Australian
Culture
Presented by STUDENT LEARNING SUPPORT English · Academic Skills · Maths
Level 4 HSS · learningsupport@bond.edu.au
A Brief History of Australia
•Australia’s Indigenous people were thought to have arrived by boat from South East Asia at least 50,000 years ago
•Captain James Cook chartered the east coast of Australia in 1770 and claimed it for Britain.
•At European settlement (1788) it is estimated that there were around 1 million Aborigines comprising of 300 clans, 250 languages, and 700 dialects
A Brief History of Australia
•On 26 January, 1788 the first fleet arrived carrying around 1500 people into Sydney Harbour. Half of them were convicts, and Australia began as a penal colony.
•By the 1820’s many soldiers, officers and emancipated convicts turned the land into flourishing farms. Brisbane, Melbourne Adelaide and Perth was settled.
A Brief History of Australia
•Gold was discovered in NSW and Victoria in 1851 luring many from the colonies. Many prospectors also arrived from China.
•Penal transportation from Britain ended in 1868, - over 160,000 people had arrived as convicts.
•Australia became a nation under one constitution on 1 January, 1901 comprising 6 states.
A Brief History of Australia
•Australians fought in both world wars as well as other wars including Vietnam, when we had conscription.
•White Australia Policy – migration was restricted to primarily Europeans, which only changed after WWII
A Brief History of Australia
•After the war ended in 1945, thousands of migrants from Europe and the Middle East arrived in Australia.
•Australia’s economy grew through the 1950’s, and home ownership rose from 40 per cent in 1947 to around 70 per cent by the 1960’s.
A Brief History of Australia
•In 1967 Australians voted “yes” in a national referendum to include Aboriginal Australians in future censuses. A reform campaign began by both Aboriginal and white Australians.
•In 1972, the Labor Party, led by Gough Whitlam, abandoned the White Australia Policy and embraced Multiculturalism.
Multicultural Australia in
2009
•Australia is predominantly an English speaking country, with a population of approximately 21 million people.
•Australian is home to people from over 200 different countries.
•Approximately one in four (25%) Australians have been born overseas
(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006)
Estimated Resident Population by Country of Birth – Top 10
1.United Kingdom 1,153,264
2.New Zealand 476,719
3.China 279,447
4.Italy 220,469
5.Vietnam 180,352
6.India 153,579
7.Philippines 135,619
8.Greece 125,849
9.Macedonia 120,649
10.South Africa 118,816
(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006)
Gold Coast population today
•Approximately 550,000 residents
•25.2% born overseas
•9.4% Non English Speaking Backgrounds
(ABS, 2006)