Federation and the early Commonwealth, 1901 to 1914 (QCE Modern History Unit 3, Australia since 1901)

What this topic is asking

Unit 3 "Australia since 1901" (Federation of Australia) is a topic, not a fixed list of dot points. The syllabus asks schools to study a narrower aspect of the topic, so your teacher decides the exact focus. This page covers one common strand of the topic, and the official syllabus is at qcaa.qld.edu.au.

For the start of the period, a strong response explains why the colonies federated, what kind of nation the Constitution created and which early policies defined its character. Source questions often pair a Federation-era text, such as a speech, a cartoon or an Act, with a historian's view of the "Australian settlement".

Why Federation happened

By the 1890s the colonies had separate tariffs, railway gauges and defence forces. Several pressures pushed them together.

• Economic. Customs barriers between colonies hurt trade, and many business leaders wanted a single market.
• Defence. Concern about German and French activity in the Pacific led to calls for a united defence force.
• Race and immigration. Colonial governments already restricted Chinese and Pacific Islander immigration. A national government could do this uniformly.
• National sentiment. Writers and journalists promoted the idea of a distinct Australian identity within the British Empire.

Voters approved a draft Constitution at referendums in 1898 and 1899 (New South Wales missed the required quota in 1898, and Western Australia voted in 1900). The British Parliament passed the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act in 1900, and the Commonwealth began on 1 January 1901. Edmund Barton led the first government, with Alfred Deakin as Attorney-General.

The Constitution and who it included

The Constitution created a federal system. It divided power between the Commonwealth and the states and kept the British Crown as head of state, represented by a Governor-General. It also reflected the attitudes of 1901. Section 51 allowed the Commonwealth to make special laws for people of any race "other than the aboriginal race", and section 127 excluded Aboriginal people from the census count. Both provisions were changed by the 1967 referendum, which is covered on the Indigenous Australians page.

Policies that defined the early Commonwealth

Immigration Restriction Act 1901

One of the first Acts of the new Parliament. It used a dictation test, which an officer could set in any European language, to exclude people the government wanted to keep out. This is the legal base of the "White Australia" policy. A separate law in 1901 provided for the removal of Pacific Island labourers from Queensland sugar farms.

Franchise

The Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 gave women the right to vote and stand for the federal Parliament, among the first national governments to do so. It also excluded Aboriginal people from the vote in most cases, and natives of Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands (other than New Zealand) from enrolling.

Arbitration and the Harvester judgment

The Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904 set up a court to settle disputes that crossed state borders. In 1907 Justice H. B. Higgins ruled in the Harvester case that a fair wage should meet the needs of a worker supporting a family. The ruling was later overturned on other grounds, but the idea of a "basic wage" stayed in Australian industrial law.

Protection

Tariffs shielded local industry. Deakin's "new protection" tried to tie tariffs to fair wages, so that employers shielded by tariffs were expected to pay decent wages.

Welfare

The Commonwealth introduced age pensions in 1909 and invalid pensions in 1910, and a maternity allowance in 1912.

Defence

The Defence Act 1903 and later amendments created a Commonwealth military. Compulsory military training for boys and young men began in 1911, and the Royal Australian Navy was established in 1911. The decision to support Britain rather than a purely local defence shaped how Australia entered World War I.

Labor

The Australian Labor Party won office briefly in 1904 and formed its first majority government in 1910 under Andrew Fisher. That government created the Commonwealth Bank (1911) and presided over the naming of the national capital, Canberra, in 1913.

Interpreting the settlement

The journalist Paul Kelly later described the package of White Australia, arbitration, protection, state-provided welfare and reliance on Britain as the "Australian settlement". Interpretations differ.

• Positive reading. The settlement created a relatively egalitarian society with decent wages and early social protections.
• Critical reading. The same settlement was built on exclusion, since it shut out non-European migrants and offered little to Aboriginal people.
• Balanced reading. The policies worked together, because protection and arbitration were justified partly by keeping out cheaper labour.

Practice questions

1. Identify two reasons colonial leaders supported Federation.

Model answer: Trade barriers between the colonies damaged business, and a united defence force was seen as safer in the Pacific. Writers and politicians also promoted a shared national identity.

2. Explain why the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 used a dictation test.

Model answer: The Act wanted to exclude non-European people without naming race, partly to avoid offending Britain and Japan. An officer could set the test in any European language, so it could be used to fail almost any applicant.

3. Evaluate the view that the early Commonwealth was a "working man's paradise".

Model answer: In favour, arbitration, the Harvester principle, age pensions and the vote for women show an unusually progressive Commonwealth for its time. Against, the same policies excluded non-European migrants and Aboriginal people from citizenship benefits, and many women still faced unequal pay. A balanced judgement says it was progressive for those it included and exclusionary for those it did not.