1.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
2.
Australian gold rushes
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During the Australian gold rushes, significant numbers of workers relocated to areas in which gold had been discovered. A number of gold occurred in Australia prior to 1851. This is mainly because, prior to 1851, the government of New South Wales had suppressed news of gold finds which it believed would reduce the workforce. The first gold rush in Australia began in May 1851 after prospector Edward Hargraves claimed to have discovered gold near Orange. Hargraves had been to the Californian goldfields and had learned new gold prospecting techniques such as panning and cradling, Hargraves was offered rewards by the Colony of New South Wales and the Colony of Victoria. Before the end of the year, the rush had spread to many other parts of the state where gold had been found, not just to the west. The Australian gold rushes changed the convict colonies into more cities with the influx of free emigrants. These hopefuls, termed diggers, brought new skills and professions, the mateship that evolved between these diggers and their collective resistance to authority led to the emergence of a unique national identity. Although not all diggers found riches on the goldfields, many decided to stay, in July 1851, Victorias first gold rush began on the Clunes goldfield. Gold, just as in New South Wales, was found in many other parts of the state. When the rush began at Ballarat, diggers discovered it was a prosperous goldfield, lieutenant-Governor, Charles La Trobe visited the site and watched five men uncover 136 ounces of gold in one day. Mount Alexander was even more rich than Ballarat, with gold sitting just under the surface, the shallowness allowed diggers to easily unearth gold nuggets. In 7 months,2.4 million pounds of gold was transported from Mount Alexander to nearby capital cities, the gold rushes caused a huge influx of people from overseas. Australias total population more than tripled from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million in 1871, Australia first became a multicultural society during the gold rush period. Between 1852 and 1860,290,000 people migrated to Victoria from the British Isles,15,000 came from other European countries, non-European immigrants, however, were unwelcome, especially the Chinese. The Chinese were particularly industrious, with techniques that differed widely from the Europeans and this and their physical appearance and fear of the unknown led to them to being persecuted in a racist way that would be regarded as untenable today. In 1855,11,493 Chinese arrived in Melbourne, Chinese travelling outside of New South Wales had to obtain special re-entry certificates. In 1855, Victoria enacted the Chinese Immigration Act 1855, severely limiting the number of Chinese passengers permitted on an arriving vessel
3.
New South Wales
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New South Wales is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south and it has a coast line with the Tasman Sea on its east side. The Australian Capital Territory is an enclave within the state, New South Wales state capital is Sydney, which is also Australias most populous city. In March 2014, the population of New South Wales was 7.5 million. Just under two-thirds of the population,4.67 million. Inhabitants of New South Wales are referred to as New South Welshmen, the Colony of New South Wales was founded as a penal colony in 1788. It originally comprised a more than half of the Australian mainland with its western boundary set at 129th meridian east in 1825, in addition, the colony also included the island territories of New Zealand, Van Diemens Land, Lord Howe Island, and Norfolk Island. During the 19th century, most of the area was detached to form separate British colonies that eventually became New Zealand. However, the Swan River Colony has never administered as part of New South Wales. Lord Howe Island remains part of New South Wales, while Norfolk Island has become a federal Territory, as have the now known as the Australian Capital Territory. The prior inhabitants of New South Wales were the Aboriginal tribes who arrived in Australia about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, before European settlement there were an estimated 250,000 Aboriginal people in the region. The Wodi Wodi people are the custodians of the Illawarra region of South Sydney. The Bundjalung people are the custodians of parts of the northern coastal areas. The European discovery of New South Wales was made by Captain James Cook during his 1770 survey along the eastern coast of the Dutch-named continent of New Holland. In his original journal covering the survey, in triplicate to satisfy Admiralty Orders, Cook first named the land New Wales, however, in the copy held by the Admiralty, he revised the wording to New South Wales. After years of chaos and anarchy after the overthrow of Governor William Bligh, macquaries legacy is still evident today. During the 19th century, large areas were separated to form the British colonies of Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria. Responsible government was granted to the New South Wales colony in 1855, following the Treaty of Waitangi, William Hobson declared British sovereignty over New Zealand in 1840
4.
Bathurst, New South Wales
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Bathurst /ˈbæθəst/ is a regional city in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. It is approximately 200 kilometres north-west of Sydney and is the seat of the Bathurst Regional Council, Bathurst is the oldest inland settlement in Australia and had an estimated population of 36,013 as at June 2015. Bathurst is often referred to as the Gold Country as it was the site of the first gold discovery, today education, tourism and manufacturing drive the economy. The internationally known racetrack Mount Panorama is a landmark of the city, Bathurst has an historic city centre with many buildings remaining from the gold rush period of the mid to late 1800s. The median age of the population is 34.0 years, which is particularly young for a regional centre. Population growth has reached 1. 6% per annum over the five years until 2010 and this growth over recent years has resulted in increased urban development including retail precincts, sporting facilities, housing estates and expanding industrial areas. Bathurst is located on the edge of the Great Dividing Range in the Macquarie River plain. The city is located adjacent to the Macquarie River which is part of the Murray-Darling basin, the city is protected by a levee bank to protect the city from occasional flood events. Mount Panorama is located 3 kilometres from the CBD and effectively within the city limits, it is 877 metres AMSL, Bathurst is located adjacent to the Great Western Highway which begins in the centre of the city of Sydney and finishes at Bathurst. Within the city, two state highways start, the Mitchell Highway to Bourke and the Mid-Western Highway to Hay. Bathurst is located approximately mid-way along a road route from Canberra and Goulburn to Mudgee. Bathurst is also located on the Main Western Railway line that starts at Sydney Central Station, the Macquarie River divides Bathurst with the CBD located on the western side of the river. Four road bridges and two bridges span the river within the city area. Two physical components comprise the Bathurst region, the Bathurst Basin and they are drained by the Macquarie, Turon, Fish and Campbells Rivers to the north and Abercrombie and Isabella Rivers to the south. The central basin area of the Bathurst area is mainly granite soils while in the north area sandstone, conglomerates, greywacke, siltstones, limestones and minor volcanos predominate. The south is more complex geology with siltstones, sandstones, greywacke, shales and chert, basalt and granite intrusions and embedded volcanic, underlying Bathurst is the dominant feature of Bathurst granite and at Mount Panorama and Mount Stewart basalt occurs. Due to its elevation, Bathurst has a highland climate. Bathurst is in Australias cool temperate zone which is defined as having mild to warm summers
5.
Victoria (Australia)
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Victoria is a state in southeast Australia. Victoria is Australias most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall, most of its population is concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australias second-largest city. Prior to British European settlement, the area now constituting Victoria was inhabited by a number of Aboriginal peoples. With Great Britain having claimed the entire Australian continent east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria was included in the wider colony of New South Wales. The first settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, and much of what is now Victoria was included in the Port Phillip District in 1836, Victoria was officially created as a separate colony in 1851, and achieved self-government in 1855. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate, at state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. Victoria is currently governed by the Labor Party, with Daniel Andrews the current Premier, the personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria, currently Linda Dessau. Local government is concentrated in 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, Victorias total gross state product is ranked second in Australia, although Victoria is ranked fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne is home to a number of museums, art galleries and theatres and is described as the sporting capital of Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in Australia, and the host of the 1956 Summer Olympics, Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, having been founded in 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. The first British settlement in the later known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. In the year 1826 Colonel Stewart, Captain S. Wright, fly and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. Victorias next settlement was at Portland, on the south west coast of what is now Victoria, edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, from settlement the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after the now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe. And in 1838 Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier white settlements dating back to 1826, days later, still in 1851 gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo. Later discoveries occurred at sites across Victoria
6.
Tasmania
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Tasmania is an island state of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is located 240 km to the south of the Australian mainland, the state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of around 519,100, just over forty percent of which resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, Tasmanias area is 68,401 km2, of which the main island covers 64,519 km2. Though an island state, due to an error the state shares a land border with Victoria at its northernmost terrestrial point, Boundary Islet. The Bishop and Clerk Islets, about 37 km south of Macquarie Island, are the southernmost terrestrial point of the state of Tasmania, the island is believed to have been occupied by Aboriginals for 40,000 years before British colonisation. It is thought Tasmanian Aboriginals were separated from the mainland Aboriginal groups about 10,000 years ago when the sea rose to form Bass Strait. The conflict, which peaked between 1825 and 1831 and led to more than three years of law, cost the lives of almost 1100 Aboriginals and settlers. The near-destruction of Tasmanias Aboriginal population has been described by historians as an act of genocide by the British. The island was part of the Colony of New South Wales. In 1854 the present Constitution of Tasmania was passed and the year the state received permission to change its name to Tasmania. In 1901 it became a state through the process of the Federation of Australia, the state is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. Tasman named the island Anthony van Diemens Land after his sponsor Anthony van Diemen, the name was later shortened to Van Diemens Land by the British. It was officially renamed Tasmania in honour of its first European discoverer on 1 January 1856, Tasmania was sometimes referred to as Dervon, as mentioned in the Jerilderie Letter written by the notorious Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in 1879. The colloquial expression for the state is Tassie, Tasmania is also colloquially shortened to Tas, especially when used in business names and website addresses. TAS is also the Australia Post abbreviation for the state, the reconstructed Palawa kani language name for Tasmania is Lutriwita. The island was adjoined to the mainland of Australia until the end of the last glacial period about 10,000 years ago, much of the island is composed of Jurassic dolerite intrusions through other rock types, sometimes forming large columnar joints. Tasmania has the worlds largest areas of dolerite, with many distinctive mountains, the central plateau and the southeast portions of the island are mostly dolerite. Mount Wellington above Hobart is an example, showing distinct columns known as the Organ Pipes
7.
Melbourne
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Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia and Oceania. The name Melbourne refers to an urban agglomeration spanning 9,900 km2, the metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of 4,641,636 as of 2016, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians. Founded by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemens Land on 30 August 1835, in what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837. It was named Melbourne by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, in honour of the British Prime Minister of the day, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. It was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria, to whom Lord Melbourne was close, in 1847, during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, it was transformed into one of the worlds largest and wealthiest cities. After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as the interim seat of government until 1927. It is a financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region. It is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a centre for street art, music. It was the host city of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the main passenger airport serving the metropolis and the state is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia. The Port of Melbourne is Australias busiest seaport for containerised and general cargo, Melbourne has an extensive transport network. The main metropolitan train terminus is Flinders Street Station, and the regional train. Melbourne is also home to Australias most extensive network and has the worlds largest urban tram network. Before the arrival of settlers, humans had occupied the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. At the time of European settlement, it was inhabited by under 2000 hunter-gatherers from three indigenous tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and it would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. Batman selected a site on the bank of the Yarra River. Batman then returned to Launceston in Tasmania, in early August 1835 a different group of settlers, including John Pascoe Fawkner, left Launceston on the ship Enterprize
8.
Dandenong Ranges
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The Dandenong Ranges are a set of low mountain ranges, rising to 633 metres at Mount Dandenong, approximately 35 km east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The ranges consist mostly of rolling hills, steeply weathered valleys and gullies covered in temperate rainforest, predominantly of tall Mountain Ash trees. After European settlement in the region, the range was used as a source of timber for Melbourne. The ranges were popular with day-trippers from the 1870s onwards, much of the Dandenongs were protected by parklands as early as 1882 and by 1987 these parklands were amalgamated to form the Dandenong Ranges National Park, which was added to again in 1997. The range experiences light to moderate snow falls a few times most years, today, the Dandenongs are home to over 100,000 residents and the area is popular amongst visitors, many of which stay for the weekend at the various Bed & Breakfasts through the region. The popular Puffing Billy Railway, a steam railway, runs through the southern parts of the Dandenongs. The etymology of the Dandenongs is a complicated one, two names have been used to refer to the ranges, Corhanwarrabul and Dandenong, both derived from the Woiwurrung language of the Wurundjeri people. It is suspected that the name Dandenong was applied to the ranges because Dandenong Creek originates there, however and it is not known where the name Dandenong came from nor what it means, or even its correct spelling, other variations include, Tanjenong, Tangynon and Bangeong. In any case, both names relate at least to watercourses in general, and not to mountains or ranges, so as the name Dandenong may not actually apply to anything in the immediate area, the relevance of the name Corhanwarrabul becomes apparent. Carhanwarrabul was the name for one of the two main summits, perhaps both or perhaps the entire range. The name applied to the summits and was in continued use up until around 1900. At any rate, Corhanwarrabul remains the most relevant name for the ranges to date, the range is the remains of an extinct volcano last active 373 million years ago. It consists predominantly of Devonian dacite and rhyodacite, the topography consists of a series of ridges dissected by deeply cut streams. Rainfall is fairly uniform through the year, tending to peak between April and October with lower rainfall during the months of January and February, the mean annual rainfall is between 1000 and 1500 mm, increasing with elevation and from west to east. Due to the elevation, fog is common in winter months, as a result of its elevation snow typically falls one or two times a year at higher elevations, mostly between the months of June and October. A rare summer snow occurred on Christmas Day 2006, the local region has experienced substantial warming in recent decades and heavy snowfalls which were once common have become rare. The last significant snowfall to affect the Dandenongs Ranges was on August 10,2008, a Bureau of Meteorology weather station sits at an elevation of 513 m in the Ferny Creek Reserve in the southern part of the Dandenongs Ranges. This weather station replaced one that was located on the summit of Dunns Hill
9.
Governors of the Australian states
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The governors of the Australian states are the representatives of the Queen of Australia in each of Australias six states. The state governors are not subject to the authority of the governor-general. In practice, with few exceptions the governors are required by convention to act on the advice of the state premiers or the members of a states Cabinet. The office of governor is the oldest constitutional office in Australia, the title was first used with the Governor of New South Wales, and dates back to 1788 to the day on which the area became the first British settlement in Australia. Each of the subsequent five states in Australia was also founded as a British colony, the settlement which became Queensland was founded in 1824, but was not separated from New South Wales until 1859. New South Wales and Tasmania were founded as penal colonies, Tasmania in particular was run as a virtual prison camp in its early years. The Governors were also commanders-in-chief, and the troops under their command were the basis of their authority. From the 1820s, however, the number of free settlers in the colonies led to a process of constitutional reform which gradually reduced the powers of the governors. New South Wales was given its first legislative body, the New South Wales Legislative Council, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, which were not founded as penal settlements, moved rapidly towards constitutional government after their establishment. However, the states insisted on retaining their separate links to the Crown, the post of governor was again called into question during the Depression of the 1930s, when the cost of maintaining six vice-regal establishments drew criticism from the labour movement and others. During this period some states left the position unfilled as a measure for some years. But no state attempted to abolish the post of governor, all governors at this time were British, and most were from the upper classes and political conservatives, and Labor governments always suspected that they had an enemy in Government House. Most governors, however, tried to act impartially, and some were genuinely popular, from the 1940s the states, particularly those with Labor governments, began to appoint Australians to the post of governor. The first colonies were penal settlements and the colonial governors were military officers who ruled under martial law. Once the governors role moved from the executive to the ceremonial, although a few members of the peerage served as governors, the Australian colonial capitals were small towns and considered not grand enough to attract senior members of the British aristocracy. Even when Australians replaced Britons as governors, most continued to be retired Army, the last British-born governor of an Australian state was Rear Admiral Sir Richard Trowbridge, who was Governor of Western Australia from 1980 to 1983. The British Government retained the authority to intervene in the governments of the states under the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865. As a result, the state continued to be formally appointed by the Queen on the advice of the British Foreign Secretary
10.
Governor of New South Wales
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The Governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the Governor-General of Australia at the national level, the Governor is appointed by the queen on the advice of the Premier of New South Wales, for an unfixed period of time—known as serving At Her Majestys pleasure—though five years is the norm. The current Governor is retired General David Hurley, who succeeded Dame Marie Bashir on 2 October 2014, the office has its origin in the 18th-century colonial governors of New South Wales upon its settlement in 1788, and is the oldest continuous institution in Australia. The office of Governor is required by the New South Wales Constitution Act,1902, besides the administration of the oaths of office, there is no set formula for the swearing-in of a governor-designate. The sovereign will also hold an audience with the appointee and will at that time induct the governor-designate as a Companion of the Order of Australia. The incumbent will generally serve for at least five years, though this is only a convention. The premier may therefore recommend to the Queen that the remain in her service for a longer period of time. A governor may also resign and three have died in office, furthermore, if the Lieutenant Governor becomes incapacitated while serving in the office of Governor, the next most senior judge of the Supreme Court is sworn in as the Administrator. Between 1788 and 1957, all governors were born outside of New South Wales and were members of the Peerage. Taylor once noted that out and governing New South Wales became the British aristocracys abiding consolation. Coincidentally the first Australian-born Governor, Sir John Northcott on 1 August 1946, was also the first Australian-born Governor of any state, the first Governors were all military officers and the majority of governors since have come from a military background, numbering 19. Samuels was the first governor in New South Wales history without either a political, public service or military background, the first woman to hold this position is also the first Lebanese-Australian governor, Dame Marie Bashir. In this capacity, the governor will issue royal proclamations and sign orders in council, the Governor alone is constitutionally mandated to summon parliament. The governor grants Royal Assent in the Queens name, legally, if the governor withholds the Queens assent, the sovereign may within two years disallow the bill, thereby annulling the law in question. No modern viceroy has denied Royal Assent to a bill, with most constitutional functions delegated to Cabinet, the governor acts in a primarily ceremonial fashion. He or she will host members of Australias royal family, as well as foreign royalty, also as part of international relations, the governor receives letters of credence and of recall from foreign consul-generals appointed to Sydney. The governor is also tasked with fostering unity and pride, the governor also traditionally serves as Honorary and Regimental Colonel in the Royal New South Wales Regiment and as Honorary Air Commodore of No.22 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force. Since 1946, the governor has also always made the Chief Scout of New South Wales
11.
Governor of Tasmania
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The Governor of Tasmania is the representative in the Australian state of Tasmania of Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia. The Governor performs the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the level as the Governor-General of Australia does at the national level. Nevertheless, the Governor retains the powers of the Crown. See Governors of the Australian states for a description and history of the office of Governor, the official residence of the Governor is Government House located at the Queens Domain. The first Australian-born Governor of Tasmania was Sir Stanley Burbury, the first Tasmanian-born governor was Sir Guy Green. Since Burbury, all Tasmanian governors have been Australian-born, except for Peter Underwood, on 10 November, Premier Will Hodgman announced that University of Tasmania legal academic Kate Warner would be appointed as the states first female governor. Warner was sworn in on 10 December, between 1804 and 1813, Van Diemens Land was divided along the 42nd parallel, and the two sections governed as separate Lieutenant-Governorships under the Governor of New South Wales. Collins was the officially appointed Lieutenant-Governor—upon his death in 1810. The northern settlement at Port Dalrymple was administered by four Commandants until the settlements were merged to form the colony under the governorship of Thomas Davey in 1813. The colony was called Van Diemens Land until 1856, four former governors are alive, the oldest being Sir Phillip Bennett. The latest-serving former governor to die was Sir Stanley Burbury, on 24 April 1995, the most recently serving governor to die was Peter Underwood, who died in office on 7 July 2014. Governors and Lieutenant Governors of Tasmania Parliamentary Library - Governors of Tasmania
12.
Governor of Victoria
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The Governor of Victoria is the representative in the Australian state of Victoria of its monarch, Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia and is one of the Governors of the Australian states. The governor performs the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the level as does the Governor-General of Australia at the federal level. The governors office and official residence is Government House next to the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Governor of Victoria is appointed by the Queen of Australia on the advice of the Premier of Victoria. The current Governor of Victoria is former judge Linda Dessau, Victorias first female governor, nevertheless, the governor retains the reserve powers of the Crown, and has the right to dismiss the premier. The governor of Victoria is appointed by the queen of Australia, on the advice of the premier of Victoria, to act as her representative as head of state in Victoria. The governor acts at the pleasure, meaning that the term of the governor can be terminated at any time by the queen acting upon the advice of the premier. Upon appointment, he or she becomes a viceroy, the governors main responsibilities fall into three categories – constitutional, ceremonial and community engagement. In 1984, the Personal Standard of the Governor of Victoria was changed to the State Flag of Victoria, with the blue background replaced by gold, above the Southern Cross is the Royal Crown. Previously, the used by Victorian governors after 1870 had been the Union Jack with the Badge of the State of Victoria emblazoned in the centre. Between 1903 and 1953, the Tudor Crown was used on the State Flag and Governors Standard, the Governor’s Standard is flown at Government House and on vehicles conveying the governor. The Standard is lowered over Government House when the governor is absent from Victoria, there is also a lieutenant-governor and an administrator. The Chief Justice of Victoria is ex officio the Administrator, unless he or she is the lieutenant-governor, in which case, the lieutenant-governor takes on the responsibilities of the governor when that post is vacant or when the governor is out of the state or unable to act. The administrator takes on those duties if both the governor and lieutenant-governor are not able to act for the above reasons, see Governors of the Australian states for a description and history of the office of governor. Until the appointment of Victorian-born Sir Henry Winneke in 1974, the Governors of Victoria were British, prior to the separation of the colony of Victoria from New South Wales in 1851, the area was called the Port Phillip District of New South Wales. The Governor of New South Wales appointed superintendents of the District, in 1839 Charles La Trobe was appointed superintendent. La Trobe became Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria on separation on 1 July 1851, between 1850 and 1861, the Governor of New South Wales was titled Governor-General of New South Wales, in an attempt to form a federal structure. Until Victoria obtained responsible government in 1855, the Governor-General of New South Wales appointed lieutenant-governors to Victoria, on Victoria obtaining responsible government in May 1855, the title of the then incumbent lieutenant-governor, Captain Sir Charles Hotham, became governor. As of July 2015, four former governors are alive, the oldest being John Landy, the most recent governor to die was Davis McCaughey, on 25 March 2005
