Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Western Australia
ultimately a pre-emptive response to concerns about French colonial ambitions in
the western half of the continent.
The particular circumstances that led to the colony’s founding by the British
wouldshapeitsdevelopmentalarcforthefirstfivedecadesofsettlement.The
Britishshowedlittleappetitetoinvestinthenascentcolony,whichhamperedWA’s
economic growth for several decades and undermined the business case for selfgovernment.
2 Moreover, well into the first half of the 1880s, there was little urgency
for responsible government among WA’s elites, who feared that mass enfranchisement
would weaken their privileged grip over colonial society. 3
When WA did attain self-government, it did so a number of decades behind
the other original colonies. Self-government of the colony became effective from 21
October 1890, with the UK parliament’s enactment of the Western Australian Constitution
Act 1890 (UK), to which was scheduled the Constitution Act 1889 (WA) (CA).
The achievement of self-government was not without tribulation. On some
views, the colony could have asserted responsible government unilaterally; however,
it opted to petition the Imperial parliament in order to ensure its control
over crown lands. Unlike its colonial counterparts, any declaration of responsible
government, while arguably constitutionally possible, did not come with an automaticclaimtounusedcrownlands.TheImperialpowersreckonedthatthesmall
size of the colony’s population, concentrated in the south-west corner, rendered it
inadequate to the task of managing the vast territory that it sought to govern. The
Imperial authorities also held a well-founded view that the colony could not be
trusted to respect the dignity and liberty of Indigenous peoples. 4
For these reasons, the eventual grant of self-government by the Imperial
parliament was encumbered by several conditions: a nominated upper house,
constitutional protections for native inhabitants of the colony in the form of the
now redundant section 70, 5 and retention of crown lands above the 26-degreessouth
line of latitude in the hands of the British government. While the compromises
were reluctantly agreed to by the colony, the outcome was nevertheless
hailedasatriumphof‘thecherishedbirthrightofEnglishmen’. 6
2 Moon and Sharman 2003, 184.
3 Curthoys and Martens 2013, 130.
4 Martens 2016.
5 The British were under no illusions about the brutal conduct of many of the colonists towards
Indigenous people and sought to secure some protections for them when WA became
self-governing. This came in the form of section 70, which specified: ‘There shall be payable to
HerMajesty,ineveryyear,outoftheConsolidatedRevenueFundthesumoffivethousand
poundsmentionedinScheduleCtothisActtobeappropriatedtothewelfareoftheAboriginal
Natives, and expended in providing them with food and clothing when they would otherwise be
destitute, in promoting the education of Aboriginal children (including half-castes), and in
assisting generally to promote the preservation and wellbeing of the Aborigines.’ However, the
Imperial parliament’s commitment to the survival of section 70 was weak and by 1897 the
provision was radically amended. See Curthoys and Lydon 2016.
6 Martens 2016, 41.
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