From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The
federation of Australia
was the way that the six separate
British
colonies
of
New South Wales
,
Queensland
,
South Australia
,
Tasmania
,
Victoria
and
Western Australia
joined together to become one country. When the
Constitution of Australia
came into force, on 1 January 1901, the colonies became
states
of the
Commonwealth of Australia
.
People had been trying to get the colonies to join together in a federation of Australia during the 1850s and 1860s. In the 1890s, a number of big meetings, called conventions, were held to write a constitution for Australia. Sir
Henry Parkes
, Premier of
New South Wales
, was the main person supporting this idea.
Fiji
and
New Zealand
were going to be part of the federation but decided not to join the federation.
As soon as the Federation happened, Sir
Edmund Barton
was put in charge as
Prime Minister of Australia
until the first Australian
elections
were held. Barton won the election and continued to be the Prime Minister.