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From these beginnings, by the 2020s, Aboriginal representation in the Federal Parliament had exceeded the proportion of Aboriginal people in the general population, and Australia had its first Aboriginal leader of a state or territory in 2016, when the Country Liberal Party's Adam Giles became Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. [223]
South Australia was founded as a "free province"—it was never a penal colony. [33] Victoria and Western Australia were also founded "free", but later accepted transported convicts. [34] [35] A campaign by the settlers of New South Wales led to the end of convict transportation to that colony; the last convict ship arrived in 1848. [36]
In 1801–02 Matthew Flinders in HMS Investigator led the first circumnavigation of Australia. Aboard ship was the Aboriginal explorer Bungaree, who became the first person born on the Australian continent to circumnavigate it. [132] Matthew Flinders led the first successful circumnavigation of Australia in 1801–02.
The immigration history of Australia began with the initial human migration to the continent around 80,000 years ago [1] when the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians arrived on the continent via the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and New Guinea. [2]
The first European explorers of New Zealand were Abel Tasman, who arrived in 1642, Captain James Cook, in 1769, and Marion du Fresne in 1772. Initial contact between Māori and Europeans proved problematic and sometimes fatal, with Tasman having four of his men killed and probably killing at least one Māori, without ever landing. [ 65 ]
The theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia claims that early Portuguese navigators were the first Europeans to sight Australia between 1521 and 1524, well before the arrival of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606 on board the Duyfken who is generally considered to be the first European discoverer.
At first New Zealand was administered from Australia as part of the colony of New South Wales, and from 16 June 1840 New South Wales laws were deemed to operate in New Zealand. [68] This was a transitional arrangement, and the British Government issued the Charter for Erecting the Colony of New Zealand on 16 November 1840.
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia at least 65,000 years ago, and over time formed as many as 500 language-based groups. [3]