The Queensland we know today has been shaped by events of the past and the people who pioneered its development as an independent State.
Indigenous people | Settlement | Early development | Federation
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have their own distinct identity, history and cultural traditions.
It is difficult to know precisely when the Aboriginal people first arrived in Queensland. The oral tradition of Aboriginal people, passed down through myths and legends of the Dreaming, tells us that they lived in what we now know as Queensland for many thousands of years prior to European settlement. Archaeological sites in southern Australia have been firmly dated to around 40,000 years. In Queensland, many sites 15,000 to 30,000 years old have been excavated.
The Torres Strait Islands are situated between Australia and New Guinea. There are over 100 islands within the region; approximately 20 of them are occupied. Each island within the Strait has its own name and distinct language. The people of the Torres Strait are of Melanesian origin and have occupied the islands for many thousands of years. The Strait was named after Luis Vaez de Torres, a Spanish adventurer who visited the area in 1606.
The Torres Strait Islanders became part of Queensland in 1879 following the passage of legislation by the Queensland and British parliaments. The Queensland Government enacted the Torres Strait Islanders Act 1939 after the 1936 Maritime strike. The Islanders took this action in an effort to take control their own affairs and gain fairer treatment. The Act established a system of an elected local government council giving the people of these communities a greater role in how the Islands were run. The first Torres Strait Islander permitted on the mainland to cut cane was in 1947 and in the 1960s the Islanders were free to work and settle elsewhere.
There are differing theories as to how Aboriginal habitation occurred. Some suggest the earliest Aborigines settled along the coast and estuaries. Others believe the woodland sites with their abundance of food and water were first settled, allowing the Aborigines to develop the skills that later enabled them to occupy arid inland. The Queensland of 40,000 years ago was very different from today. Temperatures were cooler and most of Queensland was covered by forest and treed grasslands. Lake Carpentaria dominated what is now the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Increasing aridity shrank the forests and expanded the dry grasslands. Aborigines adapted to these conditions, resulting in a mixture of lifestyles throughout Queensland. Research shows that Aborigines were knowledgeable and sophisticated managers of resources. Aboriginal people arranged themselves into complex social and territorial groupings that varied throughout the continent. The diversity of art styles and ceremonies show that the Aboriginal lifestyle was more than mere survival. These people had spiritual, economic and social practices.
Aboriginal people in Queensland traded extensively over short and long distances, exchanging items such as dilly bags, spear throwers, and fighting shields for necklaces, boomerangs and axe heads. Prior to non-indigenous settlement, it is estimated that there were more than 90 indigenous languages in Queensland.
Torres Strait Islanders used canoes to hunt for fish, turtle and dugong, which they used for trading and from the late 1860s pearling became established in the Islands. The Torres Strait Islanders speak their own language, of which there are four different types within the region. The traditional religion of these people is zogo; many converted to Christianity in the 1870s when the London Missionary Society visited the Islands.
In 1982, Eddie Mabo and other Torres Strait Islander people started legal action to claim ownership of their land, an island in the Torres Strait. The Mabo case spanned 10 years resulting in the High Court of Australia judgement that recognised the traditional land rights for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. This landmark case overturned the doctorine of terra nullius (no-one's land) and the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993 was passed enabling the Indigenous people of Australia the right to claim their traditional land.
Queensland was first seen by Europeans in the 1600s. Dutch explorer Willem Jansz landed on the Cape York Peninsula in 1606 and in 1623 Jan Carstens explored the Gulf of Carpentaria. An Englishman, Lieutenant James Cook, is acknowledged as the first European to encounter Queensland's east coast in 1770 in HMS Endeavour. When non-indigenous settlement occurred it was not for reasons of high principle or sentiment as in North America, but rather to establish a penal settlement.
Queensland's early days were spent as part of the British-administered Colony of New South Wales which, at that time, occupied a large part of the Australian continent. Brisbane was established in 1825 as a penal settlement for the more intractable convicts. The Brisbane penal settlement was officially closed in 1839 and the land was prepared for sale for permanent settlement.
As Queensland's economic significance increased and its productivity and population expanded, a separate sense of identity emerged. The people of Queensland began to realise the importance of Brisbane as a port and urban centre. Brisbane had become the dominant urban centre of the north, linked by land with the northern pastoral settlements and by sea with Sydney and London. The physical remoteness of Queensland from the centre of government in New South Wales and disquiet with the maintenance of public infrastructure, further contributed to a desire for independence.
In 1851 a public meeting was held to consider Queensland's separation from New South Wales. Queen Victoria gave her approval and signed Letters Patent on June 6 1859 to establish the new colony of Queensland. On the same day an Order-in-Council gave Queensland its own Constitution. Queensland became a self-governing colony with its own Governor, a nominated Legislative Council and an elected Legislative Assembly. June 6 is now celebrated by Queenslanders as the day acknowledging the birth of Queensland. On December 10, Queensland's first Governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen, officially proclaimed Queensland to be a separate colony from New South Wales.
After separation, towns outside Brisbane began to develop. In 1860 Ipswich and Rockhampton were officially declared towns. Maryborough and Warwick followed in the next year.
Queensland's first elections were held in 1860. Robert George Wyndham Herbert led the first elected government as Premier. On May 22 of that year, Queensland Parliament opened for the first time. Immigration, communications and development issues broadly occupied Queensland's early politics. The railway network extended as towns demanded their own link.
One of the earliest resolves of the new parliament was to increase the population of the new colony as rapidly as possible. A land-order system was devised to attract new settlers. As a result, over three years, nearly 25,000 people landed in Queensland lured by the prospect of becoming landed proprietors.
The discovery of payable gold near Rockhampton was to be the first of many successful discoveries that spurred development in Queensland and helped to protect the State from the effects of the 1866 Depression.
Queensland pioneered the state secondary education system in the early 1860s when the government subsidised municipalities to set up grammar schools - the first free education in Australia. In 1866 Queensland Treasury banknotes were issued for the first time.
The Constitution Act 1867 (Qld) defined the formal institutions of Government including parliament and the executive government. The Act locates executive power with the Governor, representing the Crown and Executive Council, which consists of the current Ministers appointed by the Governor. The Constitutional powers of the executive government, including summoning and dissolving parliament, appointing and dismissing Ministers and assenting legislation passed by the houses of parliament, are defined in the Constitution Act.
In 1876 the current design of the Queensland Flag was officially adopted. Local government was established in 1879 with the passage of the Divisional Boards Act.
By 1891, wool had become an enormous industry in Australia. The pay rates and conditions under which shearers worked fuelled discontent which erupted into the shearers' strike when a Darling Downs Station employed non-union men. Thousands of shearers refused to work. The potential for revolution dissolved when Aborigines, Kanaka Islanders and Chinese immigrants were enlisted to work for even cheaper wages. The strike is remembered as an event that created camaraderie among Australian workers from all backgrounds and launched labour politics.
As fears were expressed that Aboriginal people in Queensland faced extinction, the Government resolved to establish new governmental reserves to accommodate the remaining tribes throughout the State. In 1897, the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act was passed, authorising the removal of Aboriginal people to reserves (these powers of removal continued until 1971 when the Act was amended).
Just over four decades of autonomy elapsed before Federation, on 1 January 1901, created the union of the Commonwealth of Australia. The majority of Queenslanders voted 'yes' to a referendum asking whether Queensland should join the Federation. Once this referendum was passed, Queensland lost its colonial status and became a State.
There have been few fundamental changes to the government structures established by the original colonial Constitution Acts. Notable changes included:
Unlike the Commonwealth Government, the legislative authority of the State parliaments is defined broadly. Section 2 of the Constitution Act 1867 authorises the Queensland Parliament 'to make laws for the peace, welfare and good government of the colony in all cases whatsoever'. These broad powers were confirmed by the Australia Act 1986 , which declared that the legislative powers of each State Parliament 'include full power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of that State'.
Queensland today has one of the strongest economies in Australia. The State has prospered through agriculture, mining and, more recently, tourism.
The third most populous state, Queensland in 2003-04 attained a growth rate above the average Australian rate for the eighth consecutive year. As at June 2005, Queensland's population was estimated to be 3,963,968 (source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Regional Population Growth, Australia, Cat. No. 3218.0).
For more historical information about Queensland visit the John Oxley Library. The State's founding documents also provide the history of Queensland's democracy.
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© The State of Queensland 1996 - 2008.