Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
History
The colonisation of the Port Phillip District began with sheep farmers from Van
Diemen’s Land such as John Batman and Edward and Stephen Henty making the
tripbyseato‘squat’onthewesternplainsofwhatwasthenpartofNSW.The
entrepreneurial drive behind this initial land grab, to the cost of both Indigenous
people and the authority of the governor of NSW, Richard Bourke, was revisited in
1851 when gold was officially discovered at Warrandyte and a rush of free settlers
from around the world descended upon Melbourne.
By the 1870s gold mining went from alluvial activity to deep lead mining
undertaken by capitalised mining companies. Those who had rushed to the
goldfields but were displaced drifted back to Melbourne’s western suburbs in search
of work. 7 By the time of the real estate boom of the 1880s, the vast majority
of Victorian residents lived in Melbourne and its suburbs. This demographic
characteristic persists: the 2011 Census found that 75 per cent of Victorians live in
local government areas classified as metropolitan. 8
The gold rush reinforced the notion of Victoria as a place for small-scale
business operators and entrepreneurs as well as establishing the idea of Melbourne
as a cosmopolitan city. The rebellion of miners at Eureka (Ballarat) in 1854 also
demonstrated the importance of liberal ideas such as manhood suffrage and no
taxation without parliamentary representation, grievances free settler miners had
with the colony’s administration. Two years later Victoria obtained a constitution
that introduced a Westminster system of parliamentary government.
The new constitution was promulgated in Victoria in 1856. It provided for a
Legislative Assembly that would be elected by men over the age of 21 regardless of
property ownership. The assumption was that government would be exercised by
a ‘prime minister’ and a ministry with the confidence of the majority of the lower
house. The Legislative Council would comprise men of property, elected by men of
property, who could exercise a powerful veto over the lower house. Parliamentary
salaries were not introduced until 1870. Female suffrage was not legislated for
until 1908, and the law that prohibited women from standing for election was not
abolished until 1924. The property qualifications that applied to the Legislative
Council were abolished in 1951.
Political instability was the dominant characteristic of Victorian parliamentary
politics from colonial times until a major split in the Labor Party in 1955, which
set the basis for a period of Liberal Party dominance through to the 1980s. 9 Prior
to 1955, leadership challenges, bitter fights between rural conservatives and urban
liberals, and the threat of early elections by a conservative-dominated Legislative
Council were the norm in Victorian politics.
7 Lack 1991.
8 ABS 2012.
9 Murray 2007.
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