itself in relation to England – constitutionally and emotionally.
Australia did not become a nation at Federation on 1 January 1901. On that day, six distinct self-governing colonies of the British Empire – Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia – federated into the Commonwealth of Australia, but gleefully remained subservient to the British government in Westminster. Under the Colonial Laws Validity Act of 1865, any act of the Australian parliament was deemed invalid if it was ‘repugnant’ to the British parliament.
The Australian parliament couldn’t make foreign policy, and there was no Australian military. The country had no power to make war or peace. The highest court in the land was the Privy Council in London and any Acts of the Australian parliament could be overturned, written or rewritten by Westminster. The public was not concerned: by and large, Australians were faithful sons and daughters of the Empire.
If it were to be done, there was disagreement as to how it was to be done. The Free Traders, who were mostly Tories, wanted the abolition of tariff barriers and the creation of a laissez-faire economy. The Protectionists were politically progressive and saw tariff revenue as a way that government could fund its reforms and support local industry and the local economy.
Queen Victoria royally proclaimed Australia on 17 September 1900 and declared that the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 (UK) would take effect on 1 January 1901. Edmund Barton was appointed caretaker prime minister.
The ceremony of Federation was held in Centennial Park, Sydney, on 1 January 1901, the first day of the 20th century. Tens of thousands of people gathered for the celebration, including 1400 schoolchildren who sang. On the day John Adrian Louis Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun, became the first governor-general. Federation parties were held all over Australia, and the fervour was palpable, with acres of bunting and dancing in the streets. According to the Adelaide Observer of 5 January 1901:
The rays of the sun, which had now come out to peep at and bless the passing show, danced from the highly polished scabbards, the noble steeds caracoled along the street, chafing at the restraint of the curb chains; orderlies galloped past with final instructions, and at last the procession was in motion. Then was unfolded to the view of hundreds of thousands the greatest spectacular demonstration ever presented in the southern hemisphere.
From these beginnings, Australia inched towards nationhood. Prime Minister Billy Hughes would demand the dominions separately sign the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and in 1930, Prime Minister James Scullin defied the Palace and appointed an Australian-born governor-general.
In the 1930s the British parliament passed the Statute of Westminster allowing dominions independence. Australia declined to take the offer until 1942 when a Japanese invasion was at its door. In 1975, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam ended appeals to the Privy Council and Imperial honours, but it wasn’t until 1986 and the passage of the Australia Act in Britain and Australia that all Australian parliaments threw off the final yoke of Westminster. The Australia Act was the first time an official document of either parliament acknowledged that Australia was ‘independent’ of Britain.
But there, in Centennial Park on that rainy Tuesday as the new century dawned, the massed choirs and 1400 schoolchildren sang ‘Federated Australia’, the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ and, finally, ‘God Save the Queen’.