Towards NSW Representative Government (Stage 3 Australian Democracy unit)
A military penal colony
NSW began as a penal colony under military rule, with an autocratic governor at its head. The British brought their law with them and it was applied in the colony as they saw fit. (Initially, there was no trial by jury, for example, as it was not required in a penal colony.)
The first Legislative Council
The first move towards representative government was in 1823, with the establishment of a Legislative Council of 5-7 important men, appointed by the governor to advise him. Poorer free settlers, women, Aboriginal people, convicts and ordinary soldiers were excluded from the Council. A number of influential men in the early colony, like William Charles Wentworth, questioned the autocratic power of the governor. As increasing numbers of free settlers arrived in the colony, its penal nature began to change and these free settlers wanted some say in how the colony was governed. This first Legislative Council had no real power and did not represent the people.
The Legislative Council in NSW
The increasing discontent of the colonists, who were demanding representation on the Legislative Council, brought about the next significant changes. Many of these colonists were born in the colony (currency lads and lasses) and had fewer ties to Britain than their parents. In 1842, the British Parliament passed an Act establishing that the Legislative Council in NSW was to consist of 36 members, two thirds of whom were to be elected and the remaining one third appointed by the Crown (governor). Only wealthy white men could become members of the Council and only men owning a certain amount of property (a freehold estate worth 200 pounds or a dwelling worth 20 pounds per year) could vote. At the first election held in NSW in 1843, out of a total population of 169 135, only 9315 men were enrolled to choose the 24 elected members of the Council. The governor, who was no longer a member of the Legislative Council, still had the power to make the laws.
First parliamnt in NSW
The first parliament in NSW was established in 1856, with a Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly (a bicameral legislature). All white men who were British subjects could vote to elect members to the Legislative Assembly as long as they owned enough property. This property qualification was now lower: a freehold estate worth 100 pounds or a dwelling worth 10 pounds. The number of men enrolled to vote was now 44 526, or 15% of the population. 54 members were elected, but Aboriginal people, women and poor white men were unable to vote. Even so, in relation to the rest of the world, NSW was quite advanced. Most people in other countries at this time did not have the right to vote.
In 1856, members of the Legislative Council were not elected by the people, they were appointed by the governor on the advice of senior men in government. There was no real control over the number of members who could be appointed.
The Electoral Reform Act
In 1858, the NSW parliament passed the Electoral Reform Act, giving almost all white men the right to vote. Representation still remained an issue. Country districts had proportionally higher representation than city districts, and some men could vote more than once if they owned property in more than one electorate. Not all men who were allowed to vote did so, as voting was not compulsory until 1928.
Womens' right to vote
A voting process was established for the first time in NSW in 1903 and in Commonwealth elections in 1902. Women had been excluded up to this time. Reasons include the low status of women in society up to this time and the idea that when a woman married, she could not own property in her own right; instead, it belonged to her husband. Many women did not like this unequal situation and campaigned vigorously to obtain the suffrage, or right to vote. While women received the right to vote in NSW in 1902, they could not stand for election to the Legislative Assembly in NSW until 1918 or be appointed to the Legislative Council until 1926.
Aboriginies right to vote
Of all groups in Australia, Aboriginal people, the original inhabitants of the country, were the most marginalised in relation to citizenship and voting rights. They could not vote in Federal elections until 1962 and only then if they had already voted in State elections, although all Aboriginal ex-servicemen received the right to vote in 1949. The reasons for this include: racist ideas about white superiority; resistance, warfare and dispossession; massacres of Aboriginal people; the parenting type roles played by missionaries and governments; government protection policies which, while trying to `protect' Aboriginal people, also segregated them on reserves, reduced them to a dependent status and ensured they were `controlled'; veiled attempts at genocide through government policies such as assimilation.
Sources
- Ball, D, Aborigines in the Defence of Australia, Australian National University Press, 1991.
- The Parliament of New South Wales, Parliament in New South Wales -- How Does It Work?: Resource Material for Years 5 and 6, The Parliament of New South Wales, 1989.
- Lumb, R D, The Constitutions of the Australian States, University of Queensland Press, 1980.