Chapter 4 – Victoria
Chapter 4 – Victoria Rocky road for the oldest civil liberties group The somewhat rocky history of civil liberties in Victoria clearly demonstrates the difficulty there, as throughout Australia, of maintaining a small voluntary group, and of retaining a non-party political stance. It also shows that such groups depend absolutely upon the dedication of an individual, or a small group of people, to survive. The first recorded push by white settlers for rights in Victoria came in the 1840s, when petitioners wanted the felicitously-named “Australia Felix” to be separated from New South Wales. Eventually, after many petitions, the rather more prosaic “Port Phillip District” became a colony, formally named Victoria by a British act of 1850 signed by the very Queen herself, and by an act of the NSW legislature, signed a year later on 1 July 1851, just as gold rushes were starting in both states. Victoria went from about 77,000 people in that year to about 540,000 just 10 years later, creating huge tensions in a society self-amalgamated by the main chance. One of the first documented instances of these diverse individuals standing up for their collective rights in the colony of Victoria occurred in 1854, in an armed rebellion against the government by miners protesting against mining taxes (the 'Eureka Stockade'). While British troops rapidly and savagely crushed the uprising, there was much public sympathy for the miners: within a few years, leaders of the rebellion had become Victoria parliamentarians. The Eureka Stockade came to be regarded by some as a crucial moment in the development of Australian democracy.1 An Italian, Raffaello Carboni (photo), was there, and addressed the 29 Nov 1854 “monster meeting “ with “10,000 diggers and 15,000 people”, speaking for the “aliens” (foreigners): I…called on all my fellow-diggers, irrespective of nationality, religion, and colour, to salute the 'Southern Cross' as the refuge of all the oppressed from all countries on earth.
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