Attorney-General's Department (Australia)
The Attorney-General's Department is a department of the federal government of Australia responsible for law and justice. The head of the department is the Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department Chris Moraitis, who reports to the Attorney-General for Australia The Hon. Christian Porter MP; the Attorney-General's Department is one of seven original Commonwealth Departments of state, commencing with the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. It is one of only three departments, along with Defence and Treasury, to have operated continuously under their original name and charter since Federation; the department is organised into four groups, each headed by a Deputy Secretary. These Deputy Secretaries report to the Secretary who co-ordinates and devises departmental structure and policy; these four groups are: Australian Government Solicitor Civil Justice and Corporate Services Criminal Justice National Security and Emergency ManagementThe Attorney-General's Department is located at the Robert Garran Offices, 3-5 National Circuit, Barton in the Australian Capital Territory.
On the recommendation of the Prime Minister, the Governor-General has appointed the following individuals as Secretary of the department: The mission of the department is "achieving a just and secure society". In pursuing this mission, the department works towards achieving *A just and secure society through the maintenance and improvement of Australia’s law and justice framework and its national security and emergency management system"; the Administrative Arrangements Order made on 19 April 2018 details the following responsibilities to the Department: Law and justice, including - Administrative law Alternative dispute resolution Bankruptcy Censorship Constitutional law Courts and tribunals Human rights International law Law reform Legal assistance Legislative drafting Marriage and family law Personal property securities Legal services to the Commonwealth Administration of criminal justice, including - Criminal law policy and principles of criminal responsibility Matters relating to prosecution Sentencing and management of federal offenders Internal crime cooperation, including extradition and mutual assistance in criminal matters Protective security policy Administrative support for Royal Commissions and certain other inquiries Privacy Freedom of Information Management of government records Native title Fraud and anti-corruption policy Whole of government integrity policy and activities List of Australian Commonwealth Government entities Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council
Lagoon
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by barrier islands or reefs. Lagoons are divided into coastal lagoons and atoll lagoons, they have been identified as occurring on mixed-sand and gravel coastlines. There is an overlap between bodies of water classified as coastal lagoons and bodies of water classified as estuaries. Lagoons are common coastal features around many parts of the world. Lagoons are shallow elongated bodies of water separated from a larger body of water by a shallow or exposed shoal, coral reef, or similar feature; some authorities include fresh water bodies in the definition of "lagoon", while others explicitly restrict "lagoon" to bodies of water with some degree of salinity. The distinction between "lagoon" and "estuary" varies between authorities. Richard A. Davis Jr. restricts "lagoon" to bodies of water with little or no fresh water inflow, little or no tidal flow, calls any bay that receives a regular flow of fresh water an "estuary". Davis does state that the terms "lagoon" and "estuary" are "often loosely applied in scientific literature."
Timothy M. Kusky characterizes lagoons as being elongated parallel to the coast, while estuaries are drowned river valleys, elongated perpendicular to the coast; when used within the context of a distinctive portion of coral reef ecosystems, the term "lagoon" is synonymous with the term "back reef" or "backreef", more used by coral reef scientists to refer to the same area. Coastal lagoons are classified as inland bodies of water. Many lagoons do not include "lagoon" in their common names. Albemarle and Pamlico sounds in North Carolina, Great South Bay between Long Island and the barrier beaches of Fire Island in New York, Isle of Wight Bay, which separates Ocean City, Maryland from the rest of Worcester County, Banana River in Florida, Lake Illawarra in New South Wales, Montrose Basin in Scotland, Broad Water in Wales have all been classified as lagoons, despite their names. In England, The Fleet at Chesil Beach has been described as a lagoon. In Latin America, the term laguna in Spanish, which lagoon translates to, may be used for a small fresh water lake in a similar way a creek is considered a small river.
However, sometimes it is popularly used to describe a full-sized lake, such as Laguna Catemaco in Mexico, the third largest lake by area in the country. The brackish water lagoon may be thus explicitly identified as a "coastal lagoon". In Portuguese the same usage is found: lagoa may be a body of shallow sea water, or a small freshwater lake not linked to the sea. Lagoon is derived from the Italian laguna, which refers to the waters around Venice, the Lagoon of Venice. Laguna is attested in English by at least 1612, had been Anglicized to "lagune" by 1673. In 1697 William Dampier referred to a "Lake of Salt water" on the coast of Mexico. Captain James Cook described an island "of Oval form with a Lagoon in the middle" in 1769. Atoll lagoons form as coral reefs grow upwards while the islands that the reefs surround subside, until only the reefs remain above sea level. Unlike the lagoons that form shoreward of fringing reefs, atoll lagoons contain some deep portions. Coastal lagoons form along sloping coasts where barrier islands or reefs can develop off-shore, the sea-level is rising relative to the land along the shore.
Coastal lagoons do not form along steep or rocky coasts, or if the range of tides is more than 4 metres. Due to the gentle slope of the coast, coastal lagoons are shallow, they are sensitive to changes in sea level due to global warming. A relative drop in sea level may leave a lagoon dry, while a rise in sea level may let the sea breach or destroy barrier islands, leave reefs too deep under water to protect the lagoon. Coastal lagoons are young and dynamic, may be short-lived in geological terms. Coastal lagoons are common. In the United States, lagoons are found along more than 75 percent of the Gulf coasts. Coastal lagoons are connected to the open ocean by inlets between barrier islands; the number and size of the inlets, precipitation and inflow of fresh water all affect the nature of the lagoon. Lagoons with little or no interchange with the open ocean, little or no inflow of fresh water, high evaporation rates, such as Lake St. Lucia, in South Africa, may become saline. Lagoons with no connection to the open ocean and significant inflow of fresh water, such as the Lake Worth Lagoon in Florida in the middle of the 19th century, may be fresh.
On the other hand, lagoons with many wide inlets, such as the Wadden Sea, have strong tidal currents and mixing. Coastal lagoons tend to accumulate sediments from inflowing rivers, from runoff from the shores of the lagoon, from sediment carried into the lagoon through inlets by the tide. Large quantities of sediment may be be deposited in a lagoon when storm waves overwash barrier islands. Mangroves and marsh plants can facilitate the accumulation of sediment in a lagoon. Benthic organisms may destabilize sediments. River-mouth lagoons on mixed sand and gravel beaches form at the river-coast interface where a braided, although sometimes meandering, river interacts with a coastal environment, affected by longshore drift; the lagoons which form on the MSG coastlines are common on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand and have long been referred to as hapua by the Māori. This classification differentiates hapua from similar lagoons located on the N
Saumarez Reefs
Saumarez Reef is one of the southernmost reefs to be located in the Coral Sea Islands and part of the Coral Sea Shelf. There are two sand cays: South West Cay; the reefs were first seen on 27 of February 1823 by Lieutenant John Lihou aboard the vessel Zenobia and named after Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom James Saumarez, 1st Baron de Saumarez. The Saumarez Reef is located on the Coral Sea Shelf, 330 km North East of Gladstone and are thus one of the closer coral sea islands as they are only located 85 km to the east of the Great Barrier Reef Swain Reefs and 95 km to the southwest of the Frederick Reefs; the Saumarez Reef consists of three main reefs and many smaller reefs that form a large crescent-shaped formation, measuring 39 km across, open to the northwest. There are two sand cays: South West Cay. North East Cay, is the northernmost of the Saumarez Reefs, it is a small sand cay lying near the Northern extremity of Saumarez Reefs. This 2.4m high cay, enclosed by a coral reef has an opening on the South Western side.
A lighthouse, is shown from the Northern edge of the cay. A clear channel, about 2.1 km wide, lies between the next reef to the South. South East Elbow is located about 36 km SSW of Northeast Cay, forms the South Eastern extremity of Saumarez Reefs; the Francis Preston Blair. An American Liberty ship is a conspicuous stranded wreck and lies about 9.4 km North East of South east Elbow. Three small reefs lie between 900m to 7.6 km WNW of Southeast Elbow. These small reefs are separated from each other by unsurveyed channels with widths of 900m to 2.2 km. South West Cay, enclosed by a reef, 10.8 km NW of Southeast Elbow, is the westernmost above-water part of the Saumarez Reefs, is 2.4m high. There is a channel, 4 km wide between the cay and the reef SSE. On 27 February 1823, Captain John Lihou, master of the 550-ton Zenobia of Calcutta, saw Sir JAMES SAUMAREZ' SHOAL and named the reef system after Saumarez. Lihou recorded the find as “it is in latitude 21 degrees 40 minutes, longitude 153 degrees 46 minutes by chronometer, found correct on making Sandy Cape a day or two afterwards.
There is reason to suppose that many other reefs exist to the North-West of this position.”Lihou had just discovered Lihou Reef and Cays on 23 February 1823. Zenobia, was on passage from Manila to South America and Lihou had chosen a route through Torres Strait; this was the first occasion. It was the first occasion a ship was navigated through the Coral Sea from Torres Strait, south-eastward to the southward of New Caledonia; the Zenobia entered Endeavour Strait in January 1823 and discovered a shallow port on the south coast of Prince of Wales Island, named Port Yarborough by Lihou and subsequently named Port Lihou. After a hazardous passage through the Strait, losing four anchors and a rudder, the ship departed the Great Barrier Reef via an opening near Murray Islands. On 23 February, Lihou Reefs were sighted and on the 27th of that month, other reefs were discovered and these Lihou named Sir James Saumarez Shoals. There is some thought that Saumarez Reefs could in fact be Midway Reef, sighted prior to the sailing of the Zenobia and described in an extract of a letter from Captain Carns, or the ship Neptune, to the Secretary of the Marine Board, describing the reef discovered between New Holland and New Guinea.
Thinking it a duty I owe for the benefit of Navigators, I beg leave to acquaint you of the discovery I made between New Holland and New Guinea. On the 20th day of June last, I took a good departure from Sandy Cape, New Holland, steered a course to keep in mid-way, between the Great Barrier and Wreck Reefs On the following day at noon, saw sandbanks and small rocks- a-head, stretching as far to the Eastward as we could see from the masthead, about five miles to the Westward, I wore and run down to the Western extremity, passed it within two miles longitude, by good timekeepers, 154° 20’ East, latitude 21° 58’ South, as the Western End of Wreck Reef is laid down in 155° 28’ East, I concluded it mull be a new discovery and called it Midway Reef. 13 May 1880 the “blackbirder” labour schooner Noumea, on her return trip from Santa Island to Mackay, with ninety nine Islanders, including eight women, struck on Saumarez reef, on May 13, became a total wreck. Seven of the Islanders were drowned in swimming off from the wreck to the boats, but the remainder, together with the crew, were rescued by the steamer Leichhardt, sent to their assistance by the owner of the vessel The schooner Noumea was a vessel of some 144 tons 100foot and built at George's River New South Wales in 1873 by Geo and Registered and owned by Mr Paxton, of Mackay, was about six years old Her captain was in command of the Lady Darling, has bad an extensive experience in the South Sea Island labour trade the vessel had, we behave, been purchased by Mr. Paxton for £2600, was on her first trading voyage bet
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of 410,301, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall; the city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory, 280 km south-west of Sydney, 660 km north-east of Melbourne. A resident of Canberra is known as a Canberran. Although Canberra is the capital and seat of government, many federal government ministries have secondary seats in state capital cities, as do the Governor-General and the Prime Minister; the site of Canberra was selected for the location of the nation's capital in 1908 as a compromise between rivals Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's two largest cities. It is unusual among Australian cities, being an planned city outside of any state, similar to Washington, D. C. in the United States, or Brasília in Brazil. Following an international contest for the city's design, a blueprint by American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin was selected and construction commenced in 1913.
The Griffins' plan featured geometric motifs such as circles and triangles, was centred on axes aligned with significant topographical landmarks in the Australian Capital Territory. The city's design was influenced by the garden city movement and incorporates significant areas of natural vegetation; the growth and development of Canberra were hindered by the World Wars and the Great Depression, which exacerbated a series of planning disputes and the ineffectiveness of a procession of bodies that were created in turn to oversee the development of the city. The national capital emerged as a thriving city after World War II, as Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies championed its development and the National Capital Development Commission was formed with executive powers. Although the Australian Capital Territory is now self-governing, the Commonwealth Government retains some influence through the National Capital Authority; as the seat of the government of Australia, Canberra is the site of Parliament House, the official residence of the Monarch's representative the Governor-General, the High Court and numerous government departments and agencies.
It is the location of many social and cultural institutions of national significance, such as the Australian War Memorial, Australian National University, Royal Australian Mint, Australian Institute of Sport, National Gallery, National Museum and the National Library. The Australian Army's officer corps is trained at the Royal Military College and the Australian Defence Force Academy is located in the capital; the ACT is independent of any state to prevent any one state from gaining an advantage by hosting the seat of Commonwealth power. The ACT has voting representation in the Commonwealth Parliament, has its own Legislative Assembly and government, similar to the states; as the city has a high proportion of public servants, the Commonwealth Government contributes the largest percentage of Gross State Product and is the largest single employer in Canberra, although no longer the majority employer. Compared to the national averages, the unemployment rate is the average income higher. Property prices are high, in part due to comparatively restrictive development regulations.
The word "Canberra" is popularly claimed to derive from the word Kambera or Canberry, claimed to mean "meeting place" in Ngunnawal, one of the Indigenous languages spoken in the district by Aboriginal Australians before European settlers arrived, although there is no clear evidence to support this. An alternative definition has been claimed by numerous local commentators over the years, including the Ngunnawal elder Don Bell, whereby Canberra or Nganbra means "woman's breasts" and is the indigenous name for the two mountains, Black Mountain and Mount Ainslie, which lie opposite each other. In the 1860s, the name was reported by Queanbeyan newspaper owner John Gale to be an interpretation of the name nganbra or nganbira, meaning "hollow between a woman's breasts", referring to the Sullivans Creek floodplain between Mount Ainslie and Black Mountain. An 1830s map of the region by Major Mitchell indeed does mark the Sullivan's Creek floodplain between these two mountains as "Nganbra". "Nganbra" or "Nganbira" could have been anglicised to the name "Canberry", as the locality soon become known to European settlers.
R. H. Cambage in his 1919 book Notes on the Native Flora of New South Wales, Part X, the Federal Capital Territory noted that Joshua John Moore, the first settler in the region, named the area Canberry in 1823 stating that "there seems no doubt that the original was a native name, but its meaning is unknown."' Survey plans of the district dated 1837 refer to the area as the Canberry Plain. In 1920, some of the older residents of the district claimed that the name was derived from the Australian Cranberry which grew abundantly in the area, noting that the local name for the plant was canberry. Although popularly pronounced or, the original pronunciation at its official naming in 1913 was. Before white settlement, the area in which Canberra would be constructed was seasonally inhabited by Indigenous Australians. Anthropologist Norman Tindale suggested the principal group occupying the region were the Ngunnawal people, while the Ngarigo lived to the south of the ACT, the Wandandian to the east, the Walgulu to the south, Gandangara people to the north and Wiradjuri to the north-west.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the region includes inhabited rock shelters, rock paintings and engravings, burial places and quarry sites as well as stone tools and arrangements. Artefacts suggests early human activity occurred at some po
Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,300 kilometres over an area of 344,400 square kilometres. The reef is located off the coast of Queensland, Australia; the Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef structure is built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps, it supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981. CNN labelled it one of the seven natural wonders of the world; the Queensland National Trust named it a state icon of Queensland. A large part of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which helps to limit the impact of human use, such as fishing and tourism. Other environmental pressures on the reef and its ecosystem include runoff, climate change accompanied by mass coral bleaching, dumping of dredging sludge and cyclic population outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish.
According to a study published in October 2012 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the reef has lost more than half its coral cover since 1985. The Great Barrier Reef has long been known to and used by the Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, is an important part of local groups' cultures and spirituality; the reef is a popular destination for tourists in the Whitsunday Islands and Cairns regions. Tourism is an important economic activity for the region, generating over AUD$3 billion per year. In November 2014, Google launched Google Underwater Street View in 3D of the Great Barrier Reef. A March 2016 report stated that coral bleaching was more widespread than thought affecting the northern parts of the reef as a result of warming ocean temperatures. In October 2016, Outside published an obituary for the reef. In March 2017, the journal Nature published a paper showing that huge sections of an 800-kilometre stretch in the northern part of the reef had died in the course of 2016 due to high water temperatures, an event that the authors put down to the effects of global climate change.
The Great Barrier Reef is a distinct feature of the East Australian Cordillera division. It reaches from Torres Strait in the north to the unnamed passage between Lady Elliot Island and Fraser Island in the south. Lady Elliot Island is located 1,915 km southeast of Bramble Cay, it includes the smaller Murray Islands. The plate tectonic theory indicates Australia has moved northwards at a rate of 7 cm per year, starting during the Cenozoic. Eastern Australia experienced a period of tectonic uplift, which moved the drainage divide in Queensland 400 km inland. During this time, Queensland experienced volcanic eruptions leading to central and shield volcanoes and basalt flows; some of these became high islands. After the Coral Sea Basin formed, coral reefs began to grow in the Basin, but until about 25 million years ago, northern Queensland was still in temperate waters south of the tropics—too cool to support coral growth; the Great Barrier Reef's development history is complex. Reefs can increase in diameter by 1 to 3 centimetres per year, grow vertically anywhere from 1 to 25 cm per year.
When Queensland edged into tropical waters 24 million years ago, some coral grew, but a sedimentation regime developed with erosion of the Great Dividing Range. 10 million years ago, the sea level lowered, which further enabled sedimentation. The reef's substrate may have needed to build up from the sediment until its edge was too far away for suspended sediments to inhibit coral growth. In addition 400,000 years ago there was a warm interglacial period with higher sea levels and a 4 °C water temperature change; the land that formed the substrate of the current Great Barrier Reef was a coastal plain formed from the eroded sediments of the Great Dividing Range with some larger hills. The Reef Research Centre, a Cooperative Research Centre, has found coral'skeleton' deposits that date back half a million years; the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority considers the earliest evidence of complete reef structures to have been 600,000 years ago. According to the GBRMPA, the current, living reef structure is believed to have begun growing on the older platform about 20,000 years ago.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science agrees, placing the beginning of the growth of the current reef at the time of the Last Glacial Maximum. At around that time, sea level was 120 metres lower. From 20,000 years ago until 6,000 years ago, sea level rose around the world; as it rose, the corals could grow higher on the newly submerged maritime margins of the hills of the coastal plain. By around 13,000 years ago the sea level was only 60 metres lower than the present day, corals began to surround the hills of the coastal plain, which were, by continental islands; as the sea level rose further still, most of
Cairns
Cairns is a city in the Cairns Region, Australia. It is on the east coast of Far North Queensland; the city is the 5th-most-populous in ranks 14th overall in Australia. Cairns was founded in 1876 and named after William Wellington Cairns, Governor of Queensland from 1875 to 1877, it was formed to serve miners heading for the Hodgkinson River goldfield, but declined when an easier route was discovered from Port Douglas. It developed into a railhead and major port for exporting sugar cane and other metals and agricultural products from surrounding coastal areas and the Atherton Tableland region; the population of the Cairns urban area at the 2016 Census was 144,787. Based on 2015 data, the associated local government area has experienced an average annual growth rate of 2.3% over the last 10 years. Cairns is a popular tourist destination because of its tropical climate and access to both nearby tropical rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Prior to British settlement, the Cairns area was inhabited by the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji people, who still claim their Native Title rights.
The area is known in the local Yidiny language as Gimuy. From 1770 to the early 1870s the area was known to the British as Trinity Bay; the arrival of beche de mer fishermen from the late 1860s saw the first European presence in the area. On the site of the modern-day Cairns foreshore, there was a large native well, used by these fishermen. A violent confrontation occurred in 1872 between local Yidinji people and Phillip Garland, a beche de mer fisherman, over the use of this well; the area from this date was subsequently called Battle Camp. In 1876, hastened by the need to export gold mined from the Hodgkinson goldfields on the tablelands to the west, closer investigation by several official expeditions established its potential for development into a port. Brinsley G. Sheridan surveyed the area and selected a place further up Trinity Inlet known to the diggers as Smith's Landing for a settlement which he renamed Thornton. However, after Native Police officers Alexander Douglas-Douglas and Robert Arthur Johnstone opened a new track from the goldfields to Battle Camp, this more coastal site became preferable.
Battle Camp was renamed Cairns in late 1876 in honour of the Governor of Queensland, William Cairns. The site was sand ridges. Labourers cleared the swamps, the sand ridges were filled with dried mud, sawdust from local sawmills, ballast from a quarry at Edge Hill. Debris from the construction of a railway to Herberton on the Atherton Tableland, a project which started in 1886, was used; the railway opened up land used for agriculture on the lowlands, for fruit and dairy production on the Tableland. The success of local agriculture helped establish Cairns as a port, the creation of a harbour board in 1906 supported its economic future. On 25 April 1926, the Cairns Sailors and Soldiers War Memorial was unveiled by Alexander Frederick Draper, the mayor of the City of Cairns. During World War II, the Allied Forces used Cairns as a staging base for operations in the Pacific, with United States Army Air Forces and Royal Australian Air Force operational bases, as well as a major military seaplane base in Trinity Inlet, United States Navy and Royal Australian Navy bases near the current wharf.
Combat missions were flown out of Cairns in support of the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942. Edmonton and White Rock south of Cairns were major military supply areas and U. S. Paratroopers trained at the Goldsborough Valley. A Special Forces training base was established at the old "Fairview" homestead on Munro's Hill, Mooroobool; this base was known as the Z Experimental Station, but referred to informally as "The House on the Hill". After World War II, Cairns developed into a centre for tourism; the opening of the Cairns International Airport in 1984 helped establish the city as a desirable destination for international tourism. According to the 2016 census of Population, there were 144,787 people in Cairns. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 8.9% of the population. 67.9% of people were born in Australia. The next most common countries of birth were England 4.0%, New Zealand 3.1%, Papua New Guinea 1.5%, Philippines 1.2% and Japan 1.1%. 76.9% of people only spoke English at home.
Other languages spoken at home included Japanese 1.6%, Mandarin 0.8%, Italian 0.7%, Korean 0.7% and German 0.6%. The most common responses for religion were No Religion 32.1%, Catholic 22.4% and Anglican 13.2%. Cairns is located on the east coast of Cape York Peninsula on a coastal strip between the Coral Sea and the Great Dividing Range; the northern part of the city is located on Trinity Bay and the city centre is located on Trinity Inlet. To the south of the Trinity Inlet lies the Aboriginal community of Yarrabah; some of the city's suburbs are located on flood plains. The Mulgrave River and Barron River flow within the greater Cairns area but not through the CBD; the city's centre foreshore is located on a mud flat. Cairns is a provincial city, with a linear urban layout that runs from the south at Edmonton to the north at Ellis Beach; the city is 52 km from north to south. The Northern Beaches consist of a number of beach communities extending north along the coast. In general, each beach suburb is at the end of a spur road extending from the Captain Cook Highway.
From south to north, these are Machans Beach, Holloways Beach, Yorkeys Knob, Trinity Park, Trinity B
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south, South Australia to the west, its coast borders the Tasman Sea to the east. The Australian Capital Territory is an enclave within the state. New South Wales' state capital is Sydney, Australia's most populous city. In September 2018, the population of New South Wales was over 8 million, making it Australia's most populous state. Just under two-thirds of the state's population, 5.1 million, live in the Greater Sydney area. 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 comprised more than half of the Australian mainland with its western boundary set at 129th meridian east in 1825; the colony included the island territories of New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land, Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island. During the 19th century, most of the colony's area was detached to form separate British colonies that became New Zealand and the various states and territories of Australia.
However, the Swan River Colony has never been 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 areas now known as the Australian Capital Territory and the Jervis Bay 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 original custodians of the Illawarra region of South Sydney. Speaking a variant of the Dharawal language, the Wodi Wodi people lived across a large stretch of land, surrounded by what is now known as Campbelltown, Shoalhaven River and Moss Vale; the Bundjalung people are the original 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 unmapped eastern coast of the Dutch-named continent of New Holland, now Australia.
In his original journal covering the survey, in triplicate to satisfy Admiralty Orders, Cook first named the land "New Wales", named after Wales. However, in the copy held by the Admiralty, he "revised the wording" to "New South Wales"; the first British settlement was made by. After years of chaos and anarchy after the overthrow of Governor William Bligh, a new governor, Lieutenant-Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, was sent from Britain to reform the settlement in 1809. During his time as governor, Macquarie commissioned the construction of roads, wharves and public buildings, sent explorers out from Sydney and employed a planner to design the street layout of Sydney. Macquarie's legacy is still evident today. During the 19th century, large areas were successively separated to form the British colonies of Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland. 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.
In 1841 it was separated from the Colony of New South Wales to form the new Colony of New Zealand. Charles Darwin visited Australia in January 1836 and in The Voyage of the Beagle records his hesitations about and fascination with New South Wales, including his speculations about the geological origin and formation of the great valleys, the aboriginal population, the situation of the convicts, the future prospects of the country. At the end of the 19th century, the movement toward federation between the Australian colonies gathered momentum. Conventions and forums involving colony leaders were held on a regular basis. Proponents of New South Wales as a free trade state were in dispute with the other leading colony Victoria, which had a protectionist economy. At this time customs posts were common on borders on the Murray River. Travelling from New South Wales to Victoria in those days was difficult. Supporters of federation included the New South Wales premier Sir Henry Parkes whose 1889 Tenterfield Speech was pivotal in gathering support for New South Wales involvement.
Edmund Barton to become Australia's first Prime Minister, was another strong advocate for federation and a meeting held in Corowa in 1893 drafted an initial constitution. In 1898 popular referenda on the proposed federation were held in New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania. All votes resulted in a majority in favour, but the New South Wales government under Premier George Reid had set a requirement for a higher "yes" vote than just a simple majority, not met. In 1899 further referenda were held in the same states as well as Queensland. All resulted in yes votes with majorities increased from the previous year. New South Wales met the conditions; as a compromise to the question on where the capital was to be located, an agreement was made that the site was to be within New South Wales but not closer than 100 miles from Sydney, while the provisional capital would be Melbourne. The area that now forms the Australian Capital Territory was ceded by New South Wales when Canberra was selected.
In the years after World War I, the high prices enjoyed durin
