Political History of Australia

In 1803, Governor Philip Gidley King in Sydney sent two ships to near modern day Hobart. There had been multiple earlier European visits to Van Diemen’s Land but these ships were going to stay and build a permanent British settlement. Governor King’s response was both reactive and decisive. By planting a permanent British presence on the Derwent — first through the small, improvised party under John Bowen and then through the far more substantial expedition led by David Collins — Britain converted a theoretical claim into effective occupation. The rapid establishment of settlements in both the south and the north of the island marked the moment Van Diemen’s Land ceased to be an unclaimed frontier and became the second major British colony in Australia. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please leave a comment, share and rate the show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Also listen and subscribe at Youtube and Rumble here 👉@politicalhistoryofaustraliaThe Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council. johnruddick.com.auhttps://www.tiktok.com/@johnruddickmlchttps://x.com/JohnRuddick2https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnruddickmlc/https://www.facebook.com/johnruddickmlc https://www.instagram.com/john.ruddick/Produced by Sean Masters(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

Last week 'The Women's Pioneer Society of Australasia' invited me to speak about the Political History of Australia podcast.---------------------------------------------------------------------Please leave a comment, share and rate the show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Also listen and subscribe at Youtube and Rumble here 👉@politicalhistoryofaustraliaThe Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council. johnruddick.com.auhttps://www.tiktok.com/@johnruddickmlchttps://x.com/JohnRuddick2https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnruddickmlc/https://www.facebook.com/johnruddickmlc https://www.instagram.com/john.ruddick/Produced by Sean Masters(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

The people of what we now call Tasmania had lived in complete isolation since rising seas carved out Bass Strait around 10,000 BC, transforming their homeland from a southern peninsula of the Australian continent into the world’s most isolated island. European contact began in 1642 when Dutch explorer Abel Tasman claimed the land for the Netherlands. It was not until the 1770s, however, that a rapid succession of French and British visitors began to recognise its strategic value. When Bass and Flinders confirmed Van Diemen’s Land was a separate island in the late 1790s, the news soon reached Europe and sharpened French interest. The Baudin Expedition’s extended presence in Australian waters only heightened British suspicions in Sydney. In a decisive pre-emptive move, the British bumped the French out, raised the Union Jack, and established the first permanent settlement at Risdon Cove in 1803. The scene was set for the colonial era.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please leave a comment, share and rate the show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Also listen and subscribe at Youtube and Rumble here 👉@politicalhistoryofaustraliaThe Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council. johnruddick.com.auhttps://www.tiktok.com/@johnruddickmlchttps://x.com/JohnRuddick2https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnruddickmlc/https://www.facebook.com/johnruddickmlc https://www.instagram.com/john.ruddick/Produced by Sean Masters(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

This episode we pause the story of Governor Lachlan Macquarie to take a panoramic tour of Australia’s near-abroad and Australia’s infant settlements in the early 1820s.  With the Napoleonic Wars finally over and Britannia ruling the waves, London was able to focus more attention to its continental claim in the south. We survey the remarkably benign geopolitical setting in this corner of the globe and see how that freed up the colonists to focus on building a civilisation. We’ll travel clockwise around the map. First, the promising inland township of Bathurst, already hinting at the wool boom to come. Then the initially grim secondary-punishment outposts at Newcastle, Port Macquarie and Moreton Bay — soon to grow into Brisbane. We’ll also check in on Norfolk Island, abandoned only a few years earlier but already earmarked to reopen as one of the empire’s harshest penal stations. Finally, we cross the Tasman to New Zealand — still officially part of New South Wales — on the eve of sustained European contact. We’ll relive the shock of the Boyd Massacre and the remarkable partnership between the Reverend Samuel Marsden and the Māori chief Ruatara — a friendship that led to the first permanent British presence in New Zealand on Christmas Day 1814. What did this wider colonial world actually look like, and how did it shape the challenges Macquarie faced? That’s what we’re exploring in this episode.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please leave a comment, share and rate the show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Also listen and subscribe at Youtube and Rumble here 👉@politicalhistoryofaustraliaThe Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council. johnruddick.com.auhttps://www.tiktok.com/@johnruddickmlchttps://x.com/JohnRuddick2https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnruddickmlc/https://www.facebook.com/johnruddickmlc https://www.instagram.com/john.ruddick/Produced by Sean Masters(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

In 1813 New South Wales was a fast-growing, optimistic society. The colony’s teenage growth spurt could no longer be contained by the rugged sandstone wall of the Blue Mountains just 50 kilometres west of Sydney. There were multiple valiant efforts to cross the Blue Mountains but it took the determination of Gregory Blaxland, backed by William Lawson and William Wentworth, to finally crack the code by staying on the high ridges instead of following the valleys. Macquarie quickly capitalised on their breakthrough, commissioning a proper road and founding the inland settlement of Bathurst in 1815. The 1813 expedition changed New South Wales from a confined coastal settlement into the gateway to a continent. In just a few years the colony’s horizons expanded dramatically, setting Australia on the path to rapid 19th-century growth. Join us as we trace the drama and the personalities that finally punched through the Blue Mountains.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please leave a comment, share and rate the show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Also listen and subscribe at Youtube and Rumble here 👉@politicalhistoryofaustraliaThe Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council. johnruddick.com.auhttps://www.tiktok.com/@johnruddickmlchttps://x.com/JohnRuddick2https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnruddickmlc/https://www.facebook.com/johnruddickmlc https://www.instagram.com/john.ruddick/Produced by Sean Masters(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

After the upheaval of the Rum Rebellion, London finally responds. In late December 1809, Lieutenant-Colonel Lachlan Macquarie arrives in Sydney Harbour. He moves quickly to be sworn in as governor on New Year’s Day 1810. Unlike his predecessors, Macquarie does not ease into power. He seizes it. From his first days in office Governor Macquarie moves with startling speed and authority. He orders the discredited New South Wales Corps home (though hundreds of soldiers choose to stay and become settlers), replaces them with his own professional regiment, and issues a sweeping Nullification Proclamation that wipes away almost every appointment, pardon, and land grant made by the rebel administration. Most dramatically, he begins appointing emancipists (former convicts) to positions of real authority, including as magistrates. This single act sends shockwaves through colonial society and marks the beginning of Macquarie’s long battle with the “Exclusives.” Over the next decade Macquarie will reshape the colony more profoundly than any governor before or after him. He imposes order on Sydney’s chaotic streets, commissions grand public buildings, introduces Australia’s first official currency (the famous Holey Dollar), and champions the idea that once a convict has served their time they should be treated as a full citizen. Governor Macquarie resets the colony of New South Wales — resolving the great political conflicts of the Early Colonial Period while laying the foundations for the new divisions of the era to come.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please leave a comment, share and rate the show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Also listen and subscribe at Youtube and Rumble here 👉@politicalhistoryofaustraliaThe Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council. johnruddick.com.auhttps://www.tiktok.com/@johnruddickmlchttps://x.com/JohnRuddick2https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnruddickmlc/https://www.facebook.com/johnruddickmlc https://www.instagram.com/john.ruddick/Produced by Sean Masters(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

The men who led the march on Government House to depose Governor William Bligh in 1808 knew there would be consequences. Yet the Rebel Administration played a weak hand with skill and restraint. Beyond removing Bligh at gunpoint, they worked hard to appear measured and proper at every step. In this episode we examine London’s firm response to the Rum Rebellion: dispatching 800 battle-hardened troops from the 73rd Regiment, ordering a court martial, and recalling the New South Wales Corps. Lachlan Macquarie arrives in Sydney at the end of 1809 and is sworn in as governor on New Year’s Day 1810, marking the start of the Middle Colonial Period. The dramatic 1811 court martial of Major George Johnston in London hears explosive testimony from both sides. Johnston is found guilty of mutiny yet receives only the lightest possible sentence - sacked from the army - because the court acknowledged the “novel and extraordinary circumstances” created by Bligh’s tyrannical rule. Johnston returns quietly to farming life, Bligh never commands men again, and John Macarthur remains in England until 1817. The episode closes the Early Colonial era and sets the stage for the new political divide that would dominate the Macquarie years and beyond: Exclusives and Emancipists.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please leave a comment, share and rate the show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Also listen and subscribe at Youtube and Rumble here 👉@politicalhistoryofaustraliaThe Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council. johnruddick.com.auhttps://www.tiktok.com/@johnruddickmlchttps://x.com/JohnRuddick2https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnruddickmlc/https://www.facebook.com/johnruddickmlc https://www.instagram.com/john.ruddick/Produced by Sean Masters(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)

On the evening of 26 January 1808 the New South Wales Corps marched on Government House and did something extraordinary: they deposed Governor William Bligh at gunpoint. It remains the only successful armed overthrow of government in Australian history. What followed was one of the strangest and most revealing chapters in our early colonial story — the Rebel Administration. For nearly two years the colony was run by the very men who had arrested Bligh. John Macarthur effectively became the de facto ruler for a time, land grants flowed freely, regulations were slashed, and the rebels insisted this wasn’t a revolution at all — they were simply protecting the King’s loyal subjects from a dangerous tyrant. Then senior officers Joseph Foveaux and William Paterson arrived to steady the ship, while the entire colony held its breath waiting for London’s reaction. All the while the deposed and defiant William Bligh refused to go quietly. From house arrest in Sydney to his own audacious mutiny aboard the Porpoise and a long, bitter standoff in Hobart, he kept plotting and scheming to reclaim power. In this episode we go deep inside the Rebel Administration - its personalities, its successes, its score-settling, and the long waiting game that everyone in the colony was forced to play until London had played its hand.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please leave a comment, share and rate the show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Also listen and subscribe at Youtube and Rumble here 👉@politicalhistoryofaustraliaThe Hon. John Ruddick MLC is a member of the NSW Legislative Council. johnruddick.com.auhttps://www.tiktok.com/@johnruddickmlchttps://x.com/JohnRuddick2https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnruddickmlc/https://www.facebook.com/johnruddickmlc https://www.instagram.com/john.ruddick/Produced by Sean Masters(All voices in this series are AI generated bar the narrator.)