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There were 6 Bristish colonies in Australialia. They could decide some things themselves, but the laws were made in Britain.
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Each colony was now able to elect their own goverment, but still the big decisions were made in Britain. People in the colonies were starting to talk about joining together to be one nation instead of 6 little colonies. Joining together like this is called Federation.
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A meeting was held to dicuss federation. Eash colony sent 7 people. They started to write a consituition, which is a list of rules about how the nation's parliment will work.
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The federation groups decided that the people of Australia should vote to decide if federation should take place.
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Meetings discussed the draft consitution and made changes and a new draft. Queensland was the only colony that did not send people to the meetings. Because some colonies were much smaller than others, it was decided to have parliment the way the United states did - the number of people from each state in the house of repersentiatves depends on how many people live in the state, but each state has the same number of people in the senate.
Goto version two -
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People in all the colonies except Queensland and western Australia voted on the consitution, but in new south wales they did not adree to what was written and vote failed.
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The premiers met to discuss the things that worried those three colonies, and changes were made to the consitution. One change was that there would be a new capital built between sydney and melbourne, because both thought they should be the capital city. People in all colonies except Westeren Australia voted for the new consitution, and this time it was successful.
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A committee took the consitution to London to persuade the British Parliment to pass a law allowing five colonies to join together to become a nation. The law was passed in Jumay and signed by Queen Victoria, in july saying that on !st january 1901, New South wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and tasmainia would become states in the Commonwealth of Australia. Mean while, there was a gold rush in Western Ausrtalia and people from all over the country went there to look for gold. vers 2
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The Western Australians started to change their minds about federation, and in august they voted to be part of it.
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The Australian Goverment takes control of all australian colonial army and naval forces. Australia's population reaches 3 777 801, but Aboriginal peoples are not inclued in the census. The winning design for the Australian flag is annonced.
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General, Lord Hopetoun, officialy declared that there were now six states forming the Commonwealth of Australia. The first parliment waa opened in Melbourne on the 9th of May.
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Women in New South Wales get the vote in their state.
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