New South Wales History

Pre 20th Century

New South Wales' original people, Aborigines, or Kooris, as the state's people refer to themselves, have the longest cultural history in the world, dating back to the Ice Age. Archaeological evidence of their history includes bora rings (circular areas of banked earth used for ceremonies), which can be found throughout the state. Unfortunately, Kooris were also the first of Australia's indigenous people to face occupation by Europeans. After a few tentative landings on the west coast of Australia, English explorer James Cook planted the Union Jack at Botany Bay in 1770 and claimed the entire country for Britain. He named the new British possession New South Wales.

On the suggestion of Cook's naturalist, Joseph Banks, a colony was founded to clear out the convict-cluttered prisons of Britain. Under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, the First Fleet of 11 ships carried over 750 convicts and 400 military personnel to Botany Bay, arriving on the 26th of January, 1788. Clinging to the coast, the colony struggled to grow enough crops to sustain itself and the exploration of central Australia became essential to the survival of early settlers. The Great Dividing Range was the rugged obstacle to the inland and it wasn't until 1813 that explorers beat a path through the seemingly unnavigable bush. This allowed the growth of inland towns such as Bathurst and further exploration into inland areas. By the 1830s, explorers had mapped out most of inland NSW, and the discovery of gold in the central west in the 1850s attracted an influx of free settlers. The last convict was sent to NSW in the 1840s, following which most of the population were free settlers.

The influx of Europeans and their need for more land created tensions with Koori people as small pox ravaged the indigenous population and violence such as the massacre of 28 Kooris at Myall Creek marred interracial relations. Koori people were ruthlessly pushed off their lands in favour of agricultural and mining interests.

Modern

In 1901, Australia's squabbling colonies finally united to form one nation, the Commonwealth of Australia, with new state boundaries defined and New South Wales a leading state in the new nation. It took another seven years to agree on the site of the new capital, Canberra, which was painstakingly positioned exactly halfway between the two rival cities Melbourne and Sydney. The Great Depression hit the state hard and then Premier Jack Lang came up with the novel idea of defaulting on the state's loans from Britain. But NSW recovered, with wool prices and manufacturing making a comeback in the 1930s, and the building of the internationally recognisable Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932.

While many New South Welshmen served in WWII, the state itself was largely untouched by the conflict apart from a couple of Japanese midget submarines straying into Sydney Harbour and a brief shelling of the coast. In the postwar period, construction boomed again and Sydney scored more unique architecture in the from of the Sydney Opera House. In the state's south, work began on the mammoth Snowy Mountain Hydro-electric Scheme, which took almost 30 years to complete and used a huge immigrant workforce that broadened Australia's mono-culture.

For Kooris, however, the postwar policy of assimilation into European Australia resulted in many children taken from their parents - the Stolen Generation. It wasn't until the 1970s that assimilation policy was abandoned, after pressure from activists such as Dr Kumantjayi Perkins, who made freedom rides in 1965 to western NSW towns protesting blatant discrimination and segregation.

Politically, the 70s saw a shift away from conservative politics with the election of the ALP (Australian Labor Party) under charismatic premier, Neville 'Nifty Nev' Wran. The 1980s saw another boom, with further development in Sydney, but a recession in the 1990s slowed the whole state and threatened to wipe out agricultural industry. Liberal premier Nick Greiner and his successor John Fahey concentrated on balancing the budget.

Recent

The election of ALP premier Bob Carr in 1996 began a prolonged period of the kind of government that New South Wales likes best: staunchly pro-market with a strong role for government. Carr, a former journalist, was popular enough to have considered, in 2003, extending his ambitions to the national stage. Following Carr's sudden resignation in 2005, the state's premier has been fellow member of the ALP's right, Morris Iemma.

Hosting the 2000 Olympic Games had Sydney riding high once again, comfortable with its widely accepted role as the international face of Australia. The Games were highly successful, claimed in fact to be the 'best ever', and the benefits to the city's profile are likely to continue to be felt for some time.