Western Australia
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Western Australia is one of the six states of Australia. It is the biggest state in Australia. It has a population of about 2,000,000 people. Its capital city is Perth.
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[edit] History
[edit] Before 1900
It was first discovered in the 1600s when big Dutch ships trying to sail to Indonesia from Europe crashed off the west coast. Other ships went looking for them and drew maps of the coast. They didn't think anything would grow on the land, so they moved on and didn't come back.
In the 1800s, the French and the British were fighting a war. The British had just settled in New South Wales in eastern Australia. The French sailed around Western Australia, drew more maps of it and named things they saw after themselves and their boats.
In 1827, a Captain in the British army, James Stirling, sailed up the Swan River and liked what he saw. He told the British government, and in 1829, Britain sent settlers to Western Australia and made James Stirling the governor. They started up the towns of Fremantle and Perth.
They gave land to everyone who came to Western Australia very cheaply. However a lot of the land was not good for growing things, and Stirling sent men all over the state to find better land. After walking for hundreds of kilometres, they told Stirling which places were good, and some people left Perth and went to those places.
The part of Western Australia south of Perth was called the South West. It was green, and good for growing food, and for cattle and dairy farming. The places north, east and south-east of Perth were called the Wheatbelt, because they were good for growing wheat and raising sheep.
By 1850, the settlers were growing their own food but there were few roads, as roads cost money to build but did not make money. So Western Australia asked Britain to send over convicts (people who had been sent to jail for theft and other crimes) who could work for the government. They built thousands of kilometres of roads, as well as many buildings for the government. In 1868, Britain stopped sending convicts.
By 1890, Western Australia had a lot of people, but they were ruled by a governor who was sent by Britain. People in Western Australia wanted to run their own country, and not be told what to do by the British, so they were allowed to establish their own Parliament, where they could make their own laws. The governor was still there but the parliament was making all the decisions and the governor simply approved them. The first Premier (leader of the government) was John Forrest.
In 1893, lots of gold was found at Kalgoorlie. Many people came from eastern Australia and from other countries hoping to get rich. It was called a "gold rush", and the place was called "The Golden Mile" because of all the gold under it, which some say is more than anywhere else in the world.
[edit] Federation
Until 1901, Australia did not exist - it was six separate colonies governed by Britain. This worked well when everybody was British and there were only a few people. But now there was thousands of people and many of them had never been to Britain, an eight month journey away by sea.
They decided to join together to form one new country, the Commonwealth of Australia. This was called Federation, and happened in 1901. Western Australia did not want to join, because the other colonies were thousands of kilometres away. They joined when the other colonies promised to build a railway to Perth.
[edit] Secession referendum
In 1933, the Western Australian people didn't want to be part of Australia any more. The main reason was that Western Australia had to give money to the rest of Australia to pay for national services like the army and education, but they weren't seeing the benefits. As well, the Great Depression had happened and many people were homeless and poor all over the world, including Western Australia.
The government decided to hold a referendum and ask the people whether they wanted to start their own country, and 68% said yes. However, the rest of Australia and the British Parliament stopped it. Even today, some Western Australians do not want to be part of Australia.
[edit] Modern history
After that, things got back to normal. The Great Depression ended and the Second World War began, and many Western Australians went off to fight. Some of them had to stay here, because in 1942, the Japanese bombed the town of Broome in the far north.
When the war ended, a lot of people from Europe who had lost their homes in the war came to Western Australia, as land was still very cheap. In the 1960s, iron ore was found in the north of the state, which could be made into steel. This discovery made Western Australia very rich, and iron ore still brings in a lot of money.
Perth grew from being a small town to being a big city in just 30 years. By 1985 it had over a million people and it is still getting bigger today.
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