Australia

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Commonwealth of Australia
Australia
Flag of Australia
Coat of arms of australia
flag coat of arms
Official language de jure : none
de facto : English
Capital Canberra
Form of government federal , parliamentary monarchy
Government system parliamentary democracy ( Westminster system )
Head of state Queen Elizabeth II

represented by Governor General David Hurley

Head of government Prime Minister
Scott Morrison
surface ( 6. ) 7,688,287 km²
population (52nd) 25,324,713 (April 5, 2019)
Population density (191.) 3.1 inhabitants per km²
Population development   +1.6% per year
gross domestic product
  • Total (nominal)
  • Total ( PPP )
  • GDP / inh. (nominal)
  • GDP / inh. (KKP)
2018
  • $ 1,420 billion ( 14. )
  • $ 1,318 billion ( 20th )
  • $ 56,420 ( 11. )
  • $ 52,379 ( 20. )
Human Development Index   0.939 ( 3rd ) (2017)
currency Australian dollar (AUD)
founding January 1, 1901:
Commonwealth of Australia
independence September 26, 1907
( Dominion )

October 9, 1942
( Westminster Statute )


March 3, 1986
( Australia Act )

National anthem Advance Australia Fair
National holiday January 26 ( Australia Day )
Time zone UTC + 8 to UTC + 11
License Plate OUT
ISO 3166 AU , AUS, 036
Internet TLD .au
Telephone code +61
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About this picture

Australia (official German name; English Commonwealth of Australia , German obsolete Australischer Bund ) is a state in the southern hemisphere of the earth , the entire landmass of the Australian continent , the offshore island Tasmania to the south , the sub-Antarctic Macquarieinsel with its side islands and as outer areas the Pacific Norfolk island , the Cocos Islands , the Christmas island and Ashmore and Cartier Islands and Heard island and McDonald Islands in the Indian Ocean covers. Since the Antarctic Treaty of 1933, the country has also been making claims on the Australian Antarctic Territory . Its neighbors are New Zealand in the southeast and Indonesia , East Timor and Papua New Guinea in the north.

Australia has about 25.3 million people and is sparsely populated. With an area of ​​more than 7.6 million km², it is the sixth largest state in the world. The capital is Canberra , the largest city is the metropolis Sydney . Other metropolitan areas are Melbourne , Brisbane , Perth , Adelaide and Gold Coast .

Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It ranked sixth on the United Nations Human Development Index in 2019. The country has an advanced service - and service economy and significant natural resources . Its culture and economic strength make it an attractive destination for migrants , but Australia's migration and asylum policy imposes strict legal criteria on immigration.

term

The name "Australia" is etymologically derived from the Latin term "terra australis", which means "southern country". Even in ancient times it was assumed that there was a continent to the south that was called terra australis incognita . The spread of the name Australia goes back to the explorer Matthew Flinders (1774-1814), who entered the name Australia in his hand-made map after circumnavigating the continent from 1801 to 1803 and published it in a book about his trip in 1814. By the late 1820s, the name Australia had become widely accepted.

Nowadays the term "Australia" is used ambiguously . Geographically, it means the central land mass of the continent minus the island of Tasmania off the south-eastern tip of the continent . Politically, the English name "Australia" serves as a short form of the official state name "Commonwealth of Australia", which includes the island of Tasmania as a federal state and the Australian outer areas .

geography

The 348 m high
island mountain Uluṟu ("Ayers Rock"), located 340 km southwest of Alice Springs in the outback , in the Northern Territory - one of the landmarks of Australia

The area of ​​the Australian continent covers nearly 7.7 million square kilometers. 59,000 km² of this is water. It is the sixth largest country in the world in terms of area . According to official surveys, the coastline is 25,760 km long. The lowest point of the Australian continent is the in the state of South Australia situated Salt Lake Lake Eyre , 17 m below sea level. The highest point of the main land mass is the Mount Kosciuszko m with 2228, the highest mountain of the whole Australian territory is 2,745 m of on the uninhabited island Heard located Big Ben . The Australian core area is divided into three time zones. The Australian outer areas are partly in different time zones.

Australia's north-south extension from the Cape York Peninsula to the Southeast Cape on Tasmania is approximately 3860 km. The east-west extension is about 4000 km.

Large landscapes

Geographically, three major landscapes can be distinguished: the eastern, central and western large landscapes.

The large western landscape, the plateau of the western Australian plateau, takes up about 60 percent of the Australian land mass. Here are the large arid areas of the Great Sandy Desert , the Small Sandy Desert , the Gibson Desert , the Great Victoria Desert and the Nullarbor Desert . Smaller mountains like the MacDonnell Ranges and island mountains like the Uluṟu are abundant.

To the east is the central large landscape, the sedimentary basin of the Central Australian Depression or the central lowland. Here is the Simpson Desert , the driest region of the country as well as the largest river system, the Murray Darling Basin . In the middle large landscape there are periodically drying up freshwater lakes as well as salt lakes .

Since both the western and the medium-sized landscape are largely uninhabitable, the majority of the Australian population lives in the eastern large landscape. This large eastern landscape encompasses the transitions from the mountains down to the coastal landscape. Coral reefs are in front of the coast of the state of Queensland , which together form the Great Barrier Reef . The mountain range that characterizes this part of the country is the Great Dividing Range , which extends over 3200 km from north to south. Tasmania is geologically considered to be a continuation of the Great Dividing Range. In the Snowy Mountains belonging to the Great Dividing Range is Mount Kosciuszko , at 2229 m the highest point on the Australian land mass. Between the mountains and the coastal strip lies the eco-zone of forests of temperate climate .

The large desert and semi-desert areas of Australia are known as the outback .

Settlements

The capital Canberra , located between Sydney and Melbourne , is a city from the drawing board , a planned capital . It came about as a compromise because Sydney and Melbourne could not agree on which of the two cities should become the capital of the Commonwealth of Australia . The most populous cities are the coastal cities of Sydney (5.0 million inhabitants), Melbourne (4.7 million inhabitants), Brisbane (2.3 million inhabitants), Perth (2.1 million inhabitants) and Adelaide (1.2 million inhabitants) ; the inland capital Canberra (356,100 inhabitants) only ranks 8th after the Gold Coast and Newcastle .

climate

By global warming , the probability of forest fires and bush fires in Australia increased. The climate report of the Australian Meteorological Service and the research organization CSIRO confirms this. Even below a degree of warming, the forest fire season extends “with high confidence ”. In 2019, there were fires in around four million hectares in Australia. This corresponds to the area of ​​Switzerland.

Flora and fauna

history

Before the Europeans arrived

The Aborigines have lived on the continent for at least 50,000 years . While the northern route via Sulawesi and New Guinea used to be the route of the first people to arrive in Australia, findings in East Timor in recent years make the route via the island of Timor more likely. Despite the isolated location of the continent, the Aborigines were in contact with other cultures . Until the land bridge to New Guinea was flooded about 6000 years ago, there was an almost unhindered cultural exchange between New Guinea and northern Australia.

About 4230 years ago (as of 2013), as a result of the immigration of people from the Indian subcontinent , the Aborigines mixed with the newcomers, which can be seen in a sudden change in the processing of plant parts and a changed production method for stone tools. At the same time, the dingo first appeared on the Australian continent .

After the newly created islands of the Torres Strait were settled by Melanesian seafarers about 1000 years ago , the encounters between them and the ancestral inhabitants of northern Australia led to a mixture of both ethnicities .

Fishermen from the Indonesian islands near Australia and traders from the distant shores of China and India have probably also visited the Australian coasts for several centuries. Their cultural influence is shown in many bark and rock paintings of the Aboriginal tribes living in the north, such as B. the Yolngu on Milingimbi clearly.

First sightings by Europeans

Explorations by European explorers until 1812
  • 1606 Willem Jansz
  • 1606 Luiz Váez de Torres
  • 1616 Dirk Hartog
  • 1619 Frederick de Houtman
  • 1644 Abel Tasman
  • 1696 Willem de Vlamingh
  • 1699 William Dampier
  • 1770 James Cook
  • 1797-1799 George Bass
  • 1801-1803 Matthew Flinders
  • Long before the discovery of Australia by European sailors in the 17th century, the Greek scholar turned Claudius Ptolemy already in the ancient times , the theory on the existence of a Südkontinentes he " Terra Australis Incognita " called. According to his theory, this southern continent had to act as a counterweight to the land masses in the northern hemisphere . This theory persisted through the entire Middle Ages up to the " European expansion " in the early modern period , which led to the cartographers putting this assumed southern continent on their world maps.

    From the European side, Portuguese, French, Spanish and, above all, Dutch seafarers probably reached the coasts of Australia and went ashore as early as the 16th century . The first confirmed discovery is the arrival of the Dutchman Willem Jansz on the coast of the Cape York Peninsula in northeast Australia in 1606. His compatriot Dirk Hartog reached the Australian west coast in 1616 and entered the offshore coast, which is now named after him . Hartog Island . In 1619 the Dutch navigator Frederick de Houtman sailed northwards on one of his research voyages along the west coast of Australia from what is now Perth and came across the Houtman Abrolhos , later named after him , on which the Dutch East India Company's merchant ship Batavia was in July 1629 (VOC) under the command of François Pelsaert stranded. Like Hartog, later in 1696 Willem de Vlamingh and 1699 William Dampier "discovered" the furthest western point on the Australian continent. The last two parts of the coastline were mapped and Dampier named it Shark Bay .

    Since the landscape on the west coast looked dry and barren, there was little interest in occupying this land. Therefore none of the Dutch ship commanders attached any decisive importance to these finds. It was not until 1642 that the Dutch East India Company decided to research the geographical conditions in this area by means of a targeted expedition. On this expedition, the Dutchman Abel Tasman drove a far more southerly course from Mauritius than previous VOC commanders. He missed the continent of Australia completely, but discovered the island off the southern tip of the continent, which he named "New Holland" in 1644. This name was replaced by the British in 1824 in honor of their European explorer Abel Tasman with the name Tasmania, which is still valid today .

    The English navigator William Dampier came across Australia's north coast near King Sound at the mouth of the Fitzroy River in 1688 and, as mentioned above, reached Australia again at its westernmost point in 1699. On both trips, Dampier made records of the fauna and flora encountered , the native inhabitants and the coastline.

    Prior to 1770, however, none of the European comers made any territorial claims.

    Colonization and further exploration

    The British captain James Cook pursued as part of his first expedition, the First South Sea Voyage (1768-1771) , which primarily and officially served the purpose of observing the transit of Venus on June 3, 1769 in Tahiti , as well as the secret mission to explore the ocean around the 40th southern latitude to explore in order to find the postulated "southern continent". On April 28, 1770 he reached the east coast of Australia, which is more fertile than the west coast, and mapped it. He found that the land that the Dutch navigator Willem Jansz had already discovered and partially mapped at the beginning of the 17th century, which has since been called "New Holland", and "New Guinea" were separated from each other. Then in June 1770 he formally took possession of the east coast of "New Holland" for the Kingdom of Great Britain as a colony of New South Wales .

    Early map of Sydney (1789)

    After the US gained independence from Britain, the British government looked for new ways to establish penal colonies for its convicts. The aim was to thin out the lower class and so even minor offenses led to the shipment to the convict colony of Australia . On January 26, 1788, the first eleven ships of the " First Fleet " ("First Fleet") arrived with settlers and convicts under the leadership of Arthur Phillip in Port Jackson . The new settlement was named Sydney in honor of the then British Home Secretary, Lord Sydney . By 1868, 160,000 prisoners were exiled there.

    From 1801 to 1803 the explorer Matthew Flinders sailed with other researchers and the Aborigine Bungaree as the first to circumnavigate the entire continent.

    Foundation of new colonies

    In 1792 a French expedition landed in Tasmania to explore the country. The British then decided to set up a colony here as quickly as possible. In 1803 they built Risdon Cove on the Derwent River , a year later Hobart Town , also on the Derwent, and George Town on the Tamar River . In 1825 what was then Van Diemen's Land was declared an independent colony.

    In 1813, Gregory Blaxland , William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth managed to cross the Blue Mountains for the first time in New South Wales . The success of the Blaxland expedition contributed to the settlement of the areas west of these mountains.

    In 1824 a new penal colony was established in the mouth of the Brisbane River . The remoteness of this location should increase the security of the colony. However, after free settlers increasingly pushed to the fertile pastures of the north, the colony released the land for settlement in 1842. In 1859 Queensland was proclaimed a colony independent from New South Wales.

    Melbourne 1839

    In 1835, Tasmanian businessmen traded 240,000 hectares from the Aboriginal people in what is now Melbourne and established Port Phillip . Although this trade was considered illegal, the colony leadership gave in to the pressure of the growing population and had to officially open the land for settlement. In 1851 the new colony Victoria officially separated from New South Wales.

    The colony of New South Wales initially occupied the entire eastern part of the continent, only the western third remained unclaimed by the British as New Holland. To avoid the threat of French colonization of Western Australia, the British established settlements here on the Swan River in 1827 . The colony was originally established as the Swan River Colony . Western Australia was only proclaimed in 1829 with the establishment of Perth. Although no convicts were originally to be sent here, the free settlers demanded that this practice be abolished in 1850 in order to equip the new colony with cheap labor.

    South Australia was also planned as a convict-free colony. In the course of the systematic colonization according to plans by Edward Gibbon Wakefield , land was sold and the proceeds were used to bring free settlers to the colony. Adelaide was founded in 1836, and South Australia was named a province of Great Britain in the same year. At that time, the conflicts between settlers and Aborigines increased, there were a large number of massacres .

    Way to the nation

    Flag of the Eureka Stockade

    North-east of Melbourne , gold was found in Victoria on August 22, 1851 , which shaped the history of Australia and triggered a gold rush for several years . Ballarat miners initiated the Eureka Stockade Uprising in November 1854 . The insurgents called for democratic reforms, but the uprising was finally crushed on December 3, 1854 by British military and local police forces. Since people came to Australia voluntarily, the country could no longer be used as a penal colony and the way to a nation of its own was paved.

    Between 1855 and 1890, the individual colonies were given the privilege of Responsible Government and thus greater independence from the British Empire . For the time being, however, London retained control over foreign policy, defense and foreign trade.

    After a large sheep shearers strike, " Waltzing Matilda ", the secret national anthem of Australia , was created in 1898 . In the colonies, the planning for a merger of the individual states began.

    The Australian Confederation

    On January 1, 1901, the once independent colonies formed the Commonwealth of Australia. The first capital of Australia became Melbourne . On September 26, 1907, the Australian Confederation was granted almost complete independence from the mother country of Great Britain with Dominion status .

    In 1911, the Australian Capital Territory was created to house the new capital Canberra . Melbourne remained the seat of government until 1927 due to the long ongoing construction work in Canberra. The Northern Territory , founded in 1863, was transferred from the control of the province of South Australia to the Commonwealth.

    Out of loyalty to Great Britain Australia sent both the First and the Second World War troops to Europe. The defeat of ANZAC in the country's first military operation at the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 is considered by many Australians to be the birth of the nation.

    With the Statute of Westminster of 1931, the Dominions of the Empire were formally given independence. The Australian parliament only approved this in 1942. The secession attempt by Western Australia in 1933 failed.

    After the British defeat in Asia in 1942, especially after the fall of Singapore , and the impending Japanese invasion, military activities shifted from Europe to the Australian continent from 1942 onwards. Australia increasingly turned to the US as a new strong ally. This was formalized in 1951 with the ANZUS agreement .

    After the Second World War, an active immigration policy was pursued, which led to mass immigration from Europe; after the abandonment of the white immigration policy from Asia and other parts of the world. In a short time this led to strong demographic changes, but also to an economic upturn.

    In 1986 Great Britain gave up the final powers over the Australian Constitution with the Australia Act . When the 200th anniversary of the first white settlers was celebrated in 1988, it was accompanied by loud protests from the Aborigines. In 1999 the population voted in a referendum with a majority of 55 percent against the creation of a republic and thus formally retained the monarchy under the British crown.

    population

    Australia's population pyramid 2017

    Since the beginning of the 20th century , the colloquial term “Aussie” and its alternative spelling “Ozzie” have been used to describe Australians.

    General

    Population development from 1788 to 2008 (× 1000) with clues

    In 2016 there were 23,401,892  residents in Australia.

    The composition of the Australian population reflects the country's immigration patterns. 2.4% of the population describe themselves as at least partially indigenous , around 92% of the population are of European and 7% of Asian descent. Around 85% of Australians with European ancestry are of British or Irish descent. Other European countries of origin are Italy (916,121), Germany (898,674), Greece (378,270), Poland (170,354), Croatia (126,270), Macedonia (93,570) and Serbia (69,544). Over 1.3 million Australians have at least one German ancestor. The Asian immigrants come mainly from China , India , Vietnam , Pakistan and Sri Lanka . 79% of the population speak English or Australian English , which makes it the most widely spoken language . Around 2% of the population speak either Italian or one of the Chinese languages .

    Since the "white" immigration policy of Australia was gradually lifted in the 1960s, immigration from Asian countries in particular has increased. In the 1990s, the population grew by 1.4% annually due to immigration. More than a quarter of the population was not born in the country. The Australian birth rate is 1.8 children per woman. The life expectancy was from 2010 to 2015 for men and 80.2 years for women 84.4 years. It was one of the highest in the world. In Aborigines it was 20 years lower (WHO, 1999). The child mortality rate is 4.7 per 1000 births. In 2016, the median age was 38.6 years, making Australia's population one of the youngest in the western world.

    Australia is very urbanized . In 2018, around 86% of the population lived in cities, mainly in the major centers on the southeast coast, in Tasmania and in the greater Perth area . The center of the country is almost deserted.

    Indigenous people

    Albert Namatjira (1902–1959), one of Australia's most famous indigenous painters
    Aboriginal woman Cathy Freeman won the 400 meter run at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney

    The indigenous population of the Australian continent is made up of the mainland Aborigines and the Torres Strait Islanders who live on the islands of the Torres Strait between Queensland and Papua New Guinea . Before the arrival of Europeans , the number was estimated to be between 300,000 and 750,000. However, these did not represent a single people , but belonged to a large number of different groups, each comprised between 100 and 1500 people and culturally different from each other. Language was one of the distinguishing features of culture . At the beginning of the settlement by the British in 1788, 500 to 600 different languages ​​and dialects were used by the natives, which can be assigned to the Australian languages and Melanesian .

    The British Crown declared Australia " Terra Nullius " (no man's land), that is, uninhabited land, when they claimed the land for themselves. This denied the Aborigines any rights to their land. It was not until 1965 that the Aborigines were given national voting rights . With the erection of a tent embassy in front of the Old Parliament House in Canberra in 1972 the dialogue between the indigenous population and the government was to be promoted. However, it was not until 1992 that the Mabo ruling revised the designation of Australia as no man's land, which made it possible for Aborigines and Torres Strait islanders to make claims to land under certain conditions. Despite these improvements in status, the indigenous population of Australia still differs from the rest of the population today, especially in health, crime and unemployment statistics.

    Between 1900 and 1972 about 35,000 Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families, placed in state institutions, or adopted into white families in a government program; one speaks of the so-called " stolen generations ". Originally planned as a program for the benefit of the child, this act is now considered an attempted ethnocide and a blatant violation of human rights . With the growing awareness of the injustice perpetrated against the Aborigines in the Australian population during the Mabo Trial, official investigations into child abductions began in 1995. On May 26, 1997, the results of this investigation were published in the report "Bringing Them Home - Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families". Since then, the anniversary of this publication has been celebrating National Sorry Day , on which reconciliation events take place nationwide.

    Today around 410,000 Australians describe themselves as of indigenous origin (as of 2001), i.e. 2.4% of the population. 29% of them live in New South Wales, 27% in Queensland, 14% in Western Australia and 13% in the Northern Territory. In the latter territory they make up 29% of the total population, South Australia and Victoria have only small proportions of indigenous populations. Most Aborigines have largely given up their traditional way of life, which means that they no longer live in the original tribal form that has existed for thousands of years. More than 70% of the Aborigines live in cities.

    Up until 2005, the interests of the indigenous population vis-à-vis the government were mainly represented by the ATSIC . After its dissolution in July 2005, responsibility was transferred to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs .

    religion

    The majority of Australians belong to Christian religious communities (source: 2016 census). 22.6% described themselves as Roman Catholic , 13.3% as Anglicans and a further 16.3% as members of other Christian churches . For Buddhism to 2.4% confess to Islam 2.6% to Hinduism 1.9%. As a religious affiliation to 30.1% of Australians consider. The question of religion was not answered by 9.6% of the population.

    Education System

    The administration and financing of the Australian education system are jointly regulated by the Australian Confederation and the individual states or territories . There are only minor differences between the states and territories.

    Education

    At the age of six, Australian children attend preschool for one year in the preparatory year . This is followed by attending the six to seven year elementary school called primary school. The secondary schools lead to a regular school leaving certificate after another five to six years. School attendance is compulsory until the age of 15 in most states and until the age of 16 in Tasmania. With a share of 72.3% of the pupils, the majority of them completed the full 13 years of their school career (as of 1999). In the 2015 PISA ranking , Australian students ranked 23rd out of 72 countries in math, 14th in science, and 15th in reading comprehension. The performance is thus above the average of the OECD countries.

    There are special support programs for students in remote areas who are trained through distance learning . The best-known example is the Alice Springs School of the Air .

    In order to raise the standard of education of the indigenous population, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy (AEP) was adopted in 1989 . In 2000 new standards were formulated and an action plan for a more effective education of the Aborigines was decided.

    Universities

    The Alan Gilbert building at Melbourne University

    The University of Sydney was founded in 1850 as the first university in Australia . Australia currently has 38 public and two private universities with around 600,000 people studying. In state universities, most places for domestic students are government sponsored. Access to these places depends mainly on the qualifications of the students. They do not pay their tuition fees in advance; loans are granted through a government program ( HECS -HELP). Studying at private universities is only possible with the payment of tuition fees. Foreign students can take advantage of the so-called "overseas student program (OSP)", but foreign students ("Not Australian citizens or Australian permanent residents") are generally obliged to pay tuition fees.

    With the active educational policy of the Australian universities, there is now talk of an Australian continent of education. The education sector is now Australia's main source of income in the billions - ahead of the tourism sector. In particular, students from the Southeast Asian upper classes are happy to accept the Australian educational offers. The system for university studies is essentially the same as the UK one.

    politics

    The Parliament building in Canberra

    The Australian Confederation is a parliamentary monarchy on a democratic-parliamentary basis according to the Westminster system . The state is federally organized; the individual federal states each have their own parliaments with extensive legislative powers.

    Women have been allowed to vote and be elected nationally in Australia since June 1902. Although Australia was the second state after New Zealand to introduce women's suffrage , it was limited to white women. The Commonwealth Electoral Act of 1902 excluded Aborigines, even if this was not immediately apparent from the letter of the law. A regulation stipulated: "No Aborigine [...] may put his name on the electoral roll." The Aborigines were only granted the right to vote by the national government in 1962. In 1924, compulsory voting was introduced for all Australians of age , which they must comply with at the national and state levels.

    In the 2019 Democracy Index, Australia ranks 9th out of 167 countries, making it a “complete democracy”.

    National colors

    The color scheme of the national flag and the official coat of arms of government agencies are based on the insignia of the British royal family .

    However, until March 1984 Australia did not have its own national colors. The Governor-General Sir Ninian Stephen declared on 19 April 1984. Gold and Green to the official national colors of Australia. These official national colors are derived from the floral symbol of Australia, the gold acacia (Latin Acacia pycnanth) , which is called the golden wattle in Australia . To demonstrate their independence to the British Queen, the Australians very often use the national colors for the colors of their clubs and sports clubs, which can be seen very well in international competitions.

    National anthem

    In 1977, Advance Australia Fair was voted the official national anthem of Australia in a nationwide vote . Changes were made to it as early as 1984 because the British orientation of the original version went too far for many citizens. The composition goes back to Peter Dodds McCormick . The first performance took place in 1878.

    For a short time, Waltzing Matilda , based on a text by Andrew Barton Paterson , was considered the national anthem alongside Advance Australia Fair , but was relegated to second place in the vote. Nevertheless enjoys Waltzing Matilda great popularity and is considered by many Australians as secret national anthem.

    federal Constitution

    According to the Australian Constitution , the two-chamber system of the Australian Parliament consists of the House of Representatives as the lower house , the Senate as the upper house and Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state . As in every Commonwealth Realm , the Queen is represented by a Governor General (since July 1, 2019: David Hurley ), who, however, generally has no power over Parliament. The 150 members of the House of Representatives are elected every three years in constituencies based on majority voting . The seats are distributed among the states and territories according to the population. Each state is represented by twelve senators in the Senate, and the two territories with two each. The senators are elected for six years each, with elections for half of the seats in the Senate taking place every three years. Is one for all elections at the federal and state level elective . The most strongly represented party is the government, and the leader of this party becomes the prime minister .

    Parties since 2010

    The largest parties are the Liberal Party , Labor Party and National Party , although in recent years either national-liberal coalitions or the Labor Australian governments have been able to form. Smaller parties that have achieved international recognition and are represented in the Australian Parliament are The Greens and One Nation . Other smaller parties have regional significance and are represented in the Senate at the state level.

    government

    Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison ( Liberal Party of Australia )

    From June 24, 2010 to June 27, 2013 Julia Gillard was Prime Minister of the Australian Confederation of the Australian Labor Party , replacing Kevin Rudd . He had previously resigned from the office of head of government and party chairman because he no longer had any support in the party. Gillard announced new elections in the next few months when she took office. The parliamentary elections took place on August 21, 2010 and led to an almost stalemate between Labor on the one hand and the National-Liberal Coalition on the other. Only with the help of a few independent MPs did the laboratory-led government have a wafer-thin majority. On June 27, 2013, Kevin Rudd was re-elected Prime Minister after he had replaced his successor in office as party leader of the Australian Labor Party. In the federal elections on September 7, 2013 , Tony Abbott from the National Liberal Coalition won, replacing incumbent Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. He was replaced on September 15, 2015 after a fight vote by Malcolm Turnbull . Turnbull was in turn replaced by Scott Morrison on August 24, 2018 .

    Head of state

    List of Australian heads of state
    Reign Surname dynasty Life dates
    1837-1901 Victoria Hanover / Saxe-Coburg-Gotha 1819-1901
    1901-1910 Edward VII Saxe-Coburg-Gotha 1841-1910
    1910-1936 George V. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha / Windsor 1865-1936
    1936 Edward VIII Windsor 1894-1972
    1936-1952 George VI. Windsor 1895-1952
    since 1952 Elizabeth II Windsor * 1926

    States, territories, and outlying areas

    Australia consists of the six states of Queensland , New South Wales , Victoria , Tasmania , South Australia and Western Australia , the three territories Australian Capital Territory , Jervis Bay Territory and the Northern Territory, and seven outlying areas .

    Both the Australian Confederation as a whole and each individual state has a parliament, its own government and its own governor as direct representatives of the head of state of the United Kingdom . The outer areas are under either the federal government or one of the states or a ministry.

    The elections of the senators for the second chamber of the nation state take place according to the proportional representation by means of single transferable vote .

    With the exception of Queensland, which has a unicameral system, the parliaments in each of the other states and territories consist of two chambers. The representatives for the respective first chamber, the lower house, are usually elected in single-constituencies with the help of instant run-off voting , a special form of majority voting. The exceptions to this rule are the elections to the First Chambers, the Lower Houses, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania. The proportional representation in the form of the single transferable vote is used here. In most of the individual states, this form of proportional representation is also used in the elections of the senators for the second chamber of the respective parliaments; an exception to this is the election to the Second Chamber of Tasmania.

    The states have exclusive legislative powers for education, health and transportation, as well as for the police and the judiciary. The head of the state government is referred to as the prime minister, analogous to the national head of government.

    State / Territory Capital
    Flag of Western Australia.svg Western Australia (WA) Perth
    Flag of South Australia.svg South Australia (SA) Adelaide
    Flag of Queensland.svg Queensland (QLD) Brisbane
    Torres Strait Islanders Flag.svg Torres Strait Islands (to QLD)
    Flag of New South Wales.svg New South Wales (NSW) Sydney
    Flag of Lord Howe Island.svg Lord Howe Archipelago (to NSW)
    Flag of Victoria (Australia) .svg Victoria (VIC) Melbourne
    Flag of Tasmania.svg Tasmania (TAS) Hobart
    Flag of Tasmania.svg Macquarie Island (to TAS)
    Flag of the Australian Capital Territory, svg Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Canberra
    Flag of the Northern Territory.svg Northern Territory (NT) Darwin
    Flag of Australia.svg Jervis Bay Territory (JBT)
    map
    Indonesien Papua-Neuguinea Western Australia Northern Territory South Australia Australian Capital Territory Jervis Bay Territory Tasmanien Victoria Queensland New South WalesMap of Australia, states drawn in
    About this picture
    region Outdoor areas
    Indian Ocean Flag of Australia.svg Ashmore and Cartier Islands (ACI)
    Flag of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.svg Coconut Islands (CCK)
    Flag of Christmas Island.svg Christmas Island (CXR)
    Pacific Ocean Flag of Australia.svg Coral Sea Islands (CSI)
    Flag of Norfolk Island.svg Norfolk Island (NFK)
    Antarctic Flag of Australia.svg Australian Antarctic Territory 1
    Flag of Australia.svg Heard and McDonald Islands (HMD)
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    Indonesien Papua-Neuguinea Western Australia Northern Territory South Australia Australian Capital Territory Jervis Bay Territory Tasmanien Victoria (Australien) Queensland New South Wales Australisches Antarktis-Territorium Frankreich (Kerguelen) Kokosinseln Weihnachtsinsel (Australien) Antarktika Antarktika Antarktika Ashmore- und Cartierinseln Korallenmeerinseln Salomonen Vanuatu Norfolkinsel Heard und McDonaldinseln Frankreich (Neukaledonien) NeuseelandMap of Australia, outer areas drawn
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    1 Not recognized internationally.

    Sociopolitical problems

    Racism and discrimination

    Riots in Cronulla on December 11, 2005

    Many Aborigines belong to the poorest part of Australian society due to a lack of integration into the majority society and discrimination by it . Their child mortality is twice as high as that of the white population. They have difficult access to education. At 20%, their unemployment rate is almost three times as high as that of the average population. Their life expectancy is on average ten years below that of the white population. Since the 1960s, the question of land rights of the Aborigines has increasingly moved into the focus of socio-political disputes and only since the judgment of Mabo v. Queensland (No. 2) from 1993, land rights can be successfully enforced by an Aboriginal tribe .

    Since the increased immigration of Near East and Southeast Asian migrants with the end of the White Australia Policy in the 1960s, there have been multiple racist riots such as the Cronulla Riots in December 2005.

    Since the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975, racial discrimination has been banned by law and any discriminatory laws that still existed in the state or territory have been repealed.

    Through the nationwide "Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Act - Section 4", homosexual acts have been legalized since 1994 and are now widely accepted by society. There are anti-discrimination laws for homosexuals in five states. The Same-sex marriage was introduced 2018th See also: Homosexuality in Australia .

    environmental issues

    CO 2 emissions

    The first official act of the laboratory government of Kevin Rudd , elected in 2007, was the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol . This meant that a CO 2 tax ( carbon tax ) and taxation of energy-intensive mining companies should provide incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions . The legal implementation met with considerable opposition from both the Australian mining industry and within the Labor Party, which voted out Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was appointed by it.

    Since the carbon tax leads to higher energy prices such as For example, when it came to electricity prices, this form of taxation also met with resistance from the population. With Prime Minister Julia Gillard , the social follow-up costs of these higher energy prices were compensated with a package of measures: Low- income earners such as pensioners, single parents, families with low incomes and single low-income earners benefited from an increase in the tax- free amount and lump -sum CASH bonuses . These compensatory payments were made before the introduction of the carbon tax in 2012. With this price signal in the sense of an ecological-social market economy , the renewable energies that have so far hardly been used in Australia should be relatively cheaper than the fossil coal that can be mined cheaply in opencast mines. Externalized follow-up costs such as the acidification of the oceans and global warming were priced into the market ( internalized ).

    In 2017, one of Australia's largest lignite-fired power plants, the Hazelwood power plant , ceased operations in Victoria . For cost reasons, this happened before the end of the approved operating permit, which lasted until 2031. Its estimated carbon dioxide emissions per year in 2011 were 17 million tons.

    Neozoa

    For years, Australia has been concerned with the question of how to limit the number of camels in Australia as they are increasingly damaging the environment. In 2009 the number of dromedaries was estimated at around one million animals. The number was expected to double in eight years, and it is feared that parts of Australia's desert ecosystem will be destroyed. In fact, the estimates were too high. After about 160,000 animals were shot down and another 100,000 victims of a drought, the population is re-estimated at around 300,000 animals. In solving this problem, conflicts arise between animal and conservationists.

    Another unsolved problem is the rapid spread of the exposed poisonous cane toad , which is an existential threat to Australian small animal populations.

    Current migration policy

    Australian government poster campaign
    Most common immigrant groups in Australia by country of birth (as of 2016)
    rank Country of origin Number of people
    1 United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom 1,198,000
    2 New ZealandNew Zealand New Zealand 0.607.200
    3 China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China People's Republic of China 0.526,000
    4th IndiaIndia India 0.468,800
    5 PhilippinesPhilippines Philippines 0.246,400
    6th VietnamVietnam Vietnam 0.236,700
    7th ItalyItaly Italy 0.194,900
    8th South AfricaSouth Africa South Africa 0.181,400
    9 MalaysiaMalaysia Malaysia 0.166.200
    10 GermanyGermany Germany 0.124,300

    The national conservative government realized after taking office with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in 2013 a zero-tolerance policy against boat people ( German : boat people), the operation sovereign borders is called. Ships with refugees are already intercepted on the high seas, either forced to return or the boat people taken to internment camps in immigration custody.

    From 2013 to the end of 2017, 31 boats with boat people were turned away by the Australian border guards or forced to turn back. In the 2016/2017 financial year, the cost of border protection at sea and on land was A $ 4 billion.

    Australia certainly accepts asylum seekers. In the 2015/2016 financial year there were 8,640 refugees from Syria and Iraq . Between 2013 and 2014 Australia issued 13,800 refugees a visa, in the previous year 2012/2013 it issued 20,000 visas for refugees. The compulsory detention and subsequent deportation of boat people to other countries are relatively undisputed in Australia.

    On December 31, 2016, 1364 asylum-seeking boat people were in Australian internment camps, including 263 on Christmas Island , the others were in third countries on the islands of Nauru and Manus (see below). As of March 2017, there were eight asylum seekers' camps on Australian territory, including five immigration detention centers where asylum seekers are held in immigration detention. Asylum seekers who cannot be held in internment camps due to certain criteria are accommodated in another three separate facilities ( alternative places of detention) . There they are placed under supervision and granted certain freedoms. Accommodation is in suitable private houses, hotels, motels and hospitals. In general, the camp-like accommodation gives rise to criticism from human rights organizations. The third form is community placement, which allows freedom of movement with certain conditions. On December 31, 2016, 25,252 people were counted who were in Australia with a so-called Visa E , a so-called bridging visa . They are people whose stay has been approved for a limited time and who are no longer allowed to come back after leaving Australia.

    Two internment camps that were outside the territory of Australia formed a specialty: the Nauru Regional Processing Center on Nauru and the Manus Regional Processing Center on the island of Manus in Papua New Guinea . Following interventions by the UN and human rights groups, the Constitutional Court of Papua New Guinea declared the camp on Manus to be illegal. Reuters reported that a dozen asylum seekers on Manu had accepted financial offers from the Australian government to return to their home countries. The Manus refugee camp was closed at the end of 2017. The approximately 380 people were moved to new camps.

    At the same time, Australia operates an open immigration policy with regard to legal migration. In 2016, 28% of the population was born abroad, which is one of the highest rates in the world. Australia mainly accepts highly qualified immigrants who are selected according to a points system. Migrants in Australia came mainly from neighboring New Zealand, the former colonial power Great Britain and Asian countries such as India and China. In 2016 there were around 124,300 German-born people in Australia.

    Foreign and Security Policy

    A meeting of Australian and UK Foreign and Defense Ministers in London 2014

    In international relations, Australia is mostly referred to as a middle power . Its economic and military resources allow Canberra to make its voice heard on the international stage, but not on every subject and not alone. The country is happy to see itself as an honest broker in international negotiations. The weight of Australia was shown, for example, in the negotiations on the Chemical Weapons Convention, the environmental protocol of the Antarctic Treaty and in the context of the Uruguay Round.

    Australia's foreign and security policy is determined by the commonality of the country's Anglo-Saxon culture , particularly with the United States , but also with New Zealand and the United Kingdom .

    In 2005 a new anti-terror law was introduced in Australia.

    Relations with the USA

    Australia maintains extensive economic, scientific and military-strategic cooperation with the USA, which was also reflected in the establishment of the ANZUS alliance. After the de facto end of ANZUS in the 1980s, the US added Australia to its list of the most important allies outside NATO . With this classification, Australia enjoys privileges in the strategic partnership that are not even available to many NATO countries. Australia has been a member of the United Nations since 1945, a member of the WTO since 1995 and is a signatory to the ICC .

    Relations with Asia

    In the 1990s then Prime Minister Paul Keating tried to bring Australia closer to its Asian neighbors. However, this failed due to conflicting interests and cultural differences. The pro-American course of the Conservative government under Prime Minister John Howard was largely not shared by neighboring states, but was rather received critically. In particular, Howard's approval of Bush's doctrine of so-called pre - emptive strikes after the Bali attacks in October 2002 prompted official protests from neighboring countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand. As since 1951, the current White Paper of the Ministry of Defense sees the ANZUS agreement with New Zealand and the USA as the cornerstone of national security policy and less in multilateral regional integration. The Five Power Defense Arrangements (FPDA) of Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Singapore and Malaysia, which has existed since 1971, is less important and provides that the first three come to the aid of the two Southeast Asian states in the event of an attack. Since 1997 the naval and air forces of the five countries have been carrying out joint maneuvers on a regular basis.

    Border disputes with East Timor

    Limits of the exclusive economic zone of East Timor under the law of the sea in the Timor Sea and the Joint Petroleum Development Area under the Timor Sea Treat; Orange the location of the oil fields

    For years there was a dispute with East Timor to the north about the demarcation of the border in the Timor Sea and the associated use of the oil and gas deposits there. During the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, Australia and Indonesia agreed to draw a border in favor of Australia. With the independence of East Timor in May 2002, negotiations were renegotiated and a 50-year moratorium on the border issue and shared use of natural resources was agreed. An agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea could not be reached because Australia withdrew from the regulations a few months before East Timor became independent. In 2013 it became known that Australia had wiretapped the East Timorese cabinet with bugs during the last negotiations . East Timor therefore sued Australia before the International Court of Arbitration and insisted on drawing a border in accordance with the Convention on the Law of the Sea, which would mean that the oil and gas fields would be located solely in East Timorese territory. Relations between the two countries were therefore tense. Since the national-liberal coalition government took office in 2013, no Australian minister has visited East Timor. In January 2017, the governments of Australia and East Timor declared that the Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS) should be dissolved. On March 6, 2018, a new border treaty was signed by the two states, which changed the previous agreements in favor of East Timor.

    Relations with the European Union

    In relations between the EU and Australia, economic issues have been in the foreground for decades, with agricultural issues in particular repeatedly leading to disputes between the two partners. The accession of Great Britain to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 meant difficult access to the British market for Australia and was seen in wide circles of politics and society as a betrayal of the former mother country. The bitter feelings were heightened because the protectionist agricultural policy of the EEC and the EU put the otherwise competitive agricultural industry of the fifth continent at a disadvantage. In recent years, however, other economic issues have increasingly moved to the top of the political agenda. This is also due to the fact that the EU has been Australia's most important economic partner for 25 years. The basis for the bilateral relations between Australia and the EU is the "Joint Declaration" of 1997. In 2008, a further partnership agreement was concluded, which is based on a joint action plan. The agreement is intended to give the partnership impetus for more intensive cooperation in the areas of education, science, technology development, the environment and climate protection. In terms of climate policy and national and international security policy, the Australian government pursues goals similar to those of the European Union. In terms of agricultural policy , however, the goals of Australia and the EU differ from one another. While Australia would like to strengthen access to the EU internal market, the EU is protectionist when it comes to agriculture in its member states towards competitors who want to export from outside the EU to the EU internal market.

    Military and war participation

    First World War

    Poster The bloody vote on the occasion of the 1917 referendum against conscription in Australia

    Nine days after the beginning of the First World War , Australia began to act on the side of Great Britain on August 6, 1914, with the occupation of the colony of German New Guinea by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force , a 2,000-man volunteer expeditionary force. On August 15, 1914, the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was formed, the most important Australian expeditionary force in World War I, which consisted of several branches of service. For the first time, the AIF and Allied troops deployed the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) outside of Asia in the costly Battle of Gallipoli in Turkey, in which Australian soldiers wounded 26,111 and killed 8,141.

    This battle has deeply influenced the Australian people in their attitude to war and conscription to this day. After this battle, the Australian military served on the Palestine Front until March 1916 . Then five AIF infantry divisions took part in the fighting on the Western Front in France and Belgium. Australian soldiers also took part in fighting in different, individual theaters of war.

    Second World War

    Australia waged two wars in World War II , one against the German Empire , Italy and its allies in Europe as part of the British Commonwealth and one on the side of the United Kingdom , the United States and other allies against Japan and its allies in the Pacific War until September 1945 .

    Between February 1942 and November 1943, Australia was the target of a total of 97 air raids by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Forces . While the air raid on Darwin on February 19, 1942 was the first, heaviest and most momentous of all these air raids, most of the other air raids were without major consequences.

    The Japanese did not attempt to land in Australia during the entire war. After most of the Australian forces withdrew from the Mediterranean area after the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Royal Australian Air Force participated intensively in the Allied air war against the German Empire. Between 1942 and early 1944, the Australian armed forces played a key role in the Pacific, where they provided the largest Allied troop contingent at that time. From mid-1944, Australian soldiers fought mainly on secondary fronts; they carried out offensive operations against the Japanese troops until the end of the war.

    After the Second World War

    Australian Army soldiers during a 2012 military exercise

    Australia's armed forces, the Australian Defense Force (ADF), consist of three armed forces: the Royal Australian Navy , the Australian Army and the Royal Australian Air Force . The troop strength of the ADF has been significantly reduced in the last few decades and is currently around 51,000 soldiers. Despite their relatively small size, their training and equipment, in addition to the economic attractiveness of the country, establish Australia's status as a regional power of order within the Indo-Pacific region . It therefore leads current UN peace missions in the region, for example in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. With around 50,000 soldiers, Australia participated in the Vietnam War from 1962 to 1972 . During this time about 2,400 soldiers were wounded and 520 fell. In addition, Australia was involved in the Iraq war and maintained a contingent in Iraq that was withdrawn by July 2009 in accordance with the election promise of the incumbent Labor government. About 100 soldiers remained in the country to protect the Australian embassy. Australia's largest and most significant international mission at the moment is its contribution to ongoing operations in Afghanistan , where the ADF is represented by around 1,500 soldiers. Australia issued in 2017 almost 2.0 percent of its economic output, or 27.5 billion US dollars for its armed forces, which was the world's number 13. Since 2014 participates in Australia and on the coalition against the terrorist militia Islamic State .

    Infrastructure

    Australia's transport system is characterized by the great distances inland and the high population density along the narrow strip of the east and south coast. In relation to the number of inhabitants, the country has many kilometers of roads and paths, has a high degree of motorization and has a dense network of flights.

    In 2018, Australia was ranked 18th out of 160 countries in the Logistics Performance Index , which is compiled by the World Bank and measures the quality of infrastructure.

    Air traffic

    Australia is one of the countries with the densest flight networks. There are around 400 public and privately managed airfields. The most important airline is Qantas Airways, founded in 1920 . Kingsford Smith International Airport in Sydney is an important hub for international air traffic . Domestic air traffic has been deregulated since 1990; H. Airfares are set through free competition without government intervention. The proportion of hot air balloon rides as a leisure activity especially for tourists is also increasing.

    Road traffic

    Typical road train

    In Australia there is left-hand traffic . Road traffic plays an important role, especially in the densely populated southeast of the country . Australia's first road was built between 1789 and 1791 from Sydney to Parramatta . Today's Australian road network amounts to a total of around 913,000 km, of which around 353,000 km are paved, i.e. either paved or concreted.

    A large part of the goods traffic in the outback is transported with the help of road trains . A road train is a special type of a road train consisting of a tractor with tractor and trailer , the Australian up to three trailers are coupled. As a result, the road trains have a total length of up to 53.5 m and a total weight of up to around 140 tons when loaded.

    The first highways in Australia were built inland from the coastal capitals in a spoke-shaped pattern to connect the first rural settlements with the capital cities. In 1955, the Australian National Route Numbering Scheme was introduced to make it easier to navigate through Australia. You can recognize a National Route by the signs with black letters on a white background.

    Rail transport

    The Ghan on arrival in Darwin
    Sugar cane railway in Mossman, Queensland
    Sydney subway train

    In 1854 the first steam train ran between the city center and the port of Melbourne. In the years that followed, numerous private companies operated the country's railway lines. This led to the fact that at the time the federation was formed (1901) there were three different gauges , which posed major problems. Only since around 1970 has it been possible to pass from Sydney to Perth without changing trains due to the system. Partly here - and only here - there is a three- rail network.

    The total length of the state railway network is about 34,000 km. The total length of the privately operated rail networks is around 5500 km. Private rail networks are mainly used in the Pilbara region of Western Australia for the transport of iron ore , in Queensland for the transport of coal and sugar cane .

    Compared to road traffic, the transport of people and goods by rail now plays a subordinate role. However, there are new construction projects such as the recently completed Alice Springs to Darwin railway line known as The Ghan . The Sydney to Perth Trans - Australian Railroad is important for freight and tourism . Australia is also planning to use high-speed trains .

    In the metropolitan areas of Brisbane , Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, where half the population lives, there are well-developed S-Bahn networks. Trams are quite rare in Australia and usually only consist of a few lines, but Melbourne's tram network is the longest in the world. The metro network in the metropolis of Sydney, Metro Sydney , has been the first full-fledged metro on the continent since it opened in May 2019.

    economy

    Economic history

    The economic history of Australia began with the landing of around 1000 convicts, Royal Marines and sailors on eleven ships of the First Fleet in Port Jackson on January 26, 1788. Before that, the Aborigines lived on the Australian continent as hunters and gatherers . The British declared the land to be Terra nullius and appropriated it. With the application of this legal term, Australia was declared a country that no one owns. The British colonized it for decades in the form of the convict colony of Australia .

    New South Wales Colony (1788–1810)

    A historical propaganda image from the capture of William Bligh in the so-called Rum Rebellion , showing him as a coward

    After the landing in 1788, the British colonial government gave land to senior officers and convicts with privileges. This was done in the form of a "land grant". Convicts without the privilege of transferring land were only allowed to produce small amounts of economic goods themselves. The Commissariat of the Government of the New South Wales Colony held a prominent position in the colony's economic life as a supplier of goods, money and foreign exchange. Although economic life was regulated by the colonial government through the distribution of goods, the management of money and foreign currency, private ownership of land and privately remunerated labor developed. This was tolerated and not sanctioned. The officers of the New South Wales Corps took advantage of this and amalgamated private and business interests. The military officers ruthlessly appropriated land privately and introduced rum as the currency due to the scarcity of official coins in the colony . When the British colonial government intervened, the Rum Rebellion emerged , which resulted in numerous officers having to leave the colony in 1808.

    More colonies

    As early as the years from 1810 it was evident that the colonial economy had to be not limited to self-sufficiency, but could also engage in foreign trade. The Blaxland Expedition in 1813, which enabled a route across the Blue Mountains into inland Australia, was important for further economic expansion . Further exploration and discovery followed. Therefore the colonial economy was able to grow. In addition to the first colony founded in New South Wales , Western Australia (1829), South Australia (1836), Victoria (1851), Queensland (1859) and Tasmania (1856) emerged as British colonies (the Northern Territory was split off from South Australia and the Commonwealth in 1911 of Australia ).

    The banner "ROLL UP - ROLL UP - NO CHINESE" is considered to be the first documented racist symbol in Australia. It was worn in the gold fields at the Lambing Flat Riots .

    Goods were not only consumed in New South Wales, but were also exported to England and north-western Europe from the 1820s. At first it was mainly wool, woods and whale oil. During this time there was extensive land grabbing and the forcible displacement of the Aborigines from their tribal areas by settlers. These were called "squatters" and appropriated land without legal title, which was only regulated or ended in 1846 by Governor George Gipps . In 1831 it became possible to purchase land in the colony of New South Wales. The first economic crisis arose in the 1840s, which was accompanied by bank failures.

    This economic crisis was overcome by the gold discoveries in Victoria in 1851 . As a result of the gold rush in Australia , numerous people immigrated. It was mostly English, but also other nationalities such as Chinese. As early as the 1840s, the deportation of convicts in the eastern settlement area of ​​Australia ended. Free settlers settled down, and legal regulations to secure civil rights and property were enacted. The construction of a democratic electoral system began.

    Mining developed. In the 1870s, more gold was exported than wool. The Australian gold discoveries resulted in brisk construction activity, especially in Victoria. Wheat exports began in South Australia in 1870. From the 1880s onwards, zinc, lead and silver were mined at Broken Hill . Gold discoveries stagnated and the prolonged drought in the 1890s plunged Australia into an economic recession . In the course of this recession wages were cut and as a result the Australian labor movement developed into numerous and violent strikes ( sheep shearers strike (1891) and sheep shearers strike (1894) , Broken Hill strike , maritime strike ). In the 1890s, new methods of refrigeration made it possible to export meat, dairy products and fruits.

    Commonwealth

    On January 1, 1901, the formerly independent colonies merged to form the Commonwealth of Australia . This new government was given rights to intervene heavily in markets. She could determine wages and prices. The Commonwealth regulated the domestic Australian market and followed the White Australia Policy , a policy that blocked the immigration of non-whites. This policy only changed after the Second World War , when the booming economy created a high demand for labor. After 1950 raw materials were in high demand on the world market and the Australian government intensively promoted the extraction of raw materials. The economic growth of Australia was mainly determined by vehicle, chemical, electrical and electronic equipment and iron and steel production. This growth was not significantly negatively influenced by the two world wars either. In the period after World War II, there was a long-term positive growth rate with high employment. Industrial production reached its peak in the mid-1960s.

    The Australian pound , introduced in 1910, was converted to the Australian dollar in the decimal system in 1966 .

    Also was unit system from the Anglo-American system of measurement to the metric unit system changed.

    When the global economy collapsed in the early 1970s, unemployment and inflation rose in Australia.

    From 1982 to 1983, the Australian economy remained in recession. In 1983 the Australian Labor Party came to power with Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Treasury Secretary Paul Keating . Hawke insisted that more jobs could be created if real wages could be stabilized or reduced. Keating contradicted this and warned that Australia would develop into a "banana republic". Labor decided that Australian firms should allow foreign investment. It also eased the playing field. The recession was then reversed by a sharp rise in employment and the unemployment rate returned to the level of 1972 at 2 percent. The measures mentioned above were expanded over the following period.

    The Labor Party lost the 1996 election to John Howard of the Liberal Party of Australia . His government relied on deregulation, including the monetary and financial system, which should open up even more to international capital. Protective measures for industry and agriculture and restrictions of competition have been scaled back or lifted. Some state tasks were privatized and the transport and telecommunications systems were deregulated. In 2005 the unemployment rate was 5 percent.

    As a result, falling transport costs, new effective telecommunications and information technologies, investments with foreign capital, economic growth in East Asia, especially in China, led to continuously increasing growth rates in the Australian economy. Reforms in the education system and adjustments to the training content at colleges and universities in the country ensured that competitiveness increased. In 2000, services accounted for 70 percent of national income.

    Since the 1990s, Australia has had one of the highest economic growth rates among the OECD countries. It has not experienced an economic recession since 1995 .

    Current

    Sydney is the largest city in Australia and a major commercial and financial hub in the Asia-Pacific -space

    In 2015, Australia's growth was 2.4 percent. The unemployment rate was 5.8 percent in September 2016. Australia's service sector is significant, accounting for 60 to 65 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), with a focus on finance, real estate and business services. Mining accounts for around ten percent of GDP and agriculture two percent. Both sectors, however, have a significant share of Australia's export volume and are heavily dependent on global economic growth. Australia's main exports are coal , iron ore , gold , petroleum / products and natural gas . When it comes to liquefied gas exports, Australia is expected to become the world leader in the next five years. Australia has been the world's largest exporter of coal since the 1980s. Due to the decline in global economic growth in recent years, the export of raw materials from Australia fell sharply and there was a gap in the national budget.

    The conservative government under Turnbull tried to close this gap by increasing the consumption tax from 10 to 15 percent. This increase in VAT (Goods and Service Tax) failed because of internal party resistance. Due to the orientation towards the export of raw materials, the share of manufacturing in Australia and employment in this economic sector is low. In addition, Holden (GM group) and Toyota , for example, will cease their car production in Australia in 2017. This is likely to result in 40,000 job losses and the end of automotive production in Australia. Even the growing economic sector of information and communication technology, e-commerce, bio, nano and medical technology in Australia cannot compensate for this loss of jobs.

    The Australian current account has been in deficit for years, the shares in GDP fluctuated in the past from minus two to minus six percent. Australian household debt was substantial in 2016.

    According to a study by Bank Credit Suisse from 2017, Australia was the country with the ninth largest national total wealth in the world. Australians' total holdings of real estate, stocks and cash totaled $ 7,407 billion. The wealth per adult person is 402,603 ​​dollars on average and 195,417 dollars in median (Germany: 203,946 and 47,091 dollars, respectively). The wealth per capita was the third highest in the world both on average and in median (behind Iceland and Switzerland). The Gini coefficient for wealth distribution was 68.2 in 2016, which indicates a relatively moderate wealth inequality.

    Australia's most important import products at the moment are, besides crude oil and refined oil, economic goods such as cars and medicines. Australia is one of the world's 20 largest economies . In the Global Competitiveness Index of the Global Competitiveness Report , which measures a country's competitiveness, Australia ranks 21st out of 137 countries in 2017. In 2017, the country ranks fifth among 180 countries in the index for economic freedom . Australia is one of the most liberal economies in the world.

    Key figures

    Change in gross domestic product (GDP), real World Bank
    year 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
    Change in% yoy 3.0 3.8 3.7 1.8 2.0 2.4 3.6 2.6 2.6 2.4 2.8 2.0
    Development of GDP (nominal), World Bank
    absolute (in billion USD) per inhabitant (in thousands of USD)
    year 2015 2016 2017 year 2015 2016 2017
    GDP in billions of dollars 1345 1205 1323 GDP per inhabitant (in thousands of dollars) 56.5 49.9 53.8
    Foreign Trade Development (GTAI)
    in billion US dollars and its percentage change from the previous year
    2014 2015 2016
    Billion USD % yoy Billion USD % yoy Billion USD % year-on-year
    import 227.5 −12.1 200.1 −12.1 189.4 −5.4
    export 240.4 −4.6 187.8 −21.9 189.6 +1.0
    balance +12.9 −12.3 +0.2
    Main trading partner of Australia (2016), source: GTAI
    Export (in percent) to Import (in percent) of
    China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China People's Republic of China 31.6 China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China People's Republic of China 23.4
    JapanJapan Japan 13.9 United StatesUnited States United States 11.5
    Korea SouthSouth Korea South Korea 6.7 JapanJapan Japan 7.1
    United StatesUnited States United States 4.6 ThailandThailand Thailand 5.7
    IndiaIndia India 4.2 GermanyGermany Germany 5.3
    United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom 4.0 Korea SouthSouth Korea South Korea 4.3
    Hong KongHong Kong Hong Kong 3.8 MalaysiaMalaysia Malaysia 3.6
    United NationsU.N. other states 31.2 United NationsU.N. other states 38.5

    Foreign trade

    The large area of ​​the country in connection with the small domestic market and the availability of raw materials predestine Australia as an export country for primary products . This fact also makes the country sensitive to strong fluctuations in world market prices for these goods. Agricultural products and natural resources are therefore important export goods. The country is a member of the Cairns Group , which is committed to the liberalization of agricultural exports.

    The big companies in Australia shape the export balance. The 100 largest companies in the country had exported goods and services worth around 50 billion Australian dollars in 2001 and thus supplied around a third of the country's total exports. In 2001, Australian exports were around $ 154 billion and accounted for over 20 percent of GDP . Australia and its neighboring country New Zealand have formed a free trade area under the name Closer Economic Relations since 1983.

    Australia is a member of the APEC , G20 , OECD and WTO and has free trade agreements with ASEAN , Chile , New Zealand , Singapore , Thailand and the United States . The ANZCERTA treaty with New Zealand in particular shows the close intertwining of the two economies. In 2010, Australia was the 21st largest export and 19th largest import nation .

    Under the name Austrade , the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade runs a trade and investment promotion agency with a global network of offices.

    The largest trading partner in 2008 with 17% (25 billion euros) of all imported goods was the European Union . In 2010 Asia accounted for 60% of foreign trade, with China replacing Japan as Australia's most important economic partner in 2007.

    In 2014, Australia exported goods and services valued at $ 243 billion and imported goods and services valued at $ 219 billion. The trade balance showed a surplus of USD 24 billion. The largest exports from Australia were iron ore at $ 60 billion, coal and briquettes $ 37.2 billion, liquefied gas $ 16.3 billion, gold $ 16.3 billion, and oil $ 9.1 billion. The largest imports were fuels with $ 16.6 billion, oil $ 16.2 billion, cars $ 15.7 billion, computers $ 7.37 billion and medicines $ 6.5 billion.

    In 2014, Australia exported goods and services valued at $ 82.9 billion to China, $ 43.1 billion to Japan, $ 19 billion to South Korea, $ 11.1 billion to India and $ 10 billion to the United States. Australian imports from China reached $ 45.7 billion, the United States $ 24.5 billion, Japan $ 15.4 billion, Singapore $ 11.8 billion and Germany $ 10.6 billion.

    Agriculture and fishing

    Agricultural land use of Australia
    Wine-growing zones in Australia

    Agriculture is an important economic factor in Australia. More than 400,000 people are employed in agriculture. 2% of GDP is generated here. About 80% of agricultural production is exported.

    Large areas of the country serve as pastureland, with extensive pasture farming ( ranching ) on sheep or cattle stations, particularly in the outback . Around 130 million sheep and more than 25 million cattle are kept on these pastures . Australia is a leader in wool production , 29% of world production comes from here.

    Only six percent of the country's area is used for growing food and forage crops. Wheat cultivation has the largest share of this with 45%. Apart from the climatically more favored areas of the southeast, most of the cultivation areas are dependent on irrigation . In 2019, wheat (from Canada ) had to be imported again for the first time since 2007 because of the severe drought . In addition to wheat with an annual production of over 30 million tons, sugar cane cultivation plays a major role with more than 35 million tons.

    Australia's wine industry has an export volume of more than 2.3 billion Australian dollars. Important growing areas are the Barossa Valley in South Australia, Hunter Valley in New South Wales and Victorian Sunraysia in Victoria. The most widely grown grape varieties are Chardonnay , Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon .

    Australia is one of the few countries that allows the cultivation of opium poppies for opium production for the pharmaceutical industry under strict controls .

    Fisheries play a subordinate role, but Australia is a member of the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization ( SPRFMO ), an international, intergovernmental organization of 15 members, which aims to monitor and manage fish stocks in the South Pacific.

    Natural resources

    Open uranium mining at the Mary Kathleen uranium mine

    Australia has large deposits of energy and mineral resources. The natural resources such as coal , iron ore , gold , diamonds and other minerals are mostly mined in open-cast mining. Australia is the world's largest exporter of hard coal. In 2002, Australian mines produced 343 million tons of coal and 116 million tons of iron ore. Investments in billions, including by BHP Billiton , increased the iron ore yield to 600 million tons by 2011; the price increased by 700 percent from 2001 to 2011. Most of the iron ore is exported to China. With 282 tons of gold, 12% of the world market comes from Australia. Australia also has the richest deposits of rare earths in the world, which are mined from the ore deposit at Mount Weld in Western Australia . For tantalum , Australia is the most important exporter in the world. With precious stones Australia produces over 90% of world production of opals , especially in the area of the town of Coober Pedy in South Australia .

    Australia is the world's third largest uranium exporter. However , it does not operate nuclear power plants .

    Since the late 1960s, uranium mining and export has been the main area of ​​political controversy between governments and groups of the anti-nuclear movement in Australia , which have advanced arguments against environmental destruction, against the destruction of the Aboriginal dreamtime land and against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in order to Push back nuclear industry.

    tourism

    The tourism industry accounts for 8% of the Australian economy. The number of visitors has risen sharply since the 1970s. In 2003, 4.35 million tourists visited Australia, in 2016 there were already around 8.2 million international tourists. Tourism revenue was $ 32.4 billion. The Australian Tourism Authority continues to forecast an increase through 2020. The most common nationalities include New Zealanders, Chinese, British, Americans, Japanese, Singaporeans, Malaysians, Koreans, Hong Kong Chinese, Indians and Germans. The more than 510,000 people working in the tourism industry people generate about 35 billion AUD per year. The country is known all over the world for the form of work & travel that can be used with a working holiday visa . You have to be between 18 and 30 years old. Approximately 40% of all tourists visiting Australia are between 18 and 30 years old. This offer is used by over 20,000 German citizens every year.

    There is a general visa requirement for all foreigners , with the exception of New Zealanders. The visa requirement even applies to travelers from the Commonwealth of Nations . A visa is also required for short tourist stays. Depending on the purpose and duration of the trip, a different tourist visa is required. The free eVisitor visa (subclass 651) , which can be applied for in all EU states and a further selected 30 countries in Europe, allows a stay of a maximum of three months, while any type of paid work is prohibited. Alternatively, there is the option of an ETA (Electronic Travel Authority) visa for a fee .

    In the case of a longer stay or for business trips, the Visitor Visa (subclass 600) is required, which is divided into the variants tourist stream , business stream and sponsored family stream .

    In addition to Sydney, the main destinations for foreign visitors are the unique natural landscapes - above all the Great Barrier Reef , Uluṟu (Ayers Rock) and the Kakadu National Park . Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Cairns, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra are among the most visited cities.

    Electrical power

    Power generation

    The power generation in Australia is 80% with coal-fired plants ensures the remaining 20% are caused mainly by gas and hydropower plants covered. Due to the high production rates of fossil fuels, the country is almost independent of imports of these mineral resources. There are no nuclear power plants to generate electricity. However, the high proportion of fossil fuels leads to high emissions of greenhouse gases and contributes to global warming . As the penultimate industrial country , Australia has ratified the Kyoto Protocol .

    Despite the favorable geographical conditions (many hours of sunshine per year, regions close to the coast such as Brisbane or Perth ), the potential of renewable energies is hardly tapped. For a long time , solar power was only used in remote desert regions that were not connected to the power grid. The potential for wind energy is little used, although new wind turbines now generate electricity more cheaply than new coal and gas power plants.

    In 2018, a project to build 50,000 photovoltaic systems with battery storage for residential and commercial buildings started. The partner is the company Tesla, Inc. , as of July 2018, 100 households have already been equipped with the corresponding technology. In the final expansion, which is expected for 2022, the storage facilities should provide a capacity of 250 megawatts with a storage capacity of 650 MWh. The overall system should work as a virtual power plant and stabilize the South Australian power grid. The project is fully funded by the government. The selected households are allowed to use the electricity to reduce their own energy costs.

    The world's largest battery storage project was also completed at the end of 2017. Initially planned with 100 MWh, the project was finally completed with 129 MWh. In addition to wind power plants, solar plants are also used to generate energy. The battery storage systems come from Tesla, Inc. , the wind turbines from Vestas Wind Systems . The hybrid power plant is located in Kennedy Energy Park in Queensland and is the first project in Australia to combine these three technologies; The project is financed by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), among others .

    A follow-up project by the same partners with a battery storage capacity of 20 MWh was commissioned in the state of Victoria in 2018. The storage facility is to be installed in combination with a wind farm, which should have a nominal output of 204 MW, and, among other things, also to supply a 40 hectare greenhouse.

    Other large battery storage systems are being planned, for example the Kaban Green Power Hub wind farm , which is designed for 130 MW. There is currently no date for the start of construction (as of December 2019).

    Power distribution

    Since 2000, power has been distributed in the low- voltage network in Australia with a mains voltage of 230  V at a frequency of 50  Hertz and a tolerance of +10% to −6% in accordance with the Australian standards "AS60038-2000 - Standard Voltages". Before the voltage at 240 V. The plug was is used by Type I .

    State budget

    The state budget included expenditures in 2015 of the equivalent of about 560 billion US dollars , which were income equivalent to 513 billion US dollar against. This results in a budget deficit of 2.3% of the gross domestic product .

    In 2017, the national debt was 41.9% of GDP. The rating agency Standard & Poor's are government bonds of Australia with the top AAA rated (as of 2018).

    The share of government expenditure (in% of GDP) was in the following areas:

    Bilateral economic relations

    In the following, the bilateral economic relations of Australia with countries in the German-speaking area are presented.

    Australian-German economic relations

    Germany is currently Australia's twelfth largest trading partner. More than 300 subsidiaries of German companies secure around 100,000 jobs in Australia with a total of around 650 branches.

    In 2010 the volume of bilateral goods traffic was over 10 billion euros. In 2010, Germany imported goods worth around 2.23 billion euros. The export of German goods amounted to around 7.86 billion euros. The focus of German exports is on motor vehicles and parts, chemical, pharmaceutical and electrotechnical products, plastics and machines. The most important Australian exports to Germany in 2019 were gold, hard coal and ores.

    Australian-Swiss economic relations

    In 2011 Swiss exports to Australia rose to CHF 2.5 billion . Switzerland's imports from Australia rose from CHF 320 million in the previous year to CHF 487 million. Swiss investments in Australia in 2009 amounted to USD 13 billion . In 2011, Switzerland came fifth in the Australian foreign investment ranking. These investments created 40,000 jobs in Australia.

    In 2011, 8.2 percent more Australian tourists traveled to Switzerland compared to the previous year and 43,000 tourists from Switzerland traveled to Australia.

    Australian-Austrian economic relations

    Austrian exports to Australia reached a value of 792.93 million euros in 2014, mainly trucks and motorcycles, construction machinery, electrical machines, pharmaceutical products, metal goods (fittings and locks).

    Austrian imports were low in 2014 at 87 million euros. These were hard coal, construction machinery, measuring and testing devices, electrical / electronic devices and gold coins.

    Culture

    At first the culture of Australia was shaped exclusively by its indigenous people, the Aborigines . With the settlement by the Europeans, the influence of the British colonial power dominated among these settlers. For the settlers of European descent and their descendants, the emergence of their own national identity was linked to the development of a national Australian culture. Today this is shaped in all areas by the influences of the different immigrant groups, mixed with the expressions of the indigenous cultures of the various Aboriginal tribes .

    public holidays

    The Australia Day is Australia's official national holiday and is celebrated on 26 January. It commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove on January 26th, 1788. This arrival marked the beginning of the deportation of British prisoners to Australia and thus the beginning of the colonization of Australia by the Europeans.

    Another important holiday is ANZAC Day on April 25th. It marks the anniversary of the first military action by Australian and New Zealand troops in World War I , landing at Gallipoli in 1915.

    Also is Melbourne Cup Day very popular among the population. It takes place on the first Tuesday in November and is an official holiday in the state of Victoria. The horse race was first held by the Victoria Turf Club in 1861.

    Australian kitchen

    Australian cuisine in Brisbane

    The Australian cuisine drew their inspiration from the first English cuisine , with the British convicts and settlers came from the 18th century to Australia, up from the 19th century, the Chinese cuisine found its way into the country. With the increasing immigration of Italians and Greeks after the end of World War II , eating habits slowly changed. Modern Australian cuisine , one of the most diverse cuisines in the world, developed under the influence of immigrants from the Middle East as well as Vietnamese , Thais and numerous other nationalities .

    Australia is rich in fish and seafood , has large populations of sheep and cattle on its grazing land, and sizable agriculture in temperate zones , which is reflected on the country's menus. The barbecue is popular and has a great tradition in the Australian culture. Many of the Australian wines have an excellent international reputation, and there is also a strong coffee culture in the country .

    art

    The oldest evidence of visual art in Australia are rock engravings by the Aborigines, some of which date back to 30,000 BC. To be dated. With the transition from bark painting with natural pigments to working with acrylic on canvas, international attention and the saleability of Aboriginal works of art rose sharply since the early 1970s.

    Golden Summer, Eaglemont (1889), oil on canvas, by Arthur Streeton , representative of the Heidelberg School

    The first paintings by European settlers mostly used animals or Aborigines as motifs, but were based on European models in terms of style and color. Conrad Martens, however, adapted European painting to Australian conditions. With the appropriation of French Impressionism by the Heidelberg School in Melbourne towards the end of the 19th century, Australian art achieved international recognition for the first time. The expressionist movement in Australia in the 1940s, represented by Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd , among others , also influenced the works of established painters such as Russell Drysdale and William Dobell .

    For many years the modern visual arts could not gain a foothold in Australia; this lasted from the Great Depression until the late 1950s. After that, abstract expressionism dominated the visual arts in Australia. The touring exhibition French Painting Today from 1953 provided important impetus for this .

    Today's work by Australian artists is increasingly influenced by art forms from neighboring Asian countries. Contemporary art also uses a wide variety of media to present current issues such as environmental problems or social changes.

    literature

    The development of an independent Australian literature did not begin until the middle of the 19th century. The poems and ballads by early authors such as Henry Lawson or AB 'Banjo' Paterson deal primarily with life in the Australian bush. Even later, the focus was mainly on the Australian continent and its inhabitants.

    With the inclusion of international and social issues after the Second World War, the country's literature received greater international attention. Patrick White was the only Australian to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973 , while the Booker Prize was won by Peter Carey and Thomas Keneally . The most important national award on the literary scene is the Miles Franklin Award .

    Movie

    Australian feature film
    production
    year number
    1975 24
    1985 42
    1995 18th
    2005 22nd

    The country's first cinema opened in Sydney in 1896 . The film Soldiers of the Cross , shot by the Australian Salvation Army in 1901, is considered the first "real" film in the world. At the beginning of the 20th century there was already a booming film industry. More than 250 silent films had been produced up until the 1930s . With the takeover of distribution by British and US companies, however, there was a crisis in Australian film production. Nonetheless, production companies continued to be founded, which in the 1930s made sound films , primarily on Australian subjects. Well-known directors of this time are Ken G. Hall and Charles Chauvel . Chauvel also made the first Australian color film, Jedda, a mostly Aboriginal drama.

    In 1969 the Australian government decided to increase film funding. In the following years, films with an Australian theme were able to celebrate international success. One of the first of these films was 1975 Picnic at Hanging Rock by Peter Weir . In the next few years, the Mad Max series by George Miller , Breaker Morant by Bruce Beresford and Gallipoli by Peter Weir, who is now also successfully directing in Hollywood , followed. In 1985, Crocodile Dundee - A crocodile to kiss with Paul Hogan in the lead role was a surprise success. Other international successes were 1992 Strictly Ballroom by Baz Luhrmann , 1994 Muriel's Wedding by PJ Hogan and Priscilla - Queen of the Desert by Stephan Elliott , 1996 Shine - Sleeping in Light of Scott Hicks , 2002 Long Walk Home by Phillip Noyce and 2004 Somersault of Cate Shortland . In 2008 Baz Luhrmann released the monumental film Australia , which was conceived as a kind of national film epic with the Australian world stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in the lead roles. In terms of criticism, however, he was only moderately successful. Other internationally known actors are Errol Flynn , Mel Gibson , Russell Crowe , Geoffrey Rush , Heath Ledger , Guy Pearce , Richard Roxburgh , Miranda Otto , Toni Collette , Rachel Griffiths , Naomi Watts , Margot Robbie and Cate Blanchett .

    Since Fox Studios opened in Sydney in 1999, the production of many Hollywood films has been relocated to Australia. Here were, among others Impossible II Mission , parts of Australia and the second and third episode of the Star Wars filmed series. However, apart from its status as a popular filming location, there are few productive independent Australian film companies.

    music

    Classical ensembles with an international reputation are the Symphony Orchestras of Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmania as well as the Australian Youth Orchestra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. The composer Alfred Hill is considered to be the father of an independent Australian art music . Composers like Peter Sculthorpe and John Antill have also adopted influences from the Aborigines and neighboring Asian countries in their works. Brett Dean , Georges Lentz and Liza Lim have made a name for themselves internationally from the younger generation of composers .

    American style country music is particularly popular in rural areas of the Southeast. The ten-day Country Music Festival held annually in Tamworth is the central event of this music scene. Slim Dusty was a well-known Australian country musician.

    Graeme Bell is a representative of Australian jazz . Internationally known artists of pop and rock music include The Seekers , Bee Gees , INXS , AC / DC , Kylie Minogue , Natalie Imbruglia , Rose Tattoo , 5 Seconds of Summer , Men at Work , Flash and the Pan , Midnight Oil , The Church , The Go-Betweens , Silverchair , The Dissociatives , Parkway Drive , Delta Goodrem and Nick Cave . Aboriginal bands like Yothu Yindi or Archie Roach try to fuse traditional indigenous music with rock elements. The band Powderfinger belongs to the latter genre .

    Dance and theater

    The Australian Opera based in Sydney, which was planned by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon , stages around 300 performances annually. The coloratura soprano Joan Sutherland is the best-known member of the ensemble. The national ballet ensemble is the Australian Ballet, founded in Melbourne in 1961. Around 185 classical and modern ballet performances are offered annually on tours through Australia. The ballet is considered to be one of the best in the world. Important choreographers are Robert Helpmann and Graeme Murphy . Murphy also founded the Sydney Dance Company, which is the leader in modern dance in Australia.

    The Bangarra Dance Theater and the Aboriginal and Islander Dance Theater fuse traditional dances of the indigenous people and modern dance.

    Classical theater , but also modern productions, are performed by the Sydney Theater Company. The leading playwright in Australia is David Williamson , who, among other things, holds the mirror up to the Australian middle class in his plays. In the five halls of the Sydney Opera House, which opened in 1973, concerts and operas as well as plays and films are shown.

    Museums

    The oldest museum in Australia is the Australian Museum, built in Hyde Park in Sydney in 1827 . It contains extensive natural history collections, but also collections on the history and culture of the indigenous population. Another important natural history museum is the Victoria Museum , founded in Melbourne in 1854, with a collection of 12 million specimens.

    Australian art from colonial beginnings to contemporary artists is the home of the Art Gallery of New South Wales , built around 1880 in Sydney. European and Asian works are also among the objects in this museum. The attached Yiribana Gallery is the world's largest collection of indigenous Australian art.

    media

    Australia's media are the most heavily monopolized in the world. Rupert Murdoch (NewsCorp) and the late Kerry Packer's company share the TV market, Murdoch and the Fairfax Group share the print media as a duopoly . The Australian and The Australian Financial Review are the two national newspapers , while other high-circulation daily newspapers are The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (Melbourne). Australian Consolidate Press is the country's largest magazine publisher . Australia has one of the highest print media circulation per capita in the world. The Australian Press Council is responsible for the freedom of the press . In the press freedom ranking published by Reporters Without Borders , Australia was ranked 21st out of 180 countries in 2019 (2018: 19th).

    The two national broadcasters are the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). In addition to several radio programs (SBS with multilingual programs, including German), these offer a television program that can be received nationwide . In addition, 53 commercial TV channels can be received, three of which are national, Seven Network , Nine Network and Network Ten .

    The introduction of an Internet filter in Australia has been the subject of controversy for years.

    Sports

    Sport is an important part of Australian culture, nurtured by a climate that favors outdoor activities. According to the 2001 census , 23.5% of Australians over the age of 14 are regularly involved in organized sport. Well-known Australian athletes are sprinter Cathy Freeman and swimmer Ian Thorpe .

    Australia has participated in all modern Olympic Games and all Commonwealth Games , was one of the pioneers in the funding of top-class sport by the state in 1912/14, hosted the Summer Olympics in 1956 and 2000, and so far hosted the Commonwealth Games four times (1938, 1962 , 1982 and 2006). Television broadcasts of sporting events are also popular, the Summer Olympics and the finals of local and international football tournaments achieve the highest ratings .

    Rugby match in Brisbane

    The popular team sports in Australia include two variants of rugby : rugby league and rugby union . In addition, Australian Football , in Australia mainly under the name Footy or Aussie Rules , is the national sport . Australian Rules is a sport that is only widespread in Australia and is played on an oval field. The players can only gain international experience in the annual International Rules tournament. A mixture of Australian Rules and Gaelic Football is played. When assessing whether rugby or football is the most popular sport, regional differences can be identified. The area around Melbourne is a stronghold of the Aussie Rules, while around Sydney rugby is the number one sport.

    Tennis match at the Australian Open 2013 in Melbourne

    The teams in cricket and netball are also successful nationally and internationally , but outstanding achievements are also made in cycling and swimming . In 2011, with Cadel Evans , an Australian won the Tour de France , the world's most important cycling race, for the first time. One of the four tennis grand slam tournaments has been taking place in Australia since 1905 : the Australian Open in Melbourne. The country has produced several top players, the most successful include Roy Emerson and Rod Laver .

    The Formula 1 is a regular guest in Australia. The Australian Grand Prix has been held in Adelaide since 1985 and has been held annually in Melbourne since 1996 . With Jack Brabham , a three-time Formula 1 world champion came from the country. Daniel Ricciardo has been active in Formula 1 since 2011, Mark Webber was active from 2002 to 2013. The country has a total of 14  Formula 1 racing drivers .

    In motorcycle racing , which is also popular , the country produced world champions such as Casey Stoner , Wayne Gardner , Mick Doohan , Troy Bayliss and Troy Corser . Every year, many spectators flock to the Phillip Island circuit for the races of the motorcycle world championship and the superbikes .

    Winter sports are possible in the winter snow areas of the Australian Alps and Tasmania , and ice hockey stadiums have also been built in many cities .

    In recent years, football in Australia has grown in popularity not only because of the national team's performance . The A-League is the top division in Australian club football. In 2015, the country hosted the Asian Football Championship and won the title for the first time. Before that, Australia was four times Oceania champion and participated in four world championships . In basketball, the women's national team is among the best in the world.

    See also

    Portal: Australia  - Overview of Wikipedia content on Australia

    literature

    Web links

    Wiktionary: Australia  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
    Commons : Australia  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
    Wikimedia Atlas: Australia  - geographical and historical maps
     Wikinews: Australia  - in the news
    Wikivoyage: Australia  Travel Guide

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    This version was added to the list of excellent articles on January 22nd, 2006 .

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