How did the Australian Federation occur?
Federation is the name given to the union of the six self-governing colonies of Australia on 1 January 1901, to form one nation as a union of states under a central authority. Before Federation each Australian colony had its own government and its own laws, with its own defence force, tariffs on imported goods in some cases, and postage stamps etc. This caused a lot of problems and people began to think about the benefits of forming one nation. In the 1890s the colonies came together at special meetings called conventions to try to agree about how to form a new federal system of governance. Eventually they agreed on the rules of a federal system of governance that would run matters that concerned the whole country. The people of the colonies voted to accept this new constitution, which was then taken to the British Parliament and Queen Victoria signed the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1901. Section 9 of this Act is called ‘Constitution’.
