Talk:Australia/Archive 19

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There is too much information in the article to really get a quick appreciation as to when independence from the UK was gained. Here is a summary of the steps:

*1901: The British Parliament passed legislation allowing the six Australian colonies to govern in their own right as part of the Commonwealth of Australia.

This was not full independence ... the United Kingdom still retained the power to make laws for Australia and to overturn laws made by the Australian Parliament.

AND the states remained colonial dependencies of the British crown.

    *1927: Balfour Declaration of 1926 Australia gained further nationhood ... declared that Britain and its Dominions were constitutionally equal to each other.  probably not particularly significant

*1931: The Statute of Westminster 1931 was passed by British Parliament ... prevented the British Parliament from making laws for its dominions except where it was required by a dominion’s own laws

Bizarrely, the states remained colonial dependencies of the British crown. (Was Australia actually "independent" yet??)

   *1942: [[Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942}}  Australian Parliament that formally adopted the Statute of Westminster 1931 i.e. "Yes, thanks, we'll accept it". How important is this, really? 

*1986 full independence: Australia Act 1986, which effectively terminated the ability of the British Parliament to make laws for Australia or its States even at their request. It also advanced Australian sovereignty by breaking the right of appeal from our courts to the British Privy Council. ... the British government is no longer responsible for the government of any state and the Westminster parliament can no longer legislate for Australia. Most important, they transferred into Australian hands full control of all Australia's constitutional documents.

So March 3, 1986, is the day Australia achieved complete independence from Britain.

Some useful sources:

https://independentaustralia.net/australia/australia-display/australias-last-brick-of-nationhood,3127

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/we-only-became-independent-of-britain-on-this-day-in-1986/news-story/524a277d666ca0614eedcb39a43a9e12

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=984994 (confirms that the states remained colonial dependencies of the British Crown until the Australia Acts 1986)

@

: Do you agree with the content of the above?

Peter K Burian (talk) 15:18, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes I agree; this is progressive independence so it would be better to say Sovereignty from United Kingdom, as the Canada article states.

talk

) 15:48, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

You are ignoring constitutional convention which was more important. Britain did not in fact legislate for Australia (except to amend its constitution at its request) and did not overturn its laws. It had no right to do so, which was acknowledged (not enacted) in the Balfour Declaration. It says, "we refer to the group of self-governing communities composed of Great Britain and the Dominions. Their position and mutual relation may be readily defined. They are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations." The Declaration further says, "it is recognised that it is the right of the Government of each Dominion to advise the Crown in all matters relating to its own affairs. Consequently, it would not be in accordance with constitutional practice for advice to be tendered to His Majesty by His Majesty’s Government in Great Britain in any matter appertaining to the affairs of a Dominion against the views of the Government of that Dominion." Accordingly, Australia marks 1901 as the date of its independence, i.e., it has been independent since its foundation. TFD (talk) 16:04, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

The argument here is progressive independence - Australia was not fully independent in 1901. A dominion is classed as semi-independent (quasi-independent). If constitutional convention is being used then the wording would be sovereignty or autonomy not independence.

talk

) 17:18, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Do you have any sources that explain the distinction between sovereignty and independence? And who classes a dominion as semi-independent? TFD (talk) 20:59, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Do you have any reliable sources for the date of independence given above - or any alternate phrasing? The High Court considered this matter in Sue v Hill and was unable to determine an exact date. --Pete (talk) 21:33, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

When Australia became independent was a tangential issue in Sue v. Hill. The decision said, "Australia and the United Kingdom have their own laws as to nationality so that their citizens owe different allegiances." (97.) Those laws were enacted in the UK and Australia in 1947-48, prior to which by common law they were equally British subjects. During the Hanoverian era, Great Britain and Hanover had the same monarch hence were equally British subjects although they were independent of each other. On the other hand, separate citizenship can be created before independence. Moreover, the judges decided that "foreign power" should be given its ordinary meaning. "Foreign" means "of another country." In that sense, the UK has always been foreign to Australia. TFD (talk) 00:32, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

The point is that Australia, like other Dominions, gained rights after their original independence was declared:

   https://www.statusquo.org/aru_html/html/indaus.html The following is an extract from Volume 1 of the Final Report of the Constitutional Commission 1998. The report was forwarded to the then Attorney-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, 

[AFTER 1901, BEFORE 1931] 2.118 The creation of the Commonwealth of Australia by the union of the six Australian colonies did not in itself change the status of Australia or its relationship with the United Kingdom. The restrictions referred to above on the power of colonial Governments and legislatures continued, generally speaking, to apply to both the States and the Commonwealth. The same was true of the other great Dominions of the Crown, which by 1910 included Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Newfoundland. NOT TOTAL SOVEREIGNTY

2.124 ... There remained, however, some other legal disabilities on the Dominions, which conflicted with the broad scope of the Balfour Declaration, and which had to be removed by Imperial enactment. The Parliaments of the Dominions could not make laws contrary to Acts of the Imperial Parliament which operated in the Dominions, because of the provisions of the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 (Imp). There was also some doubt as to whether the Dominion Parliaments could make laws operating outside their territories. These restrictions were abolished by the Statute of Westminster 1931 (Imp) (sections 2 and 3) subject. in the case of Australia, to the adoption of the Act by the Parliament of the Commonwealth. This was done by the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 (Cth), to operate from the outbreak of World War II, that is, 3 September 1939.

2.125 The legislative supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament remained, but section 4 of the Statute of Westminster 1931 (Imp) provided that no Act of the United Kingdom Parliament should extend to a Dominion as part of its law unless it expressly declared that the Dominion had requested and consented to its enactment. Sections 8 and 9 of the Statute of Westminster 1931 (Imp) ensured that the power given to the Parliament of the Commonwealth to repeal or amend Imperial laws operating in Australia did not extend to overriding the Constitution.

2.128 It is clear from these events, and recognition by the world community, that at some time between 1926 and the end of World War II [ended in 1945] Australia had achieved full independence as a sovereign state of the world. The British Government ceased to have any responsibility in relation to matters coming within the area of responsibility of the Federal Government and Parliament.

END OF QUOTE FROM THAT SOURCE

AFTER 1945 There were still many benefits in terms of total sovereignty: The Australia Act 1986 removed any remaining links between the British Parliament and the Australian states. ... removed the right of the British Parliament to make laws for Australia and ended any British role in the government of the Australian States... It also removed the right of appeal from Australian courts to the British Privy Council in London. Most important, the Act transferred into Australian hands full control of all Australia's constitutional documents. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/aa1986114/index.html |title=Australia Act 1986 publisher=[[Australasian Legal Information Institute Peter K Burian (talk) 22:16, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

So where's your source for an exact date? Are you familiar with

WP:SYNTH? --Pete (talk

) 22:22, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Exact date of what?Peter K Burian (talk) 22:31, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

http://australianpolitics.com/1986/03/02/queen-elizabeth-signs-australia-act-into-law.html

The two Australia Acts remove the outmoded links between Australia and the United Kingdom parliamentary, government and judicial systems. They reflect Australia’s status as an independent and sovereign nation. Her Majesty’s position as Queen of Australia is in no way affected.

The major features of the Acts include: ◾An end to appeals from Australian courts of law to the Privy Council, making the High Court of Australia the final court of appeal for Australian courts on all matters. ◾An end to the powers of the United Kingdom Parliament and Government over the States. ◾An end to United Kingdom legislation, such as the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865, restricting the legislative powers of the States to repeal or update old Imperial laws still applying to them.

The following is an outline of the constitutional links ended by the Australia Acts: [UK LOSES THESE RIGHTS]]

◾Power of the United Kingdom Parliament to enact legislation having effect as part of Australian law. ◾The Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 and the ” repugnancy” rule (ie the rule that State legislation inconsistent with United Kingdom laws extending to the States is invalid to that extent). ◾Possible implied limitations on powers of State Parliaments, deriving from their former colonial status. ◾Merchant Shipping Act 1894 ( limitations on State powers to regulate merchant shipping). ◾Queen’s power to withhold assent from, or disallow, State laws on the advice of United Kingdom Ministers. ◾Appeals to the Privy Council from State Courts. Peter K Burian (talk) 22:31, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, let's start with a reliable source for complete independence. Don't try to argue whatever case it is you're making, just come up with a source, and it would help if you provided the wording you identify as supporting the claim. Thanks. --Pete (talk) 22:34, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Fine, I'll take this one: Australia was independent by 1945 (after the end of the war according to this source)

   https://www.statusquo.org/aru_html/html/indaus.html extract from Volume 1 of the Final Report of the Constitutional Commission 1998. 

That does not diminish the value of the Australia Act 1986 in providing Australia with additional freedoms from the UK and powers.

    http://australianpolitics.com/1986/03/02/queen-elizabeth-signs-australia-act-into-law.html The two Australia Acts remove the outmoded links between Australia and the United Kingdom parliamentary, government and judicial systems. They reflect Australia’s status as an independent and sovereign nation. Her Majesty’s position as Queen of Australia is in no way affected.

Peter K Burian (talk) 22:42, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm seeing argument, but no exact date. Does this mean you can't find a source? --Pete (talk) 22:53, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

I understand the argument too. But note that the Colonial Laws Validty Act actually did not limit the powers of the Australian government since the UK could not disallow legislation. Incidentally, Australia was recognized as a sovereign nation by the Treaty of Paris 1919. The United States did not recognize Canada until 1926, basing its decision of the Balfour Declaration 1926, while for some reason it did not recognize Australia until 1940. So, Australia was independent from its foundation, but obsolete legislation from colonial days was only removed gradually. And the reason it was gradual was that it was obsolete, hence no urgency, and no reason to stir up hornets nests in the Dominions: republicanism in Australia, French nationalism in Canada, race relations in South Africa. Today, Australia has real restrictions on its sovereigny in the form of military and trade treaties, but so does every other country. TFD (talk) 23:23, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

^I agree with TFD's position. I think in the sidebar, we should only list 'establishment' (1901). The rest is too complicated for the sidebar. The sidebar is a place for the most crucial information about a country in brief form. As we have seen, this was the key transformative date and the others were comparatively imperceptible shifts which were more a matter of theory than practical reality. As such, I think they can be briefly outlined in the body but they do not have the transformative significance in practical terms to go in the infobox. I am definitely in favour of listing the only real key date of any practical significance, namely 1901. The reality is, the country has been set up and functioned the same way under the same constitution since 1 Jan 1901 - one of the oldest surviving continuous constitutional orders. While talking about the catch up of some of the largely theoretical elements is interesting in theory for people interested in constitutional law such as myself, and there is a place for it in more detailed discussion, it certainly isn't vital enough to go in the infobox--Saruman-the-white (talk) 12:18, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, Waldo must be happy today as he deleted/reverted every edit I had made to the sovereignty from the UK sections.

 Latest revision as of 02:57, 13 February 2017 HappyWaldo  (→‎Nationhood:  rv to original. progress towards full independence explained concisely. recent edits have bogged the section down in WP:TMI, looks messy)

Looks messy? Additional facts, fully cited, are messy? Does Concise mean: "omit any content that were not added by you and by a few other insiders?"

For example, which of these citations provided information that is not accurate OR is not necessary?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-12-07/australia27s_last_brick_of_nationhood/41892 |title=Australia's last brick of nationhood |last=Donovan |first=David |date=6 December 2010 |website=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |access-date=12 February 2017 |quote=Many people incorrectly assume that Australia became a fully independent and sovereign nation on January 1st 1901 with Federation

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=984994 |title=The De-Colonisation of the Australian States, Paper No. 07/19 |last=Twomey |first=Anne |date=May 2007 |website=SSRN |publisher=Sydney Law School Research |access-date=12 February 2017 |quote=Statute of Westminster 1931, the Australian States remained 'self-governing colonial dependencies of the British Crown' until the Australia Acts 1986 came into force.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=984994 |title=The De-Colonisation of the Australian States, Paper No. 07/19 |last=Twomey |first=Anne |date=May 2007 |website=SSRN |publisher=Sydney Law School Research |access-date=12 February 2017 |quote=the Australian States remained 'self-governing colonial dependencies of the British Crown' until the Australia Acts 1986 came into force

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-12-07/australia27s_last_brick_of_nationhood/41892 |title=Australia's last brick of nationhood |last=Donovan |first=David |date=6 December 2010 |website=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |access-date=12 February 2017 |quote=Furthermore, despite the Australia Act, the Queen retains several powers under the Australia Constitution. For instance, under s59 of the Constitution, she has the power to disallow any Australian law within a year of its enactment, though by convention she refuses to use this power. Perhaps to remind us she retains such powers she does, however, sometimes perform some Constitutional function – such as giving the Royal Assent to an Act of Parliament – for ceremonial purposes during a Royal visits. In addition, the Queen also appoints her representative in Australia, the Governor General. Also by convention, she does so only on the advice of the Australian Prime Minister

journal |last=Waugh |first=John |date=2011 |title=An Australian in the palace of the king-emperor: James Scullin, George v and the appointment of the first Australian-born governor-general |url=http://apo.org.au/node/46953 |journal=Federal Law Review |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=235-253 |issn=0067-205X |access-date=12 February 2017 Peter K Burian (talk) 15:53, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

WP:DISPUTE Talk page discussion is a prerequisite to almost all of Wikipedia's venues of higher dispute resolution. If you wish at any time to request a Third Opinion (3O), use the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard (DRN), or open a request for mediation (RFM), you will be expected to show there has been talk page discussion of the dispute. Peter K Burian (talk

) 15:53, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

We are talking about dates to use in the lead. What does the fact that the Queen may be asked to rubber-stamp legislation when she is visiting have to do with what dates to put in the info-box? It is distracting to seeing walls of text posted with no explanation of their relevance. TFD (talk) 16:33, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I reject the premise implicit in this thread title. New editors and new points of view are always welcome. However, we all follow the procedures established over the long and productive years of Wikipedia's rise, and we support the

five pillars that hold the thing up. PKB, you are not participating in discussion if you cannot address the concerns raised by other editors. --Pete (talk

) 17:38, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Deleting all content that I add does not seem to be the collaboration that Wikipedia discusses. I believe that every single word, and every single citation that I have added has been reverted.

No one, no matter how skilled, or how high standing in the community, has the right to act as though they are the owner of a particular page. Also, a person or an organization that is the subject of an article does not own the article, and has no right to dictate what the article may say.

WP:OWNERSHIP Peter K Burian (talk

) 21:45, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

You should stepback and look at why your having the same problem in multiple articles. What makes more sense here...that many many editors in diffent articles are out to "get you" or that its your placment of content it's sourcing and wording that is the problem? --Moxy (talk) 21:53, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

No, not many editors are revising content that I add to articles. In fact, it's a single one in all three articles about Canada.

And in Australia, one editor reverted my content on sovereignty and one reverts the content on colonization. Peter K Burian (talk) 22:06, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

@Pete Thanks for your comment. I have been discussing the issue of sovereignty in the Talk sections ... extensively.

  5 Propose change to Establishment of Full Sovereignty
  6 The bottom line: independence from the UK (sovereignty)
  7 Semi-protected edit request on 12 February 2017

But then, every word I had added (fully cited content) was reverted:

  02:57, 13 February 2017‎ HappyWaldo (talk | contribs)‎ . . (177,910 bytes) (-3,928)‎ . . (→‎Nationhood:  rv to original. progress towards full independence explained concisely. recent edits have bogged the section down in WP:TMI, looks messy) 

I am not aware of any Talk topics about colonisation. So, I did some work on that section and all of it was deleted.

    22:02, 12 February 2017‎ Skyring (talk | contribs)‎ . . (181,843 bytes) (-2,184)‎ . . (Reverted to revision 765137946 by Bahudhara (talk): Appears to be based on self-published book. Please discuss on talk. (TW)) 

And in fact, most of the content reverted at 22:02 was cited with strong sources (not the Commons book):

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11268800 |title=Our Austral |newspaper=

|location=Melbourne, Vic. |date=27 January 1940 |access date=12 February 2017 |page=8 Supplement: The Argus Weekend magazine |publisher=National Library of Australia

http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/european-discovery-and-colonisation |title=European discovery and the colonisation of Australia - First Fleet and a British Colony |author= |date=2015 |website=Government of Australia |publisher=Government of Australia |access-date=12 February 2017 Peter K Burian (talk) 22:06, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I think your issue is that you come to a page expecting to be able to make whatever changes you want notwithstanding what anyone else may think. The reality is it is what weight is given to is more of a democratic process. Clearly you have put yourself in the minority and the changes have been rejected by the majority. When this occurs, the solution is not to continuously try to force the edit which has been rejected.--Saruman-the-white (talk) 22:48, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

It is not a majority who reverts content added by others. Most of these were prior to my involvement:

00:35, 5 January 2017‎ HappyWaldo (talk | contribs)‎ . . (178,577 bytes) (-1,708)‎ . . (→‎Environmental issues: threats to wildlife adequately covered in biodiversity section. i think all of the material in 'environmental issues' could be absorbed in other sections) (undo | thank)

04:38, 12 February 2017‎ HappyWaldo (talk | contribs)‎ . . (177,686 bytes) (-1,593)‎ . . (→‎Geography: recover edit (rv presumably by mistake)) (undo | thank)

02:18, 12 February 2017‎ Saruman-the-white (talk | contribs)‎ . . (179,045 bytes) (-234)‎ . . (Undid. Not a constitutional tie. Succession is governed by mere legislation which could be changed by a simple majority in parliament at will.) (undo | thank)

18:41, 3 January 2017‎ HappyWaldo (talk | contribs)‎ . . (180,080 bytes) (-1,814)‎ . . ("If your edit gets reverted, do not revert again. Instead, begin a discussion with the person who reverted your change to establish consensus." WP:BRD) (undo | thank)

08:26, 3 January 2017‎ HappyWaldo (talk | contribs)‎ . . (180,081 bytes) (-785)‎ . . (→‎Cuisine: why 4 references, just more article size bloat) (undo | thank)

08:24, 3 January 2017‎ HappyWaldo (talk | contribs)‎ . . (180,866 bytes) (-847)‎ . . (→‎Government: used to have kirribilli house here too but we decided to remove cause one building (parliament house) is enough) (undo | thank)

08:19, 3 January 2017‎ HappyWaldo (talk | contribs)‎ . . (181,713 bytes) (-394)‎ . . (→‎Media: too listy, overlinking (sea of blue)) (undo | thank)

19:00, 2 January 2017‎ HappyWaldo (talk | contribs)‎ . . (179,284 bytes) (-586)‎ . . (→‎Government: overboard w images. doubt many Australians could recognise high court building) Peter K Burian (talk) 23:18, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Does anyone understand what Peter is trying to say or show us above. --2605:8D80:5C1:3465:D465:BE5A:AD90:13ED (talk) 03:20, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

It's not at all clear, and I don't have the time to read all the sources to find if any wording supports PKB's often startling conclusions. Some of the sources are very dubious. Trying to puzzle out his indentation strategy is a task in itself. Perhaps instead of trying to make bold and bulk changes in many articles at once, he could pick one point in one article and we can chew that over? --Pete (talk) 05:33, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

I'll throw in my own chips by asking the question the other way round. I think we are all agreed that 1 Jan 1901 was significant. The day before, "Australia" was an island/continent occupied by five colonies (Tasmania was another colony on a nearby island by the same name). On 1 January, a new nation came into being, legally (but not socially) independent of all others, sharing our monarch with several other dominions. Yes, appeals could be made to the Privy Council, but that is

which advises the monarch, not the UK government. There may be a separate question as to how independent the colonies/states were at various times, but they clearly had enough independence to cede various powers to the Commonwealth in 1901.

I guess Australia is "in personal union with" Canada, UK and the other dominions, in the same was as the Kingdom of Hanover was in personal union with the UK from 1714 to 1837, before its rules of succession separated it. The Perth Agreement limits the opportunity to break out of the personal union as Hanover did in 1837. --Scott Davis ^Talk 03:47, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Oh perleeeze! Not only does this raise nothing new but it also contains several errors. I'll just point out the two most definite of them: (1) appeals "to the Privy Council" were to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a court composed of law lords and operating separately from the PC as a whole; (2) the Perth Agreement is only an application of the Statute of Westminster. Let's not proceed with this section. Wikiain (talk) 07:09, 13 February 2017 (UTC) Wikiain (talk) 07:09, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

The Perth Agreement is not binding on Australia and there is no impediment to the country changing its succession law without agreement of the other Commonwealth Realms. TFD (talk) 15:44, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Australia is a party to the Perth Agreement and has abided by it: that's all that matters. The rest of what you say concerns a somewhat remote possibility. Wikiain (talk) 00:27, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Matters to what? Australia is actually not a party to the Perth agreement, the PM of Australia was. But Australia is a party to real treaties, such as the Convention for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna, but that does not mean it is not a sovereign state. TFD (talk) 02:05, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't think you understand constitutional law very well. Australia has implemented the Perth Agreement through legislation by choice which it could repeal at will. It is mere statute. It is not constitutionally entrenched. Similarly, Australia has thousands of agreements with other countries which have similarly been implemented by statute. Your argument is the equivalent of saying that both Australia and Italy have the same law on the statute books with respect to x common healthcare policy thus Italy's sovereignty is impeded when in fact a huge amount of law is common between countries and what SOVEREIGNTY means is that the law was passed freely by the country and that there is no impediment to it repealing it at will. Your arguments betray a surprising lack of understanding of constitutional law for someone who is so keen on changing the consensus.--Saruman-the-white (talk) 01:23, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

What I don't understand is what you are getting at. Wikiain (talk) 01:40, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

I'd say that about sums it up.--Saruman-the-white (talk) 03:31, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

I think they are reiterating my point. That the Perth agreement did not limit the sovereignty of Australia. TFD (talk) 02:07, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

I never suggested that it did. I just said that Australia was a party to the Agreement. The PM of Australia signed on behalf of Australia, as an exercise of Australian sovereignty. That makes Australia a "party to" the Agreement, though not in the same way as with a treaty. It's an agreement among members of the Commonwealth "family". Wikiain (talk) 02:27, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

So it's as relevant to our sovereignty as a free trade deal with Thailand which is similarly implemented by means of consensual legislation and which could be repealed at will--Saruman-the-white (talk) 03:31, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

If you are asking whether there is any impediment, in Australian law or in international law, to repealing or amending the Australian legislation that gives effect in Australia to the Perth Agreement: no. Australia's adherence to the Agreement was an act of Australian sovereignty and in no way a restriction of it. Wikiain (talk) 03:53, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

The PM did not sign on behalf of Australia and Australia is not a party to the agreement. The agreement, which is quoted in full in the Wikipedia article, merely says, “The Prime Ministers have agreed that they will each work within their respective administrations to bring forward the necessary measures to enable all the realms to give effect to these changes simultaneously.” She had to get parliamentary approval and states' approval and left office before that was done. In no way were they bound by the Perth agreement to do that. TFD (talk) 04:00, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the correction about signing. But I do insist that the PM made Australia a party to the Agreement; her own agreement was as the Australian head of government and accordingly it committed Australia. That was why the next PM proceeded as had been agreed. As to seeking those approvals, the Perth Statement also says: “The Prime Ministers have agreed that they will each work within their respective administrations to bring forward the necessary measures to enable all the realms to give effect to these changes simultaneously.” Thus each of the Commonwealth realms was bound to take measures of that kind, albeit that in each realm the process would have been different. "Bound" morally and politically, possibly even "legally" in some broad sense though let's not get into that—but I think we would agree that it was a free exercise of Australian sovereignty. Wikiain (talk) 05:38, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

It was her personal agreement to get Australia to make the necessary changes. She had no authority to agree to the changes on behalf of Australia's federal and state parliaments. At most she was agreeing on behalf of the federal executive not to change the law but to persuade the legislators to do that. Had she failed, then the law would not have been changed and there would be no claim for any other country to make against Australia. TFD (talk) 12:58, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

She gave an undertaking on behalf of Australia, as the Australian head of government. It was not "personal" in relation to the other Commonwealth realms. That is, there was no question of Australian "dependency". Wikiain (talk) 13:18, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

A similar process is taking place on

) 20:58, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we have modified the heading in the

Shire Lord

. The Canada infobox never did use the word independence.

The content of the box is different for Canada, of course, since the process to independence was different than in Australia. For example, in 1831, Canada allowed Britain to retain the authority to amend the constitution (with the consent of the Canadian Government). It was only in 1982 that the authority was reclaimed by Canada: Patriation, the final step to full sovereignty.

 • Confederation July 1, 1867 
 • Statute of Westminster December 11, 1931 
 • Patriation April 17, 1982 
Peter K Burian (talk) 22:38, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

In the Australia infobox, should you not show Statute of Westminster 1931, 9 October 1942 (with effect from 3 September 1939). There is a Wikipedia article, Statute of Westminster 1931: The Statute of Westminster 1931 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and modified versions of it ....

And, based on this UK source, it does seem that the correct name of the act is Statute of Westminster 1931 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1931/4/pdfs/ukpga_19310004_en.pdf

Peter K Burian (talk) 22:56, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Having had my attention drawn to Canada, I could support the expression "Establishment of Full Sovereignty (from the United Kingdom)". The idea that Australia became independent upon Federation has had very few takers—among the higher judiciary only Lionel Murphy. On the other hand, the Treaty of Versailles, 1919 is significant for both Australia and Canada, since they signed it autonomously—though maybe to add it here would be confusing since Britain was an actual party on their behalf. Also in the interest of clarity, I'd leave the 1942 act by itself, since the question here is the timeline and for Australia 1942 is an operative date while 1931 is not.

But I'll make you an alternative offer, from one of the main textbooks on Australian constitutional law (Blackshield & Williams): "Path to Independence (from the United Kingdom)". Less clunky, no? Wikiain (talk) 23:50, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't see the need for brackets around "from the United Kingdom" given it's already in non-bold font, making the two de-emphasisers somewhat redundant. What improvement is this change intended to bring? We already have all three dates. CMD (talk) 00:24, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

The only date that should be in the info-box is 1901, when the state was created. The road to independence was based more on precedent than statue and so there are no other clear dates that belong in the info-box. The UK in fact had no power to unilaterally change the Australian constitution or to block amendments before the 1986 constitutional change. TFD (talk) 02:35, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, TFD, I was trying work along with the proposal but I'd be more comfortable with saying just "Establishment ... 1901" (maybe a bit like "Oz Co., Est. 1901"). Though technically the UK, by repealing its Commonwealth of Australia Act 1900, could have abolished and replaced the Australian Constitution up to 1986. Australia has no constitutional milestone comparable with Federation (unless the founding of the colonies, beginning with "British Invasion 1788"...) Wikiain (talk) 03:57, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

"Technically," the UK could still repeal the Australian constitution just as they could revoke American independence or order the sea to retreat. But it would have no effect. TFD (talk) 04:13, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

When it all comes down to it, "Independence", "Path to Independence" and "Establishment of Full Sovereignty" all really mean the same thing. Independence was not a one step process so there's no really good way of saying it, but "independence" is a single word, and we should be brief in the infobox. Why make it more clunky than it needs to be, and more confusing for readers? --AussieLegend (✉) 07:06, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree. On other pages many editors get in a lather about the whole 'when did Oz become independent?' thing. It's not all that important, to be honest. Even after the Australia Act some still maintain that we are dependent upon the Succession Acts of the United Kingdom. Why not simply state the important dates which mark the development of our life as a nation?Gazzster (talk) 07:32, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Actually, I was little bit wrong. "Establishment of Full Sovereignty" implies a date that full sovereignty occurred, and, since independence has been a multi-stage process there is no one date that we can use, so "Establishment of Full Sovereignty" should not be used at all. Regarding Peter K Burian's assertion that we shouldn't mention Statute of Westminster 1931 in the infobox, this was thrashed out back in 2008. The Statute of Westminster was specifically backdated to take effect on the first day of WWII. Had it not been, some of the legislation that was enacted during the war would not have been legal. It's a very important part of our road to independence, so it's something that does need to be mentioned. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:06, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

The Statute of Westminster 1931 merely put the Balfour Declaration of 1926 into legal form. It had said, "They are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations." The Balfour Declaration merely stated the reality of the relationship. The separate international personality of the Dominions had been accepted by the League of Nations in 1919. I don't see why all these dates should be mentioned in the info-box. I would just put in 1901, the year the Commonwealth was created. The nuances can be explained in the article. TFD (talk) 11:30, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

The problem is, we didn't have full independence in 1901. --AussieLegend (✉) 19:12, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

According to the Government of Australia, "Australia became an independent nation on 1 January 1901 when the British Parliament passed legislation allowing the six Australian colonies to govern in their own right as part of the Commonwealth of Australia."[1] Of course it took 85 years to catch up with the paperwork, while in the case of all countries given independence after Second World War, it was done all at once. While one could argue when exactly Australia became independent, there is certainty it was created in 1901 and that date, which we could call "Federation." While you say Australia did not have full independence, the reality is that the UK exercised no authority over Australia. Its real power was the same as the U.S. today, a global superpower that smaller nations followed. TFD (talk) 21:20, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

That website statement is good shopfront but romantic. Britain declared war on Germany in 1914 (and in 1939?) on behalf of the whole Empire: Australia was then at war as a component of the Empire. The Commonwealth until 1942, and the States individually until 1986, were unable to legislate inconsistently with ("repugnantly" to) Imperial law. The earliest sensible date to identify full independence is 1986, with the Australia Acts. Even then, the "sovereign" of the UK is still automatically that of Australia and the succession rules are made by the UK (albeit that changes to them require Australia's consent). So I'm still going for "Established ... 1901". Wikiain (talk) 00:01, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

^^^ Incorrect. The Australia Acts 1986 had nothing to do with the Commonwealth. They were relevant to the states only - removing the option to appeal from state supreme courts to the judicial committee of the privy council (a court which several independent nations still have appeals to today). To be honest, if we were talking about independence of the states here, the most relevant dates in the timeline by far would be the granting of self government to the colonies in the 1850s. The Commonwealth has been fully independent in theory since 1942 and in practice since 1901. Prior to 1942 the UK could legislate for Australia but never in fact did so. Similarly, the Queen of Australia has been the same person as the Queen of the United Kingdom (and the Queen of Canada, etc) and we followed the British in to two wars - but this was by choice. At the time, there was little question among the population that these were the natural choices to be made, but nonetheless you cannot say a country is not independent because of a choice that it makes. I think we either go with independence at keep it as it is now (although I find inclusion of the Australia Acts to be dubious as they are not related to the country's independence) or with establishment and keep 1901 only. I would personally favour the latter. If we wanted to keep it as it is and make the wording more accurate we might say "constitutional history" but even then, the inclusion of the Australia Acts would be wrong as they had no effect on the Commonwealth Constitution. --Saruman-the-white (talk) 01:20, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

According to one expert, the power of veto had become obsolete by 1848.[2] It was Australia's decision to raise money and troops for the First World War. In the 19th century Canada had refused to participate in the Crimean War. So Australia had de facto independence since its founding and assumed responsibility for its foreign policy and defense by 1919, and this reality was reflected in the Balfour Declaration, the Statute of Westminster and patriation. Some remnants of colonialism remain: a shared monarch and Commonwealth citizenship, the exchange of high commissioners rather than ambassadors. Unlike other former colonies, the Dominions achieved independence through practice rather than statutes or treaties, and the formal statutes lagged well behind the reality. And there are independent countries that rely on other countries for their defense or foreign relations. Even today, Canadian passports say, "In countries where there is no Canadian office, applications may be made in an emergency to the nearest British diplomatic or consular office." TFD (talk) 03:05, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Saruman-the-white: what I said was correct. Section 1 of the Australia Acts refers primarily to the Commonwealth, although the effect as to the Commonwealth is only to restate the effect of the Statute of Westminster: but that is not the same as having "nothing to do with the Commonwealth". When section 1 goes on to refer to the States, and then sections 2 and 3 refer to legislative powers of the States, the effect is to remove the States from the "repugnancy" restriction, which for the States had survived the Statute of Westminster. Similarly, section 10 frees the States, as the Statute of Westminster had freed the Commonwealth (albeit codifying existing Imperial convention), from intervention by the British government. Then section 11 terminates almost all avenues of appeal from any Australian court to the Privy Council (the exception is in Constitution section 74, which however is extremely unlikely to be used), although the effect was mainly on the State supreme courts since Commonwealth legislation had removed appeals from the High Court to the Privy Council by 1975. The Australia Acts did not and could not have had any effect upon the Australian Constitution, but they did have effects upon sub-constitutional law that was relevant to independence. Nonetheless, none of this matters if the infobox refers to "Establishment" and only Federation in 1901 is mentioned. Wikiain (talk) 03:18, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

After a lengthy discussion, consensus has been achieved for the Canada article - we agree that 'independence from the United Kingdom' is most appropriate. I have no issue with the same words being used for the Australia article. Australia, like Canada, is fully independent of British rule. It therefore makes sense to leave the Aussie piece as is. NorthernFactoid (talk) 00:14, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Given the current kerfuffle over "establishment" versus "independence from..." I do not understand why both can't be incorporated into a single solution, like many other infoboxes do. For example, Brunei has Formation as the title for the infobox section with "creation" for the first date, and "Independence from the United Kingdom" along with its appropriate date as well. I think this model makes a great deal of sense:

1. "Formation" is a more accurate description than "establishment" (really the first date is what establishes something, such as an official claim or a first permanent habitation) and "Independence from..." (which is really quite narrow and actually shifts a great deal of focus to a different country, ie the United Kingdom).

2. "Formation" allows for a more accurate depiction of the formation of Australia to what it currently is today, and recognises the fluid and organic nature of its evolution, while also leaving the focus entirely on the topic of this article which is Australia itself, and not on independence (or the UK).

3. This also allows for both viewpoints resulting in this dispute to be incorporated in a true collaborative spirit. Namely that those supporting "establishment" get their way in that Australia was "established" in 1901 (although why not start with 1788? I'm not Australian but I would assume if the date is important enough to become the National Day of Australia it is important enough for a mention in the infobox), and those wishing for "Independence from..." get their way as "Independence from the United Kingdom" could be used for the 1986 date.

In this way it seems to me we would have an infobox that is concise with only three of four dates, clearly and accurately depicts the fluid and organic nature of Australia's formation over time, and incorporates both the establishment and independence aspects of Australia's history, which are both important. In this way we may be left with something which may end up looking something like this (obviously Establishment could be 1901 instead of 1788, and the titles and blue links would change depending on consensus, this is just a very rough suggestion):

Formation

26 January 1788

Federation 1 January 1901

9 October 1942 (with effect from 3 September 1939)

3 March 1986

trackratte (talk) 06:32, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Trackratte, without doubting your good intentions, please look again at Australia Day. I think you will see how "Formation" starting in 1788 would be highly problematical. We could have "Formation" said to begin maybe 60,000 years ago, but then we would have to rethink the article. At the moment the article is about the political entity "Commonwealth of Australia" and that entity certainly has an establishment date of 1 January 1901. I'm uncomfortable with the implication that there was no political entity "Australia" earlier than that, but the infobox has to reflect the current content of the article. Wikiain (talk) 07:17, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

The comparison with Brunei is a bit ridiculous, Brunei existed long before it even knew the UK existed, and became a protectorate and then became independent again without huge changes. As for focus, I find it hard to see the focus shifting much. At any rate, Australia was a union of six British colonies. CMD (talk) 07:38, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

As we have explained, 1986 is certainly NOT the date that would be used for 'independence'. There's no point continuing to go around in circles here. 1986 is most certainly not the date that should be used for independence (it is far less relevant to Australia, ie the federal commonwealth, the subject of this article, than the statute of westminster. Furthermore in practical reality as the UK never legislated for Australia post-1901, 1901 is by far the most important date. The infobox should stay as it is and Wikiain should stop frivolously trying to reiterate his viewpoint again and again.--Saruman-the-white (talk) 10:51, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

I suggest we put just one of those lines in the info=box (Federation 1 January 1901) and leave all the discussion about Australia's constitutional development to the main article. In this, we are able to consult tertiary sources to see what they do. The CIA Factbook says: "Independence: 1 January 1901 (from the federation of UK colonies)).[3] In ordinary English, federation was formation in that the country was formed by federating the colonies. TFD (talk) 12:47, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Saruman-the-white: kindly stop being personal. I have consistently been canvassing what might be the most appropriate date to identify Australian "establishment" or "independence", which were the options initially proposed. As to "independence" at or by 1986, there is the authority of the High Court of Australia in Sue v Hill. One doesn't have to agree with the High Court's sense of history, but the decision has to be taken into account both as an informed view of the history and as a set of legally authoritative statements. TFD: the CIA Factbook is badly researched; check textbooks of Australian constitutional law. As to "establishment" of the political entity "Commonwealth of Australia", I have been preferring 1901.

Everybody: can we agree on "Establishment" and 1 January 1901 and then nothing else? Wikiain (talk) 13:05, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

I am using the CIA factbook as a

tertiary source

. "Reliable tertiary sources...may be helpful in evaluating due weight." It's not that I presenting the CIA as a source for facts, but merely to show what information the typical reader show expect to see in the extremely brief summary in the info-box.

Why do you want to say "Establishment" instead of "Federation?" How was Australia established? Through federation. Why use a vague term when an exact one will do?

TFD (talk) 14:48, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Given the current kerfuffle over "establishment" versus "independence from..." I do not understand - I do not understand why there is a kerfuffle at all, and why it has resulted in 8,000 words of discussion, much of what amounts to gobbledygook. If the Canadians are having issues, that's their problem. It doesn't mean we have to have issues here. Independence was an ongoing process, the three relevant pieces of legislation are listed in the infobox and nobody has had a problem with that in nearly seven years. I don't see any need for change. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:28, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

These issue is that info-boxes are supposed to summarize key information, such as when Australia came into existence, rather than explain the nuances of its constitutional evolution and the debates about the significance of the various changes. TFD (talk) 18:32, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

The infobox doesn't explain anything as it stands. It does simply summarise independence by listing the 3 key pieces of legislation related to independence. You can't eliminate any one of the 3 because they are all essential. Calling it anything other than independence is, at best, confusing to readers. Federation was just the beginning of independence. "Establishment" is indeed vague. --AussieLegend (✉) 19:29, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

The infobox is supposed to summarize key information. The Statute of Westminster is not key because per the Balfour Declaration 1926, the UK could not amend Australia's laws without permission. The Act says, "it is in accord with the established constitutional position that no law hereafter made by the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall extend to any of the said Dominions as part of the law of that Dominion otherwise than at the request and with the consent of that Dominion." 1986 is not a key date either because the UK did not even have persuasive influence over Australia any more. Why are any of these more important than when Australia assumed responsibility for its own affairs, was recognized by the League of Nations or the UN, or the Balfour Declaration, or obtaining an Australian governor-general or the attaining of responsible government before federation? TFD (talk) 19:41, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

The Balfour Declaration didn't have any legal effect until the Statute of Westminster was adopted. In fact, the Balfour Declaration itself has no authority at all as it is not legislation. It was necessary to incorporate the Balfour Declaration in the Statute of Westminster before it could be given any authority, and this didn't happen until 1931. However, the Statute of Westminster had to be adopted individually by each country and Australia didn't do that until 1942. The effect was backdated to the beginning of WWII so that legislation passed by Australia during the war had legal effect. The Australia Act eliminated the remaining possibilities for the UK to legislate with effect in Australia, for the UK to be involved in Australian government, and for an appeal from any Australian court to a British court. So yes, both are critical. Have you read the articles on these acts and the attached references? --AussieLegend (✉) 19:58, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

The Balfour Declaration 1926 says, "There is, however, one most important element in it which, from a strictly constitutional point of view, has now, as regards all vital matters, reached its full development—we refer to the group of selfgoverning communities composed of Great Britain and the Dominions. Their position and mutual relation may be readily defined. They are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations....it would not be in accordance with constitutional practice for advice to be tendered to His Majesty by His Majesty’s Government in Great Britain in any matter appertaining to the affairs of a Dominion against the views of the Government of that Dominion." I other words, were the Queen to decide to disallow legislation or approve imperial legislation regarding Australia, it would be on the advice on the prime minister of Australia. Ironically, the Queen or her Governor-General retains the power to disallow legislation or even to sack the prime minister. But the Queen does not act on the advice of her UK ministers in doing that, any more than she relies on her Canadian or NZ ministers on issues relating to Australia, and has not done so since long before the Balfour Declaration. TFD (talk) 20:31, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

A significant moment in Imperial history. Just a minor quibble: Commonwealth legislation has never been disallowed. The Governor-General may refuse assent, but that power comes from s58, rather than s59. The Governor-General may dismiss the Prime Minister under s64, but the Queen has no similar power. --Pete (talk) 22:40, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

I know there is a debate about whether the Queen could fire the PM. Let's agree to disagree. She can fire the GG and replace him or her with someone who will fire the PM. By convention, she cannot do that because she acts under the instruction of the prime minister of Australia. But that's my point. Conventions are never broken and the one against disallowance goes back as far as the 1840s in the case of Upper Canada and applies to colonies that have governments responsible to the legislature. The Australian constitution does not even mention the office of prime minister or the cabinet and says that executive power is vested in the Queen and exercised by the GG, advised by the Federal Executive Council. Unless you are aware of convention, that is extremely misleading.

It's doubly misleading because "executive power" as generally perceived and "the executive power" as mentioned in s61 are two different concepts: "The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative, and extends to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, and of the laws of the Commonwealth." It doesn't mean that Queen owns all power and only the Governor-General can exercise it in her name. In fact both Queen and Governor-General have powers specific to their office which may not be exercised by the other. "The executive power" itself is rather limited.[4] --Pete (talk) 23:53, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

The executive power is the same as in any country: government powers are executive, legislative and judicial. Bu convention the executive of Australia the cabinet lead by the PM. The constitution says it is the Queen, represented by the GG, advised by the council. Don't tell me that the government of Australia's power is rather limited. It is no more limited than the government of the UK or the U.S. TFD (talk) 02:07, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Executive power as a general concept is one thing. The specific executive power defined in s61 and from time to time interpreted by the High Court is something different. It is not the general power of government to do things, as one might expect. The parliamentary paper above gives a better description than I can. --Pete (talk) 02:15, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

You might mention where in the paper it says that. The paper says, "The Constitution - Three Arms of Government...The legislative, executive, and judicial powers are separately stated in the Constitution, in Chapters I, II and III respectively." If you don't think the PM and cabinet are part of the executive and make all key executive decisions, then what are they? TFD (talk) 02:50, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Nobody disputes that there are three arms of government, one of which is the executive. Nor that Cabinet forms the executive government, of which the PM is head. The executive has considerable power. This is not the same as the executive power defined in s61, which is exercisable by the Governor-General (and delegated as appropriate), although there is considerable overlap. Executive power does not include all official power exercised within Australia. If we read on from your quote above, we immediately encounter the following:

In his discussion of the Commonwealth Executive, Professor Michael Crommelin states that 'unlike Chapter I of the Constitution, Chapter II was intended to mask rather than prescribe the workings of the executive'. One of the reasons for the uncertain scope of the executive power is the desire of the Constitution's framers to retain a deal of flexibility.(24) Another is the 'uncertain scope and status of the prerogative' which forms part of the executive power and includes the Crown's common law powers such as the right to declare war and to enter into treaty agreements.

You seem to think that the executive power is something concrete, namely the sum total of the powers of Cabinet, as led by the PM. Are you saying that the Governor-General, by virtue of his exercise of the executive power, is the true head of government? --Pete (talk) 03:26, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

No, I am saying that according to the written constitution, the governor-general (or the Queen according to some) is the head of government. However, by convention which is not written into the constitution there is a prime minister and cabinet who make all executive decisions and carry out all executive actions. The concept of the three functions of government, including the executive, are well-established. Are you seriously arguing that the governor-general decides the budget or whether Australia goes to war? There is a Wikipedia article, Executive (government) which describes the concept as I understand it. Do you think that it means something else? TFD (talk) 04:25, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

The constitution does not specify the term head of government, but most sources describe the Prime Minister as holding that position. This is also my view. I reject your assertion that the Governor-General decides the budget or anything of that nature. He or she signs the document into law according to s58, but that's not a use of the executive power. Looking at Executive (government), that's my understanding of the situation too. I think you are missing my point; you seem to be confusing the general concept of "executive power" as exercised by Cabinet, with the specific power laid down in the Constitution. --Pete (talk) 05:47, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Pete's distinction is correct (and I have made it hereabouts before). I'm sorry, TFD, but please consult one of the current textbooks on Australian constitutional law: the biggest and best of them are Winterton/Gerangelos and Blackshield & Williams. Wikiain (talk) 07:12, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Ironically, the Queen or her Governor-General retains the power to disallow legislation or even to sack the prime minister. - What relevance is this to anything here? We were talking about the significance of legislation, which the Balfour Declaration is not, not whether the Queen can sack the PM. This seems to be a monumental tangent. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:19, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Tangent indeed. Whether the monarch/G-G can sack the PM is irrelevant to the question of independence as she is the Queen of Australia distinct from her role in any other country. Indeed in Parliamentary republics, the ceremonial President (equivalent of queen/G-G) can sack the PM. It's not relevant to independence. Anyhow, I agree with TFD's position as he has outlined it and to leave it at establishment - 1901. I am also perfectly happy to leave it as it is now.--Saruman-the-white (talk) 09:23, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Establishment is far too vague a term for us to present to our readers. Establishment could easily be taken to be 1788, because that's when the country was originally established. Looking at the above, I see TDF arguing against establishement in favour of federation. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:33, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

On second thought I would be equally happy with federation only, keeping it as it is, or keeping it as it is but replacing 'independence' with 'constitutional history' which would allow us to put the full variety of events in--Saruman-the-white (talk) 10:46, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

1788 is not really a significant date for the Commonwealth of Australia, subject of this article. That is 1901 whether we call it Federation or Establishment. 1788 means about as much as 1829 (Western Australia has never overlapped with New South Wales). If 1788 were to be listed, it would be as "First permanent white settlement". A number of non-government organisations had federated or otherwise spanned the colonial borders before 1901, but that kind of thing continues today (we have "multinational companies" in many fields) and some of the 19th century federations included New Zealand or other southern hemisphere colonies. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:22, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

1788 is not really a significant date for the Commonwealth of Australia - That's completely irrelevant to our readers. Independence starting in 1901 is understandable. The average reader knows Australia (the article title) was here before then, so "established 1901" is just confusing. Australia (regardless of its legal name at the time) was established in 1788. --AussieLegend (✉) 03:49, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Australia (regardless of its legal name at the time) was established in 1788. – There's more than a few people who think it was "established" long before then. The "history of Australia. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:53, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

There was continuity from earlier states, and of course the territory existed long before. That's why I recommend a precise term ("federation") instead of establishment. TFD (talk) 14:00, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I will summarize my point briefly. There is the written constitution and there is convention. In the written constitution, the executive branch of government is the monarch or governor-general advised by the executive council. By convention, the prime minister and cabinet form the government, although they are not mentioned in the written constitution. Similarly by convention Westminster did not legislate for Australia against its request and the Queen did not disallow legislation. The effect of the acts of 1931 and 1986 was to codify those conventions into written legislation. While the article should explain all this, the key dates that should be mentioned in the info-box is when the practice changed.

Wikiain, I have consulted a current textbook on Austalian constitutional law. (The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia By Nicholas Aroney, Peter Gerangelos, James Stellios, Sarah Murray) It says exactly what I did: "The actual exercise of the executvie power at both Commonwealth and State levels is undertaken by Ministers of State who are responsible to Parliament....In political terms, it is the Prime Minister and Cabinet which directly exercises, and directs the exercise of, the executive power of the Commonwealth. However, the Cabinet is not mentioned in the Constitution. In the formal legal sense, executive power is wielded by the Governor-General advised by the Federal Executive council." (p. 402)[5] "There is no mention of 'the Cabinet' or 'the Prime Minister' in the Constitution." (p. 405) "The conventions supporting the Cabinet system appear to be deeply entrenched, both in Great Britain and Australia...." (p.405, quoting HE Renfree.) If you have different information, then please provide a reference.

TFD (talk) 14:03, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

What does executive power have to do with the date of independence? --AussieLegend (✉) 03:49, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Executive power is an example of the discrepancy between what the written constitution says and convention. It was an example I thought everyone would understand but apparently not. (Hence the lengthy discussion.) It is misleading to use the date of a change in the written constitution to date independence just as it is to use the written constitution to explain how the executive works. While some argue that independence dates from the Statue of Westminster when said the UK Parliament would no longer legislate for Australia without their permission, this had already been established by convention hence does not belong in the info-box. TFD (talk) 04:10, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

So, let's get this straight. The executive power of Section 61 of the Constitution isn't what the High Court and constitutional scholars say it is. Rather it's what you say it is? --Pete (talk) 04:45, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I feel you are clutching at straws here. Executive power has nothing to do with the dates of independence.

It is misleading to use the date of a change in the written constitution to date independence - Nobody is doing that.

While some argue that independence dates from the Statue of Westminster when said the UK Parliament would no longer legislate for Australia without their permission - Again, nobody is doing that. The date of the Statute of Westminster Act has nothing to do with Australian independence because that UK Act had no effect until it was adopted in Australia by the passing of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act eleven years later.

this had already been established by convention hence does not belong in the info-box. - I'm not sure what convention you're talking about, but you are correct, it doesn't belong in the infobox, and it isn't anyway. --AussieLegend (✉) 04:54, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

No the executive power isn't what I say it is, it is what the constitutional scholars I cited say it is. If you think a high court decision contradicts that, kindly state what it is and where it is in disagreement. Incidentally, the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 adopted the Statute of Westminster 1931 as of 1939. But why do any of these dates belong in the info-box? "Convention" means an informal and uncodified procedural agreement that is followed by the institutions of a state. All the provisions of the 1931 and 1942 act had long been adopted by convention. TFD (talk) 05:10, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Make up your mind. In discussion above, you seem to think it a lot more broad and more general than it really is. --Pete (talk) 05:13, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

My position has been consistent. Only one date should be in the lead, 1901. I have explained my reasons to you in detail and if you cannot follow my reasoning, then I do not think that further explanation will make any difference. TFD (talk) 05:44, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I think you are wrong in your understanding of the executive power, but this is not the place for a lengthy discussion. On what should be in the infobox, I disagree. "Establishment" is just going to be confusing. "Federation" is a precise date, "Statute of Westminster" is a vital step, and "Australia Act" pretty much sealing the deal. Readers can go to our articles on each one of those acts for more information, rather than havin to work out what "Establishment" might mean. Clearly not full independence. --Pete (talk) 16:50, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

That is 5 dates. (Westminster is 3 dates: the UK law, its adoption by Australia and the retroactive adoption date.) You left out the Balfour Declaration when the UK government publicly acknowledged it could not legislate for Australia against its will or veto legislation. What about 1919 when Australia was first recognized by other nations, which is one definition? Or when it first established a citizenship act? (Another element of sovereignty according to the Montevideo convention.) Or when the UK established citizenship excluding Australians? Or when it changed British subjects to Commonwealth citizens, or later, when it decided Australians could no longer register as British citizens? What about when it accepted that the governor-general would be Australian, or when it was decided that the UK was a "foreign" country. What about what's left: an Australian republic, the exchange of ambassadors not high commissioners, the abolition of Commonwealth citizenship? TFD (talk) 13:56, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

"Convention" means an informal and uncodified procedural agreement that is followed by the institutions of a state. - Conventions are informal processes. Independence is a formal process.

Westminster is 3 dates: the UK law, its adoption by Australia and the retroactive adoption date.) - The date that Westminster was adopted in the UK is irrelevant to Australia's formal adoption.

You left out the Balfour Declaration - As I've already explained, the Balfour Declaration itself is irrelevant. The Westminster Adoption Act is the important document here. It ratified the Statute of Westminster which contained the Balfour Declaration.

Or when the UK established citizenship excluding Australians? - Didn't happen in Australia, so it's irrelevant. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:42, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

It is relevant because because nationality creates rights and obligations. Until British citizenship was established, people born in Australia had the same rights and obligations to the UK as persons in the UK. As pointed out in Sue v Hill, "Australia and the United Kingdom have their own laws as to nationality so that their citizens owe different allegiances." That is part of what makes Australia "independent" from the UK. Incidentally, Australians allegiance to the UK was valid law in Australia. TFD (talk) 00:44, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

It's not relevant to the issue of national independence of Australia. The laws of the UK don't apply here. That's why the Statute of Westminster had to be ratified here by the passing of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act, even though the Statute of Westminster had been passed in the UK in 1931. --AussieLegend (✉) 04:19, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

It's only an infobox. Clearly, full independence took most of last century to achieve, and it's more than one date and less than twenty. Why not wikilink to articles on Federation, Statute of Westminster, and Australia Act or similar? Possibly the League of Nations thing. Or have one article on Australian independence - and it's a topic that clerly interests a few of us here - and link to sections in that article? --Pete (talk) 18:15, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Independence is a formal process. Says who? And there was no formal process that said the Queen cannot act on the advice of her UK ministers or withhold assent from Australian bills. Malcolm Turnbull said, “by mid-1950s, Australia was certainly an independent nation.” And he's the Prime Minister and a noted constitutional expert. And would you say the Prime Minster's and cabinet positions are "informal," because they exist by convention? TFD (talk) 19:17, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

I think that citizenship is relevant to independence, although not in the way that has been suggested. Rather, in reaction to the restriction of British nationality in 1948, Australia established its own citizenship: the status of Australian Citizen was created in 1949 by the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 (Cth)—retitled the Australian Citizenship Act 1948 in 1973 and then replaced by the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. Wikiain (talk) 02:58, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Independent countries have their own citizens, see for example the Montevideo Convention. Note however that Canada was the first Commonwealth Realm to establish citizenship and it was seen as "local" in nature as opposed to based on allegiance. So the switch from British subject to Australian citizen was a long process which is not yet entirely complete. Commonwealth citizenship, which replaced the status of British subject, still places rights and responsibilities on Australian citizens, such as the right to vote in the UK. TFD (talk) 03:15, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Commonwealth citizenship is a peripheral status enjoyed by citizens of all Commonwealth countries. It carries some rights but no responsibilities, and therefore has no connection with independence. Wikiain (talk) 05:10, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Commonwealth citizenship is the name given in the 1981 Nationality Act to British subjects who were citizens of Commonwealth countries. Commonwealth citizens can be charged for treason in the UK even if the offense did not occur there or the person was part of an invading army (see Kanao Inouye) and also for murder (see R v Cheong 2005 on p. 39, footnote 68: "a reference to a "British Subject in an Act passed before 1 January 1983, has the same meaning as "Commonwealth citizen" under s. 37 of the 1981 Act.").[6] Note that as a Canadian citizen, Kenouye could not be convicted of war crimes by a British court, but could and was convicted of treason as a British subject. TFD (talk) 05:56, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

TFD: if you wish to make technical legal points, please use direct legal referencing. You might be right (and the article wrong) about Inouye, if there was no actual Canadian citizenship at the time of his treasonable acts. References in the British Nationality Act 1981, section 51, are only to earlier British legislation. And I cannot find the Cheong case that you refer to, even by using the original reference. Even so: against whom or what could a Commonwealth Citizen commit treason? Wikiain (talk) 13:11, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Sec 51 says, "in any enactment or instrument whatever passed or made before commencement “British subject” and “Commonwealth citizen” have the same meaning." In other words, the act does not change the status of British subjects to Commonwealth citizens, it changes the name. The

The NSW legislation was adopted from UK legislation still in force.

Of course the fact that Australian citizens continue to owe allegiance to the Queen does not mean Australia is not independent, any more than it was not indpendant pre-1986 or pre-Statute of Westminster. As you say, they are "technical legal points."

TFD (talk) 16:27, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

BTW the article on Inouye says what I said: as a Canadian, not a British citizen, he could not be convicted of war crimes in a British court, but could be convicted of treason as a British subject. TFD (talk) 18:55, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

TFD: The Offences Against the Person Act speaks of the place where the action occurred; it does not assert jurisdiction over that place, thereby denying its independence. The Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) is an act of the Colony of NSW which, upon Federation in 1901, was adopted by the State of NSW. The British legislation quoted in the Crimes Act therefore has force in NSW as law of NSW. It might be seen today as an assertion of Australian independence, that this law criminalises attacking the British monarch and the British parliament, as well as invading the UK. Australian allegiance to the Queen is to the Queen of Australia: Singh v Commonwealth [2004] HCA 43.

The Inouye article seems unclear. When born in Canada, he would have been a British subject. He committed treason as a British subject, since at that time there was no category "British citizen" and Canadian citizenship had yet to be introduced. That he was tried as a British subject, however, is your implication (

WP:OR). Let's leave Inouye alone. Wikiain (talk

) 00:52, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

The Inouye case is not my OR but but what the article on him and the source I provided say.

Indeed neither the criminal or treason laws claim jurisdiction of territories ouside the realm in which they were enacted, but they claim that the citizens of those territories owe allegiance to the crown. You said above, "[Commonwealth citizenship] carries some rights but no responsibilities." That is false. It carries the responsiblity to obey the treason and murder laws of the UK, even when in Australia. By contrast, Americans owe no allegiance to the crown and therefore those laws do not apply to them unless they are in the UK, in which case they, like all aliens in amity, owe local allegiance. So if an Australian murders someone in Australia and visits the UK, they can be convicted of murder. But if an American murders someone in America and visits the UK, they cannot be convicted of murder. Technically, an Australian could probably be extradited to the UK for a murder committed in Australia.

Australian allegiance is both to the Queen of Australia and to the person who happens to be Queen of Australia. Allegiance to the person was established in Calvin's Case of 1607 and allegiance to the office was established by Isaacson v Durant (1886). Personal allegiance means allegiance to her in all her territories which is what the NSW treason law expects.

TFD (talk) 01:01, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

The article Kanao Inouye does not say in which capacity he was tried for treason. That he was tried as a British subject may be correct, but it is your inference.

A lot of water has passed under several bridges since Calvin's Case, which is discussed extensively in Singh. Blackshield & Williams, Australian Constitutional Law and Theory (6th edn 2014, p 983) says that the main judgment in Singh "may have reflected an underlying shift in High Court jurisprudence ... to a transpersonal conception of 'sovereignty'". Your emphasis on the person appears to entail that whatever counts as treason in any Commonwealth realm will count as treason in all of them, which would hark back to the now discredited doctrine of indivisibility of the Crown. I don't see the High Court of Australia upholding that. It could mean that, if one Commonwealth realm were to criminalise mockery of the monarch (as in Thailand), all of the Commonwealth realms would almost instantly be rocking with traitors. Wikiain (talk) 05:06, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

See Casual Slaughters: "This conviction [for treason] was also appealed, and the heart of Inouye's pleas was that he was not a British subject."[9] I understand the point that the Crown could proceed on the basis that he was a subject when the crime was committed but he was a subject when prosecuted and there had been no change in the wording of the treason laws to acknowledge the acquisition of separate citizenship in various Commonwealth nations and never has been since.

The Singh judgment says that Australia (like every other independent country) may make its own nationality laws and exclude non-citizens from the country. No one has ever questioned that. Nonetheless UK law retains certain rights and obligations for Commonwealth citizens, including the right to vote and some obligations under criminal and treason laws.

And no, I did not say that what is treason in one country is treason in them all. As far as I know only the UK and NSW word their treason laws in that manner.

Incidentally, Calvin's Case did not say the crown was indivisible and in fact distinguishes between the Crown of Scotland and the Crown of England.

TFD (talk) 08:12, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

In my understanding 'Commonwealth citizen' is a concept that only exists in UK law. In the UK, citizens of other Commonwealth countries are definied in their legislation as commonwealth citizens and have certain rights that other foreigners don't have (they have something similar for Irish and EU Citizens). No other commonwealth country recognises such a concept though. Australia, Canada, etc, don't let Brits or Malaysians vote or give them preferential treatment. This is not relevant to the question of independence. Indeed, many countries have arrangements giving preferential rights to citizens of certain other countries - and in any case - Australia doesn't do it. As far as I know we only give preferential treatment to NZers as part of a separate scheme. A cynic might say the British alone recognise this concept to make themselves feel like they are the head of an empire again--Saruman-the-white (talk) 10:38, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

To get back to the point of the discussion, saying that Australia only became independent in 1986 (or 1931) is misleading, because the formal changes made did not reflect the political and perhaps legal reality. TFD (talk) 13:56, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I have raised the issue of the what info to put into the "Foundation" field at

) 16:26, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 March 2017

This edit request to Australia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Your Demographics adds up to 109.8% that does not make sense (100% is 100%) fix it please, you cant be both Australian and Irish right? Sieben1973 (talk) 23:39, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

No change to figures, but I have added that the census table is annotated: "As some people stated two ancestries, the total persons for all ancestries exceed Australia's total population." Wikiain (talk) 23:54, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

With 24.38 millin people, density per sq.Km is 3.1 now, not 2.8--213.60.237.52 (talk) 19:56, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

An important point, but that seems to be

WP:OR. You need a reliable source. Wikiain (talk

) 03:02, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

WP:CALC allows us to do routine calculations, so I've updated the article with appropriate comments as to where the number came from. Mitch Ames (talk

) 12:11, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

{{Data Australia}} was already being used to automatically update the estimated population so I have expanded its use to automatically calculate the population density when the population changes. This means we should not see this problem reoccur. --AussieLegend (✉) 18:28, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks AussieLegend - I suspected that there might have been a way to automate the calculation, but I had no idea how to do it. Mitch Ames (talk) 00:47, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks too. I had no idea that it could be done. Wikiain (talk) 00:57, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

• The value for average human density in Australia is an acceptable
  WP:CALC. It is WP:NOR to assert that anybody cares, and that it is a meaningful statistic to report. Very few Australians live at such dilution. --SmokeyJoe (talk
  ) 01:18, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Has use of "Commonwealth of" changed?

[10]

AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF AUSTRALIA AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA RELATING TO AIR SERVICES...2017

Upon the entry into force of this Agreement, the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Indonesia and the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia for Air Services Between and Beyond Their Respective Territory, signed in Sydney on 7 March 1969, shall cease to be in force.

It seems Australia used to call itself the Commonwealth of Australia in international agreements but no longer does so, would anyone like to write about that in the article? Frenchmalawi (talk) 14:21, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

You are looking at a heading that happens to shorten the language. But the operative words must be those that come below, in which "Commonwealth of Australia" is used. Nothing has changed. The name "Commonwealth of Australia" is established in constitutional law. Wikiain (talk) 22:12, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

We cannot change the name of the nation without changing the Constitution. However, over recent years since Whitlam, the official use of "Commonwealth of" has declined in such things as titles, media releases, and so on. In accordance with popular usage, I guess. Personally, I prefer the full title as giving governmental communications more gravitas but nobody elected me to give my opinion, so I guess it's up to the folk actually pulling on the levers. If the government wants to pretend it's knocking around in shorts and singlet, that's fine. Joh B-P complained when Whitlam started referring to the "Australian Government" that his State government was an Australian government, too, but he also flew the British flag over the Queensland Parliament. Times change. Getting back to relevance, Wikipedia uses common names for things, and I doubt that anybody is going to be confused if we say "Australian Government" into thinking we might mean something other than the Commonwealth. --Pete (talk) 01:01, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Not really adding anything to the discussion but you might find this recent article from the Constitution Education Fund Australia interesting: http://www.cefa.org.au/ccf/why-are-we-called-%E2%80%98commonwealth-australia%E2%80%99 Superegz (talk) 08:00, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

[11] - Thanks all for responses so far, though I don't think this has been bottomed out. User talk:Wikiain - "But the operative words must be those that come below, in which "Commonwealth of Australia" is used." - Please can you point out for us where such operative words are used - I don't see them. All - Are persons aware that the full form official name of Australia is now given as just "Australia" on websites of some international organisations? That's how I came upon this issue. I was looking at a list of members of a major international organisation. All the full names were set out for all the various states...but for Australia, there was no "Commonwealth of" bit, which got me to thinking there might be some story to tell around this. I'm haven't read up enough at this point to know the position but Wikian's response abuot there being operative words somewhere in a treaty didn't seem to address things given I can find no such operative wording. I've incldued a link to the treaty. Frenchmalawi (talk) 12:20, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

What I called the "operative words" are the second paragraph of your quotation, which contains the words "the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia". Since you seem unable to notice this, and references anywhere to just "Australia" are beside the point, I reckon you may be trolling. Wikiain (talk) 13:18, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

How can this be a problem, given that the opening sentence states that Australia is "officially the Commonwealth of Australia", duly sourced and annotated, and the infobox is headed 'Commonwealth of Australia'. This is hardly a breach of good Wiklipedia practice or unsupported by world-wide common usage, official or unofficial. And...the current version has a top note clearly stating that this article is about the country "officially called Commonwealth of Australia", and another is about the continent. Qexigator (talk) 14:41, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Lordy, lordy...there's seems to be little collaborative spirit and assumption of good faith here. I'm accused of trolling and accusing people of breaching good Wiki practice....I'm not a troll and have made any such accusation or even proposed an amendment to the article! All I've done is raise a topic and put it out there for some thought. Remember, I asked "would anyone like to write about that in the article?" That's all. Can we start over without the assumptions that I'm up to no good one way or another? Turning back to the specifics:

User:Wikiain - what you refer to as the operative wording is a reference to the the Agreement between theGovernment of the Republic of Indonesia and the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia for Air Services Between and Beyond Their Respective Territory, signed in Sydney on 7 March 1969. The 2017 treaty is terminating the 1969 treaty. The only reference to "Commonwealth of" is in how the 1969 treaty is described. Nowhere, on my reading, is there operative wording describing Australia as the "Commonwealth of". The reason the 1969 treaty is referred to the way it is is because when it was entered into, Australia described itself as the "Commonwealth of Australia". It does not do so in the 2017 treaty. This is not operative wording.

User talk:Qexigator. For clarity, I said that Australia is now listed on a major intern-governmental website that lists all country names and their official names e.g. "Republic of the Union of Myanmar" etc. etc., but for Australia, just plain "Australia". I am not saying the name of Australia has changed. I am asking were you or any others here aware of it? Does this topic need to be explored further and the position addressed in this article or some other Aussie article? If you are not aware of it, let me know and I can see if I can find the IGO website wehre I came across this issue. It surprised me at the time. Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:32, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

In fact, here is the UN FAO country member list that gives just Australia as the official name. That combined with fact "Commonwealth of" is apparently no longer being used in international treaties by Australia (or some of them, I've only checked one) is what set me off - [12]. Frenchmalawi (talk) 17:36, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

It may deserve a short mention in the "Name" section. Please let us know what would you propose, supported by RS (and not the unhappy pair SYN 'n' OR). Qexigator (talk) 17:55, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Just a little theory but maybe these international organisations see "Commonwealth of Australia" and think its just a reference to Australia being in the Commonwealth and think its unnecessary.Superegz (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that theory holds much water, given they use Commonwealth word in reference to Bahamas and Dominica and generally set out the quite wordy official names of many other wordily named states. My own theory is that the Ausralian government now uses "Australia" as an official name. A brief review of Australian Treaty Series confirms as much. Most states in treaties use whatever is the longer form, official name....But Austraila now uses just Australia. I don't know what exactly that means...is Australia and Commonwealth of Australia both official names now or has former replaced the latter etc. Frenchmalawi (talk) 23:24, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

This page, Name of Canada has an interesting discussion of the similar phenomenon of the use of "Dominion of Canada" being replaced with simply "Canada". I would argue though that the use of "Commonwealth of Australia" in today's world is far more prominent than "Dominion of Canada".Superegz (talk) 23:42, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not an Australia-focused editor User:Qexigator. If no one finds this worth finding out more about or writing up, that's an end of the matter. I amn't going to try to foist anything into article. I noticed this issue, brought it up but if it goes nowhere, so be it. Frenchmalawi (talk) 23:20, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I was about to add, and will still add, this:

The official name, established in Australian constitutional law, is "the Commonwealth of Australia": Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 (UK), section 3 (this act still contains the "Constitution of the Commonwealth"). However, for convenience the country is commonly referred to, within it and without, as "Australia"; and, within it, also as "Oz". Just as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is commonly referred to as "the United Kingdom", "the UK", "Great Britain" or "Britain". Likewise, one commonly refers to "the United States", "the USA", "Russia" or "Germany". It's all about convenience. There is no issue here. Wikiain (talk) 23:36, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

It's all about convenience...yes, but in documents such as treaties, it may be politically important, for this or that reason, that the UK uses the full name as a Kingdom uniting GB and NI, in a way that is of no practical significance for the federal government of Australia to use Commonwealth. Qexigator (talk) 00:31, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

The Governor-General quite clearly uses the full name: [13], So do Citizenship certificates and the insides of passports.Superegz (talk) 01:10, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Of course the name hasn't changed. It was constituted as the Commonwealth of Australia and that cannot be changed without amending the Constitution. Wikian, an analogy would be to say it is analogous to how the United States of America is commonly called 'America' or the People's Republic of China is commonly called 'China'. How ludicrous to suggest that the name has changed!--Saruman-the-white (talk) 11:59, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

• This weird insistence on legalistic consitutional language has utterly no place in an article such as this. Which reminds me, I've undertaken here to redo the governance section in a way that reflects reality, not the arcane language of an act of the British parliament in 1901. Tony (talk) 08:38, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't count on your edits surviving. The constitution sets out the structure of our federal government very clearly and effectively and the current section works very well.--Saruman-the-white (talk) 12:17, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I dunno. The Constitution makes no mention of Cabinet and the Prime Minister. The head of state is not defined. Probably best to avoid using a primary document as a source. --Pete (talk) 22:24, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

While the first paragraph of the governance section should mention the nominal roles of the Queen and governor-general, but it provides excessive detail and should provide more emphasis to how things actually work. Even though the governor-general sacked the PM in 1975, it was an unusual occurrence and had Whitlam won the subsequent election, he would have returned to office. TFD (talk) 12:22, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

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I believe the photo shown of "Aboriginal rock art" Is what as known, thru the Kimberley area in particular,is what is referred to as a "Bradshaw Painting" and not attributed to Aboriginals or claimed by them. I think a little more research will confirm this. Regards, DMac

See

Bradshaw rock paintings. While it's still a controversial topic, the article states that "scholars have generally rejected the idea that Bradshaw art was painted by anyone other than Aboriginal people". Cheers, Bahudhara (talk

) 03:50, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

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Australia is known in darts for Simon Whitlock, Paul Nichelson,and Kyle Andreson. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.164.61.12 (talk) 16:28, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

applies, so I come to Talk.

Would any of these users explain just why the idea of "representative democracy" is not "meaningful"—in which case, I suppose, it should be removed from every article where it appears and its own article should be deleted (and maybe "democracy" should go too). Wikiain (talk) 00:53, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

What do reliable sources say? From a quick search, I note that 'representative democracy' is used in this context by the Museum of Australian Democracy [14] and Australian Electoral Commission [15]. Other sources may say different things though - for instance, the Parliament of Australia's website describes Australia as "a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy" [16]. Nick-D (talk) 01:21, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikiain, it really upsets people if you come onto an article, change a fundamental item which has gained consensus and remained the same for many years and complies with the standard format for describing systems of government on the vast majority of wiki country pages, and then when someone calls you out on it and reverts the edit, you go right back and make the change again!

In this regard, the 'Canada' article is way out of step with the general wiki formula in terms of describing its system of government. The standard and accepted way is to list the three key binaries as they relate to that system of government, ie:

Federal / Unitary

Parliamentary/Presidential/Semi-Presidential/Directorial

Republic/Constitutional Monarchy/Monarchy

Ie, we are a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. So is Canada. The UK is a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Germany is a federal parliamentary republic. France is a unitary semi-presidential republic, and so on.

You are going to have a very hard time if you want to overturn this format for description which has been by far the predominant format for describing country systems of government in wiki sidebars for about as long as Wikipedia has existed.--Saruman-the-white (talk) 08:47, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't think anyone doubts that Australia is a "representative democracy", it's just that the term is redundant to "parliamentary system". The hysterics about "maybe we should delete the representative democracy and democracy articles" are pretty unnecessary and don't do your argument any favours. --Canley (talk) 09:01, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

The term "representative democracy" was introduced here by User:Anonymous427 on 25 May. It was removed by User:LeoC12 as if it were just "democracy". I put it back, then User:Saruman-the-white removed it, making the same mistake and also claiming absurdly that "'democracy' is not meaningful". I responded, as I considered justified, with a little irony.

"Representative democracy" is a standard expression in constitutional discussion, in a distinction from "direct democracy". It is not meaningless (it has its own article) and maybe Wikipedia should be using it in many infoboxes. That could be discussed. If it is redundant, it can be taken out (maybe from Canada), giving such a reason. Now, I agree that it is redundant where there is also "parliamentary"; but one could also argue the other way around. That is the kind of discussion we should have had. Wikiain (talk) 21:20, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Australia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Other countries have other forms of representation (eg a semi-presidential system with a legislature elected by electoral divisions handling some matters and with a president directly elected by the nation as a whole having prerogative over certain other matters). Ie our description here is far more useful and specific. With respect to the description in its infobox, Canada is the outlier (by a long way) here and in all likelihood should change its infobox. This is a matter for editors of the Canada page however and not relevant to us here.--Saruman-the-white (talk) 23:45, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

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This edit request to Australia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Timboss239 (talk) 08:02, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Australia is not a continent

Australia is a continent (notice the link). 203.111.197.204 (talk) 08:19, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. DRAGON BOOSTER ★ 11:28, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

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{{geodata-check}}

The following coordinate fixes are needed for

—222.219.8.167 (talk) 09:28, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

You haven't explained what you think is in error. I've tweaked the coordinates in the article a bit; but if you still think that there is a problem, you'll need to give a clear explanation of what it is. Deor (talk) 14:30, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Australia was discovered by Spain. Do you even know why Australia has that name? It's because of the fact that Philip II of Spain had roots on the Austrian Royal Family. Austria = Australia. Fix that information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.203.208.198 (talk) 18:04, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

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If you want to exhibit Australians' chronic colonial insecurity, sure. But no other nation would be happy replacing a more neutral pic of their PM with one in supplication to a colonial master. Tony (talk) 06:05, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

I was going to updatre the history section but can't see the 'edit' tab? See https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170719132252.htm and the https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/19/dig-finds-evidence-of-aboriginal-habitation-up-to-80000-years-ago webpages which suggest an earlier occupation of Australia than is reflected in the article. 2A00:23C5:BC00:8A00:DDAA:A8FD:838A:AA9C (talk) 21:53, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I've just added a disputed template to the Pre-colonial history section. There are a few factual inaccuracies, particularly regarding the phrase "most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers". This statement is unsourced. Academic consensus has emerged in the past few years that Indigenous people were largely not hunter-gatherers, but rather had semi-permanent settlements and farming and irrigation systems. It is claimed that Indigenous people became hunter-gatherer after many settlements were destroyed during colonisation. Apart from sporadic changes to the dates, this section doesn't appear to have been updated in quite a while so it may need a rewrite. JamesA ^>talk 13:11, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

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Australian Aborigines were given the vote for the first time in 1962. I am not sure that this is in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.53.53.166 (talk) 11:11, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Untrue - for example, see: History of South Australia# Self-governing colony (1856):

South Australia's 1856 constitution was among the most democratic in the world – more so than the other Australian colonies, the United Kingdom and most European countries at that time. It provided for: Adult male suffrage (including indigenous men); Secret ballot voting; one man, one vote; no property qualifications for Members of its House of Assembly and a relatively low property qualification for Members of its Legislative Council. and

In the Constitutional Amendment Act 1894, all women became eligible to vote for the Parliament of South Australia when they won the same voting rights as men, and they did so in South Australia's 1895 elections.

What changed in 1967 was that following a national

referendum, Aboriginal people were to be included in the Census. Bahudhara (talk

) 14:59, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

I mentioned 1962, not 1967. Accurate details are given in Voting rights of Indigenous Australians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.53.53.166 (talk) 08:46, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

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This edit request to Australia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

95.19.99.98 (talk) 16:52, 18 September 2017 (UTC) claro que si sanyor

• Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:37, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

In the infobox of Australia I find Queen Elizabeth as its monarch and a queen-appointed governor-general who apparently is the head of the Australian armed forces among other duties. But later in the article I find this statement: "The final constitutional ties between Australia and the UK were severed with the passing of the Australia Act 1986, ending any British role in the government of the Australian States", which is a contradiction. Can someone knowledgeable with Australia fix this? Ty. Thinker78 (talk) 16:38, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Its not a contradiction. Her title in Australia is "Queen of Australia." To understand the role, see the existing article Monarchy of Australia.Nickm57 (talk) 21:41, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Constitutionally, she may as well be a completely different person from QEII of the UK, or QEII of Canada or QEII of Papua New Guinea etc etc. She takes advice on Australian matters only from her Australian advisers, etc. The Australian Governor-General is appointed by the Queen of Australia on the advice of the Australian Prime Minister, and nobody else - in the UK or anywhere else - has any say in the matter. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:29, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I believe that Thinker 78 is correct, though perhaps not for the reason supposed. There remains the "constitutional tie" that, according to covering clause 2, whoever is the sovereign of the UK is also the monarch of Australia, although their powers are then exercised independently. (This is why we are due to get, automatically, King Charles III.) Covering clause 2 is not in the Constitution as such, but in the imperial statute that contains the Constitution. That makes it "constitutional" in a slightly broader and entirely conventional sense. I would substitute: "The passing of the Australia Acts ended any role of the British government in government of Australia." Wikiain (talk) 03:03, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Agree with Wikiain, though maybe "The passing of the Australia Acts ended any direct British role in the government of Australia."? -- Euryalus (talk) 03:14, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Euryalus, though your suggestion seems to beg a question of a residual "indirect" role, which to me is an awkward way to refer to covering clause 2 if that is what you have in mind, and seems ambiguous about "British". I'd still prefer to specify that "British government" has been excluded. Wikiain (talk) 03:47, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Yep, your version is fine by me. Looking back over the page history indicates that this issue is often confusing to non-Australians, so whatever you think its the clearest text. -- Euryalus (talk) 04:04, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I've made that change. Wikiain (talk) 13:53, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

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An editor has requested comments from other editors for a discussion about

) 22:34, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Representative democracy

Someone added the term a while ago both here and the Canada article. It was reverted in the past day. First, it was done with no comment and then because it "is too broad a term and is often subjective and up to different interpretations". I restored it, but feel free to discuss it and make your own mind up as to whether it's appropriate for the infobox or not. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:40, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

There was some discussion about this earlier this year, see Talk:Australia/Archive 19#Australia a "representative democracy". --Canley (talk) 21:31, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

The Culture section seems to be lacking any real content about approach to governance. Need a paragraph like at Canada.--Moxy (talk) 15:15, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Canada's approach to governance emphasizing multiculturalism, which is based on selective immigration, social integration, and suppression of far-right politics, has wide public support. Government policies such as publicly funded health care, higher taxation to redistribute wealth, the outlawing of capital punishment, strong efforts to eliminate poverty, strict gun control, and the legalization of same-sex marriage are further social indicators of Canada's political and cultural values.Canadians also identify with the country's health care institutions, peacekeeping, the National park system and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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This edit request to Australia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Olofinge00001 (talk) 08:38, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

 Not done You need to also include the specifics of the edit you'd like made. -- Euryalus (talk) 08:52, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

This edit request to Australia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I would like to have another image added to the Military section on the Australia wiki section. The image is already in the Wikipedia commons. The image reflects Australia's contributions to ongoing operations overseas to combat insurgent groups (e.g ISIS, Taliban etc), particularly in relation to Afghanistan. I think this is important to visually show Australia's military involvement overseas as part of Coalition forces. The image I would like to see added depicts Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan and the codes are:

There are heaps of much better images available of the ADF in Afghanistan at Commons. This image is dominated by an American helicopter, and the soldiers aren't special forces. It also doesn't depict the nature of Australia's current involvement in Afghanistan, which is limited to training Afghan troops in secure bases. Nick-D (talk) 09:41, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

A recent set of edits, were "edit summaried" as "Corrected Grammar", or words to that effect - but this is obviously spurious as there are no apparent discernible changes at all, most certainly not to the grammar. I was "bold" and reloaded the version of the article before that set of changes, just on the chance that this a subtle attack on the integrity of the article, but I am just a little confused if I did the right thing? --WWIReferences (talk) 02:34, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

It's a bit hard to see the diffs but the changes appear to be the removal of

good faith intentions. --Canley (talk

) 03:12, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

wikEdDiff does a good job of showing small diffs such as the commas in [17]. You can enable it on Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:21, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks both of you! I am a (relatively) new editor and am just getting the hang of things. I will try that tool. At least this is an object lesson on the importance of accuracy in edit summaries! "Punctuation" is not what is usually meant by "grammar". WWIReferences (talk) 13:43, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Further! Added that tool (WikiEdDiff). It shows up the mysterious edits - which are all added or deleted commas. Since none of the edits seem very useful, and some are pretty obvious plain wrong I have let my "reversion" stand for the moment. Someone obsessed with punctuation my want to have another look, perhaps. WWIReferences (talk) 14:01, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone above - I'd seen the earlier edit and was mostly unhappy with the comma changes, but not having the gadget installed, it seemed too much of a pain to go through them all individually to fix them. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 00:20, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Last night, 42800141 changed the infobox map from one showing the Australian Antarctic Territory to one excluding it with the only reason being "Better map". While it's only a minor change, it's also rather pointless so I reverted with the explanation "Not better, doesn't include AAT". This was reverted with the rather peculiar summary "AAT doesn't count as part of Australian territory". 42800141 continues to revert to his preferred, AAT excluding map and requests for him to discuss the matter here,[18][19][20] have proved fruitless.[21] We have both now made 3 reversions with no attempt by 42800141 to provide a cogent argument for the change. As I explained in my first reversion, AAT is an Australian territory, which is supported by numerous sources, so we should be using the map showing this. I await his response. --AussieLegend (✉) 20:49, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I have already explained that after the Antarctic Treaty, all territorial claims on the continent were suspended until 2040, and Antarctica became politically neutral, so there are no borders in the Antarctic ice. Moreover, the map that I put is much more accurate. --42800141 (talk) 21:28, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

What does Wikipedia do for other countries with disputed territorial claims? The maps on Pakistan and India show light green for an area claimed but not controlled.

Antarctic Treaty System#Articles of the Antarctic Treaty Article 4 – The treaty does not recognize, dispute, nor establish territorial sovereignty claims; no new claims shall be asserted while the treaty is in force;

That quote to me says that Australia can (and as far as I know, does) continue to make its claim on the AAT, however that claim is neither recognised nor disputed by the treaty partners. Australian Antarctic Territory has more detailed information.

I support reinstating the map that includes the AAT in light green, then if necessary adding further explanation in prose if it is not presently clear enough what the status is. It would be even better if the map could highlight the other small external territories as well. The article about the AAT says it is recognised by several countries other than Australia. --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:02, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

This is a former featured article, and changes should be made cautiously, with reference to reliable sources to support those changes. Could you please provide a reliable source that shows that Australia does not regard AAT as part of its territory? This one seems to suggest it does. I will revert your change awaiting your sources. Nickm57 (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

So why in the articles of other southern countries like Argentina and Chile, the Antarctic territories don't appear in the map as a claimed territory? --42800141 (talk) 22:50, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Argentina showed its Antarctic claim until this edit last year. The only discussion I can see quickly is requesting it be put back. --Scott Davis ^Talk 00:27, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Chile also showed its Antarctic claims in the infobox until mid November. I can't see a conversation about that edit, but there seem to have been several worse maps in the edit history, so perhaps people got tired, and the edit that stuck had no edit comment. --Scott Davis ^Talk 01:31, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

IIRC, the British (later Australian) Antarctic claims are a result of the

Amundsen's exploits. The other South American claimants came later, IIARC, after WW II. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.167 (talk

) 08:19, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Again I ask, could you please provide a reliable source that shows that Australia does not regard AAT as part of its territory? Nickm57 (talk) 10:38, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

And would you indent and sign your edits so other can follow the discussion.Nickm57 (talk) 10:40, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi all, Can anyone tell me the proves of dutch (i cant find any map, document and military or artifacts and linguistics influence remnants that mention that so obvious and certificate discover by dutch and of English (because one think is discover other is conquer).

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teoria_da_descoberta_da_Austr%C3%A1lia_pelos_portugueses — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.93.5.251 (talk) 22:15, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, the point you are trying to make is unclear. Hazarding a guess from the heading, why don't you read some of the relevant articles on and linked from English WP? Then if you have some actual suggestions for improvements to this article, bring them here. Cheers Nickm57 (talk) 06:21, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Does Theory of the Portuguese discovery of Australia help? It seems to indicate that the theory is generally discredited. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:13, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I have it here, only blind people dont see the true, and im not refere English scientists to defend English theories and Dutch scientists to defend Dutch scientists.

"Already in 1512 one of the boats of a small navy of António Abreu would have sailed by seas of the Australian coast. Officially achieved and registered / investigated ... in 1522, by Cristóvão de Mendonça and in 1525 by Gomes de Sequeira..."

There is 3 links.

http://portugalglorioso.blogspot.com/2013/05/australia-descoberta-por-portugueses-em.html

http://portugalglorioso.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-21-de-agosto-de-1770-australia-o-que.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc_a-wjI9ok&feature=youtu.be

This is only one more evidence that Portugueses was the first europeans to discovers Australia. Don´t need to be very smart to see that because "the analysis of the languages of the ethnic groups Ngarluma and Karriera (tribes of Western Australia), that present peculiarities that are not detected in the other Aboriginal languages, like the use of the passive voice. Brandenstein also presents a list of words from these languages which he claims to have a Portuguese origin (examples: turtle turtle, mountain mound, ceiling thatta)" More than 200 words derived from Portuguese. So its my fault or i cant find any proves of Portuguese go teach language to aborigines after the dutsh or english claim the discovers they should be very smart or contact a lot with portugueses after that to assimilate part of the Portuguese language, maybe they have same type of "fast portuguese lessons"."

I think that is the point English try to dominate present and trying to forge the past, if isnt the portugueses British never reach by sea any of their possessions, they are the type of fake portuguese ally see in past where there is a portuguese sea discovery territories there is an english territorie, you can put english or dutsh but the evidences cant be denied.

There is one more link here.

http://portugalglorioso.blogspot.com/2014/07/dois-tercos-do-mundo-foram-descobertos.html

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.95.207.82 (talk) 11:59, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Blogs are not reliable sources and the Youtube video seems slef-published. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:12, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The blog is only a compilation of official information, but if you want to descredit it here other 4 links

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-map/map-proves-portuguese-discovered-australia-new-book-idUSSYD3449720070321

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/portuguese-16th-century-manuscript-rewrite-australian-francisco-cruz

https://ancient-code.com/ancient-maps-prove-portuguese-explorers-were-the-first-europeans-to-find-australia/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/22/uk.australia

Unless you say Theguardian and Reuters and the others news agency are all fake and Peter Trickett lying and The International renew agencys are not reliable source, because only english source are reliable when defend english, dutch teorys when are against them are not reliable sources. I can give you others links sources but the 16th century maritime map in a Los Angeles library vault talk from itself, unless you say is a forge and the kangaroo picture is a forge too, as all other evidences, but the difference is that the english and dutsh teorys are empty teorys, the english teory only remain because they conquer it but not have been the first european to reach it, unless it has some gps or mental tracker to find land of nowhere, portuguese reach it because of hard work pionner in marytime cartography and discovers its a continuous work, but english and dutch claim to reach it first from nowhere without any support previous work or fundamentation what a illuminations they are to make a shot in dark and reach it first. But portuguese teory are well sedimented not samme fact that i reach it first and that´s it.No there are reminders, more thatn 200 word and names of portuguese origins, reminder of a small fortification,canons , coins and artifacts some of them with dates that make it as evidence, to not talk of the kangaroo picture and the ancient map in a Los Angeles library vault. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.95.207.82 (talk) 17:43, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The first link merely reports that a new book makes the claim. That doesn't mean the claim is valid. The second link talks of an image of "what is thought to be a kangaroo". Only thought, not positively proven.The third link, well let's look at the about page of that website which says "We analyze, question and debate the Ancient Alien theory". It's a site dwelling in fringe theories and they make up some really good stories. The article itself doesn't provide any proof, just a lot of speculation. The Guardian link talks about the same map, providing no absolute proof, just a lot of speculation about what may be the case. It even states that "some academics dismiss the claim that they represent Australia. Several describe a place called 'Terra Java' which bears strong similarities to Australia's coastline - except that, at one point, it juts out at right angles for more than 900 miles." --AussieLegend (✉) 18:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

This useless talk so we need academics, theres a lot of that defend theory of Portugal, but should we not need academics to not consider all today real proofs of portuguese discover (including the influence of the language, you cant denied, and continue to ignore this real world fact or argument against that because how much time is need to make people in that time talk in passive voice and have more than 200 words and names too descendant from portuguese ? ). You only refer academics what academics ? You can write in here and in english or dutch books what same english and dutch academics and you want, the people in world are not stupid, including english and dutch with same common sense and knowledge to make their own conclusions and what countries tell you should believe, that another difference Portugal country never tells or defended openly as english and dutch countries.

And i like to see same academics tell something against portuguese teory because i cant find any that tells that isnt the true theory, special about as i say it before because no academic cant denied that the language influence.

So i like to read but if you search the mile in Wikipedia you can read isnt so accurate as it seems and the mile you know today isnt the same mile of that time, to not talk about the instruments and conditions ...,even today there´s 2 type of miles.

And for your information portuguese uses wrongh miles on purpose that tend to increase it in size. Theres example of Brasil or anothers maritime maps, that duplicate/modified or change the real size its the intel of that time, that common know.

A new link of a documentary book vol.1 , with samme of actual evidences and with academics references, as you not credited academics in Peter Trickett book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Australia&action=edit&section=2— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.95.207.82 (talk) 19:31, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Just a thought but may I respectfully suggest you get familiar with Wikipedia editing protocols while writing in your native language in the relevant branch of Wikipedia? Once you understand WP is designed to reflect mainstream academic views, rather than fringe theories and random blogs, it will be much easier to contribute. It's also really difficult to understand what you are writing about here because your English is so awkward - eg; "portuguese uses wrongh miles" and "another difference Portugal country never tells or defended openly as english and dutch countries" etc. All the best. Regards Nickm57 (talk) 11:00, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

This edit request to Australia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Under "Health", it says "income tax surcharge known as the Medicare levy, currently set at 1.5%", this is now 2%.

https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Medicare-levy/ 165.86.71.72 (talk) 07:08, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Done. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:40, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Re these edits about poverty and homelessness: added, removed, re-added, (and then copy-edited by me, mostly for style) ...

If we decide to keep the material, it needs to be trimmed down. The last two paragraphs:

Every Census since 2006 has seen an increase to homelessness. There were 105,237 people experiencing homelessness in Australia on census night in 2011. This equated to 1 in 200 Australians,^[1] and represented an increase of 17% from the 2006 Census, with the rate of homelessness increasing from 45 per 10,000 to 49 per 10,000.

The number of homeless people in Australia jumped by more than 14,000 — or 14% — in the five years to 2016, according to census data. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said 116,000 people were homeless on census night in 2016, representing 50 homeless people per 10,000.^[2]

should probably be collapsed to a single sentence, or at most one paragraph with a couple of sentences. I considered trimming it down myself, but given the existing apparent disagreement about all three recently-added paragraphs, I figure it's best to first get some consensus on keeping the material at all. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:12, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

One sentence seems appropriate, with the rate rather than the raw figures being the focus (as has been noted in the edit summaries, given that Australia's population is always increasing, the numbers of various groups within the population will also generally increase). Homelessness statistics are also highly problematic, for obvious reasons. The ABS has invested substantial resources in ensuring that homeless people participate in the last couple of censuses, which would have also increased the reported incidence. For an international comparison, I suspect that the OECD's figures are the best available: [22], and show that Australia had the third highest rate of homelessness in OECD member countries as of the early to mid 2010s. Nick-D (talk) 22:05, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Reverter here. The economy section is the biggest one in the article—almost too big, in my opinion. If we are going to include anything in the section outside of essential stats like GDP, then it needs to be due to Australia's exceptionality. All that matters here is how Australia compares to the rest of the world. Globally, Australia is more notable for having low poverty and homeless rates. If it's true that Australia has one of the highest rates of homelessness among OECD countries, then maybe a sentence is worth including somewhere. - HappyWaldo (talk) 22:20, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Australia's poverty rate also appears to be in about the middle of the OECD countries, and among the highest for the rich OECD countries: [23] Nick-D (talk) 22:29, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

The issue is surely not the mere existence or scale of homelessness right now, but its rate of change. A 17% increase in 11 years seems high to me. And treating it as purely an economic issue is just plain wrong. It is a much broader social issue. HiLo48 (talk) 03:10, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

In my view it's about undue weight ....in the same manner we dont generally list stats for drug addicts or slavery, incarceration rates or how many women get raped in a year or missing children. That said we do mention theses things if they are off the charts...like America's huge incarnation population or slavery in India. Not sure this is at the top of the social problems facing this country.....more of a statistical anomaly most likely due to how this was calculated and classification parameters. We are talking about an increase of 17%...is on par with the population growth around this time ... Australia's estimated resident population (ERP) reached 24.2 million for June 2016, increasing by 3.8 million people or 18% in the ten years since June 2006..Moxy (talk) 05:13, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

OK, that seriously defuses my mathematics. Maybe we should be saying something about the homelessness rate being stable, or even slightly improving! HiLo48 (talk).

I think that at least poverty information should be included because it is an important topic in the economics of a country. Thinker78 (talk) 07:43, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I recently added some images of Australia's various landscapes in the geography segment of this page. I did this to expand on the page by showing the country's diversity in a visual way as well as in written form. The images that I picked from Wikipedia Commons along with an image of Uluru which was already on the page were displayed as shown.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

You can find a better example of my contribution in the page's Revision History in 15:16, 30 March 2018 by SSJHomer.

My contribution seemed to have gotten a generally positive response, except that it was undone only a few hours later by another user who claimed that my edit was "text squashing" and that I added too many images to the one section.

I don't feel that I've placed more images on Australia's geography page than from what I have seen on geography pages of other countries, but I could be wrong and I will let everyone here decide for themselves if my contribution is worth keeping or not.

Thank you, SSJHomer (talk) 10:55, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

The overabundance of images on national pages is nothing more than a pissing contest. Australia's page is one of the few that has escaped this trend, and there seems to be a consensus among the regular contributors here to not let the images stack up. One to two images per section is enough. - HappyWaldo (talk) 12:13, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Can you please clarify what you mean by calling it a ‘‘pissing contest’’? Are you saying that other users are trying to show superiority with their own country’s geography pages? If that is the case, then I don’t believe that this has to be a subject of showing who has the better looking country, but rather just showing every country’s natural beauty for everyone to see and appreciate. Is there any other reason for undoing this edit? Does it have anything to do with using up too much data or causing difficulty to upload perhaps? - Thank you, SSJHomer (talk) 13:57, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the two large regions of Australia shown on the

) 17:39, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Statistics here would be problematic. In the legal brothels, one could probably claim that all the activity was legal, simply by definition, so no

child sexual exploitation would exist. Outside legal brothels, who knows? HiLo48 (talk

) 22:44, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

There are no legal brothels in which child sex is legal. You're going to need

PMID 28797913 plus maybe [24]. Farmerale (talk

) 18:44, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Per [25] and [26], child sexual abuse is about twice as frequent per capita in the states and territories where prostitution is not regulated. 184.96.253.8 (talk) 23:48, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

This edit request to Australia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Add that the royal anthem of australia is God Save the Queen. Jamesplimmy (talk) 10:33, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Look at the Notes, near the bottom of the article. HiLo48 (talk) 10:44, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Closed as  Already done —KuyaBriBri^Talk 13:37, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

According to Monash University here:

"Always capitalise 'Indigenous' and 'Aboriginal' when you're referring to Indigenous Australians, but not when you are referring generically to the original inhabitants of othercontinents"

This seems like it is saying that even when you are saying the "Indigenous population" it should be capitalised. The reason I am not instating these corrections is as Monash identifies the importance of these grammar points as being:

"Lazy language reflects lazy thinking, so use language that reflects Australia's diversity without stereotyping groups of people on the basis of their race, age, ability, gender, religion, culture, appearance or dress code. Not all students from China work hard, and not all skinheads are thugs."

This seems to be attempting to be righting great wrongs.

Regardless of this, the article requires consistency.

"For about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians" "11 and 17 years lower than those of non-indigenous Australians."

Indigenous in Indigenous Australians are not capitalised here.

"These first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians." "Most Indigenous Australian tribal groups subsisted on a simple

."

Indigenous in Indigenous Australians is capitalised here.

"The indigenous population, estimated to have been between 750,000 and 1,000,000 in 1788." "a practice which may also have contributed to the decline in the indigenous population" "Before European settlement, the animist beliefs of Australia's indigenous people had been practised for many thousands of years"

Indigenous is not capitalised here

"The Indigenous population—Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders—was counted at 649,171 (2.8% of the total population) in 2016.

Indigenous is capitalised here

This seems to be an issue spread across the Wiki, with the article on Indigenous Australians stating:

"

music is helping preserve indigenous languages"

Indigenous in Indigenous languages is capitalised earlier in the article in "which also has a tangible influence of Indigenous languages in the phonology and grammatical structure"

Thoughts are gratefully appreciated. JoshMuirWikipedia (talk) 03:32, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Coming up with an acceptable label for the native people of Australia has been challenging because they were not a single, united entity, with a recognised name for themselves, but comprised hundreds of different language groups spread across a continent. Ideally each group would have its own label, which would automatically be capitalised because it was effectively a proper noun, but too many of the groups, and certainly the languages, have effectively disappeared. So we are stuck with trying to use one arbitrary label, "indigenous", a common English word, to describe the entirety of these diverse peoples. Of course that word still has its original common meaning and usage. We talk, for example, of indigenous plants and animals. I think the Monash position is one that is trying to be politically correct, and cannot really be absolutely applied in all cases involving people.

So we have a common English word now with two very different usages, one to formally describe the people as a whole, the other to serve it's pre-existing purpose. My personal view is that capitalising it every time is overkill. I will not write "Eucalyptus trees are Indigenous to Australia". Is there any hope in asking for common sense here? HiLo48 (talk) 04:35, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Human Habitation of Australia is around 42,000 years ago, the Pleistocene epoch which coincides with the rapid Extinction of Australian megafauna. The oldest homo sapien (human) remains found on Australian continent at lake Mung dated at around 42,000 years old. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Geo1un (talk • contribs) 09:06, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

The sources for the claim in the article of (at least) "65,000 to 70,000 years ago" are strong. They don't have to depend on human remains. Dating old tools is a major way of working out that humans were around. You can actually see and read the links in the article. HiLo48 (talk) 09:44, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Hold your horses, folks. Scott Morrison will be the Prime Minister of Australia very shortly, but technically not at this moment. Hexagonalpedia (talk) 03:11, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

This edit request to Australia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I have spotted some mistakes that need to be updated about this page. I am Professor John H. Arnold from the Cambridge University, United Kingdom, and I am requesting to edit this page. Thanks. ProffesorJason (talk) 02:21, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Not done: It is not possible for individual users to be granted permission to edit a semi-protected article. You can do one of the following:

• You will be able to edit this article without restriction four days after account registration if you make at least 10 constructive edits to other articles.
• You can request the article be unprotected at
  this page
  . To do this, you need to provide a valid rationale that refutes the original reason for protection.
• You can provide a specific request to edit the article in "change X to Y" format on this talk page and an editor who is not blocked from editing the article will determine if the requested edit is appropriate.

Thanks, ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 03:28, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

was adopted in 1984 - to be played in the presence of the sovereign and representatives of the sovereign and in certain other circumstances.

The

1977 referendum

to determine the national anthem of Australia specifically stated: "Against the background that 'GOD SAVE THE QUEEN' is the NATIONAL ANTHEM to be played on Regal and Vice Regal occasions, electors may indicate their preferences as to which of the tunes of the songs listed below they would prefer to be played on other occasions."

With this in mind and the layout of other Commonwealth realm articles where God Save the Queen is the official royal anthem displayed in the infobox, such as Canada, Jamaica, Solomon Islands and The Bahamas, isn't it appropriate to display God Save the Queen as the Royal Anthem of Australia in the infobox of this article? Brythones (talk) 19:23, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed at length. Please see Talk:Australia/Archive 17#Australia Royal National Anthem, Talk:Australia/Archive 15#Royal anthem, Talk:Australia/Archive 14#Royal Anthem, Talk:Australia/Archive 11#Royal Anthem and Talk:Australia/Archive 10#Royal Anthem, Talk:Australia/Archive 8#Anthem. --AussieLegend (✉) 19:43, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

It appears so, although it is clear from reading past iterations of this debate that no concensus has emerged on whether or not the Royal Anthem should be included in the infobox. Perhaps reaching out to the

request for comment might be necessary to resolve this matter satisfactorily? Brythones (talk

) 09:47, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

As it should be obvious from previous discussions, I wouldn't oppose that. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:06, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Given that this has been a long-dormant issue, taking it to a central board, etc, seems premature and unnecessary - what's to suddenly discuss? The note in the infobox does the job fine given that God Save the Queen serves as the anthem only at very specific and occasional events. Nick-D (talk) 10:07, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

And yet it has been discussed on multiple occasions with no concensus being reached. I think the best course would be to try to reach a consensus on this talk page, and failing that to reach out to the neutral point of view board or request for comment. For reasons of consistency across Wikipedia and the long-standing significance of God Save the Queen in the history of Australia I do believe that it should be more clearly labelled in the infobox in line with other Commonwealth Realm articles with God Save the Queen as the Royal Anthem. So far as I am aware God Save the Queen is not the Royal Anthem of Saint Lucia and Papua New Guinea despite those areas having Elizabeth II as monarch and head of state. For that reason I do believe it is misleading to exclude the Royal Anthem from the infobox of this article as it is not necessarily applicable to all Commonwealth Realms. Brythones (talk) 19:52, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

What's the relevance of other Commonwealth countries? Australia is an independent country, with different norms. Infoboxes don't need to be consistent on the basis of things like this. This article is also a FA when most of the others you give as examples are not, so it may be the case that this article is actually a better model. Nick-D (talk) 21:54, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

When taking into account featured article status it's probably worth bearing in mind that the next nearest Commonwealth Realm with God Save the Queen as it's Royal Anthem by population would be Jamaica - which has nearly 10 times fewer inhabitants than Australia. Canada has featured article status and God Save the Queen in the infobox in spite of the fact that God Save the Queen is the Royal Anthem by convention and its status is considerably less codified than in Australia. As a result of this, I strongly doubt the inclusion of God Save the Queen in the infobox of this article will have any affect on the article's status as a featured article. Australia and Canada have comparable norms as former British settler colonies, for example English is the primary language in both countries; Common Law is practiced in both countries; governance is based on the Westminster parliamentary system; both are federations; both are secular Christian countries; both maintain very similar social and political values; and of course both maintain Elizabeth II as monarch and head of state with God Save the Queen as the Royal Anthem (can you think of many countries with more in common?). New Zealand and the UK are debatably closer to Australia in all of these respects, however both maintain God Save the Queen as the National Anthem instead of the Royal Anthem. Brythones (talk) 23:02, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

At Australia#Sport_and_recreation the reader is treated to, The Australian national cricket team have participated in every edition of the Cricket World Cup. Could someone who didn't learn English primarily from sports broadcasting kindly re-word this? Thank you.--45.72.243.7 (talk) 14:55, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

This edit request to Australia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

194.250.42.108 (talk) 08:14, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a

reliable source if appropriate. – Jonesey95 (talk

) 09:16, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Image with Antarctica

Isn't necessary put this for remove it but are much... "discomfort" placing the correct map. Please, take care that that map are placed again, there is no a serious request of Australia to take control of part of Antartica. Thanks. --WikiInspector42 (talk) 05:24, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

WP:AN3. --AussieLegend (✉

) 05:59, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Articles' talk pages are to discuss confusing changes, but ok... --WikiInspector42 (talk) 07:18, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Where are you learning about Wikipedia? Talk pages are not at all just to discuss confusing changes. Per Help:Talk pages, they are for discussing improvements to articles. Obviously, you think that changing the image is an improvement but others don't, so it needs to be discussed here. That said, saying that Australia's claim to the AAT is not serious given the history is confusing at best. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:59, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Is there a map that shows all of Australia's external territories? Kind of a combination of File:Australia_with_AAT_(orthographic_projection).svg and File:Australia map with outlying islands.svg? I agree with including the AAT, but then it stands out that the others are missing. I see File:Australia states and territories labeled.svg further down the page - perhaps we need an unlabelled (but coloured) one at the top, and labels or captions down further. --Scott Davis ^Talk 05:02, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

File:Australia states and territories blank.svg shows all the states and territories but, without labels, the smaller territories are hard to see. I think we really need labels to locate the smaller territories and I'd prefer File:Australia states and territories labeled.svg to File:Australia map with outlying islands.svg. --AussieLegend (✉) 05:55, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

What happened to the portal? Pink has replaced official colors¿ --Moxy (talk) 20:51, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

LGBTQ colors that Elton John might pic.--104.249.226.232 (talk) 15:07, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi,

I would think that, under the Australian Cuisine section, defining a food as an Iconic Australian Food, such as the Pavlova, then linking that to an Article which cannot cite with any certainty whether the food in question was an Australian or New Zealand creation, is a bit misleading for those with no history on the topic in question.

Similarly with the statement 3 sentences later "Australia was responsible for the flat white coffee–purported to have originated in a Sydney cafe in the mid-1980s", which then links to an Article which again cannot cite with any certainty the origin of the creation of the flat white, Australia, or New Zealand.

I suggest a rephrasing of both items, to say that while their origin is contentious, they are enjoyed in Australia, or something similar.

Kiwisheep (talk) 11:38, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, fair point, Kiwisheep. I've amended the 'Iconic foods' section accordingly. See what you think. (As for the flat white, I couldn't find the statement you mentioned, so have made no changes along those lines.) Meticulo (talk) 14:10, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

There have been contentious changes to the date formats used in the infobox here and at United States and Canada. There seem to be some commonalities so the discussion at Talk:Canada#Change to date_format parameter might be worth a look. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:27, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

That discussion for Canada is a completely separate problem. Listing the date using a template is just a trial balloon, and I am not attached to it, but I do think that we need some way of clarifying the abbreviations for ESL readers. AndrewNJ (talk) 17:47, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

I've updated it to use the abbr template – what do you think of that? AndrewNJ (talk) 18:02, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

This edit request to Australia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

123.136.116.115 (talk) 07:36, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

 No details of requested change were specified. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:29, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

{{geodata-check}}

The following coordinate fixes are needed for

—117.20.112.15 (talk) 06:17, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm assuming that the above is a spurious entry because the coordinates for " " are fine. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:04, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I note that under language it states "Australia has a sign language known as Auslan, which is the main language of about 5,500 deaf people."

Considering the population of Australia, 5,500 deaf people seemed too small a number. The reference 283 does not link to a specific page at the Australian Bureau of Statistics website any more and redirects to another page. This is the current reference. (http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/ABSNavigation/prenav/ViewData?action=404&documentproductno=0&documenttype=Details&order=1&tabname=Details&areacode=0&issue=2006&producttype=Census%20Tables&javascript=true&textversion=false&navmapdisplayed=true&breadcrumb=POTLD&&collection=Census&period=2006&productlabel=Language%20Spoken%20at%20Home%20(full%20classification%20list)%20by%20Sex&producttype=Census%20Tables&method=Place%20of%20Usual%20Residence&topic=Language&)

The Australian Network on Disability states on their webpage that there are 30,000 people who use Auslan (https://www.and.org.au/pages/disability-statistics.html) "1 in 6 Australians are affected by hearing loss. There are approximately 30,000 Deaf Auslan users with total hearing loss." The Australian Network on Disability obtained their data from 'Listen Hear! The economic impact and cost of hearing loss in Australia' 2006, Access Economics, viewed 24 February 2017

I would suggest that this needs to be updated. I don't have the skills to update this information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tzali (talk • contribs)

I've updated the reference and the figure to the 2016 Census number, which was 10,112. --Canley (talk) 05:56, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

The source is now outdated. Change "The Super Pit gold mine in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, is the nation's largest open cut mine." to "The Super Pit gold mine in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, is the nation's second largest open cut mine." Although, it may be less import as a source due to this update.

I've updated the image, caption and source to refer to

Boddington Gold Mine as the largest. --Canley (talk

) 07:34, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 May 2019

This edit request to Australia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Change "Indigenous Australians inhabited the continent for about 60,000 years prior to European discovery" to "Indigenous Australians inhabited the continent for about 65,000 years prior to European discovery."

This is supported by these articles, all of which come from reputable sources.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-07-20/aboriginal-shelter-pushes-human-history-back-to-65,000-years/8719314

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/19/dig-finds-evidence-of-aboriginal-habitation-up-to-80000-years-ago

https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/evidence-of-first-peoples

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/science/humans-reached-australia-aboriginal-65000-years.html GrecoSerbHunk (talk) 04:58, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

 Done NiciVampireHeart 18:16, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

The census figures do not include Aborigines. What percent are they? 37.99.48.111 (talk) 10:04, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

I think you will find what you're after in the fourth paragraph of the Demographics section. HiLo48 (talk) 10:49, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

I note the articles for most countries have both religion and ethnicity in the main infobox/sidebar. Some of these are expanded by default while some are collapsed and you need to click on them to expand the list.

My preference is for neither religion or ethnicity (or ancestry for Australia, given this is the question in the Australian census) to be listed in the main infobox as they are relatively complex topics and I believe the infobox is for simpler statitics.

Nonetheless to be consistent, I believe the main infobox should either incorporate both the religion and ancestry figures down to 1% (see the demographics section where I have taken great trouble to include these in detailed form from the 2016 census) as collapsed (ie you must click on 'Religion' or 'Ancestry' to open the lists form OR neither should be present in the main infobox.

I would suggest having neither in the main infobox/sidebar and removing the existing relition data from the sidebar as it exists in the same form under the demographics section in the article. I hope there is no opposition to this?--StormcrowMithrandir (talk) 05:55, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

As there is no opposition expressed I will trial removing religion from the main infobox. Please advise if anyone opposes or wishes to discuss further.--StormcrowMithrandir (talk) 05:38, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

I've reverted your removal for now. This article doesn't see a lot of activity during the week and barely any on weekends. That, and giving people less than 24 hours to make up their minds is inappropriate. Notifying people on a Saturday afternoon and expecting them to reply by Sunday afternoon just doesn't cut it. 72 hrs is usually a good minimum. Remember,

Wikipedia is not working to a deadline. Things don't have to be done yesterday. Give people a reasonable amount of time to weigh in and if there is no opposition, then you can make the change. --AussieLegend (✉

) 06:57, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Quite right indeed, my apologies. I will leave it at least a week or two.--StormcrowMithrandir (talk) 07:53, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

The statistics provided by self-description in the Census seem dubious. For example, based on those figures, about 55% of Australians would be expected to believe in the existence of a personal God, an essential core belief of monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam. However, the National Church Life Survey in 2016 found only 24% of Australians held this belief. Jack N. Stock (talk) 04:43, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

That's probably because, contradictory though it sounds, if you ask the question "Do you believe there is a personal God?" (whatever 'personal' means in that context), there are a fair number of people who would say "No", even if, when asked "What is your religion?", they would answer "Christian", "Muslim" etc. From personal experience I know several members of my family who would put "Church of England", "Anglican", "Christian" etc. in the religion box on a census form or similar document, yet would answer "No" or "Probably not" to the direct "Is there a God" question. As I say, it's contradictory, but it's a real phenomenon, which is why you need to take great care when assessing surveys like this and consider exactly what was asked and its context. Incidentally, while I'm here, I'd leave religion and ethnicity out of the infobox - they are better discussed in the body, imo. -- Begoon 05:01, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's what the Census and NCLS results seem to be saying. A "personal God" is a God who is a person, as opposed to an impersonal life force. For example, a couple might say "the universe brought us together" or someone might say "it was written in the stars", implying belief in some sort of influential spiritual force, but no conscious supreme being. Jack N. Stock (talk) 05:09, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Asking the obvious question, did the NCLS survey everyone in Australia? The census did so I'd trust those figures. You're always going to get a more accurate figure when you sample 100% than when you sample a tiny percentage. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:53, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the above few posts. Figures on religion in Australia are notoriously unreliable, and close to meaningless. It definitely doesn't belong in the Infobox, and I'd argue that most of what is in that text section of the article is misleading. The census question is optional, to start with, so drawing any conclusion is dangerous. HiLo48 (talk) 06:59, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

The question may be optional but that's captured in the "unstated/unclear" figure. I don't have an issue with including religion but I don't think we need to go down to 1%. The infobox is only supposed to be an overview, like the lede but even briefer. I personally don't believe that religion is significant but a lot of people do so I see no reason not to include it but as it's an overview it should be limited to the most significant information which is 52.2% Christianity, 8.6% others, 30.1 % Irreligious and 9.1% Unstated/unclear. None of the "other" religions is more than 2.6%, which is not significant enough to include in the infobox but it can still be included in the religion section. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:11, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

We can perhaps include figures, but only if we include the precise wording of the question, and describe the responses accurately. The current wording doesn't do that IMHO. (It is better than it used to be.) For example. the wording "The remaining 9.6% of the population did not provide an adequate answer" presumably describes those who chose not to answer, PLUS those who stuffed up their response. Not a very helpful figure. It also concerns me that parents answering questions on behalf of their children will typically write their own religion in for their children. That delivers results that are simply wrong. HiLo48 (talk) 08:33, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

How about we keep the detail which I think is fundamental for the demographics section where it belongs as opposed to the infobox (and very important to a good proportion of the Australian and world population who may be reading) and if anything is less detailed than what you'd find in most country articles but simply keep it in the main body of text where it belongs and remove it from the infobox which is simply duplication and is always going to preclude any nuance given the position.--StormcrowMithrandir (talk) 08:59, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

We don't need the questions in the infobox. That's beyond the purpose of an infobox which is only supposed to include information in abbreviated form. If people need more information they go to the lede and if that doesn't cover what they need, then to the respective section in the body of the article. Or, they can go straight to the respective section. The 9.1% is not really useful but it gives a clear indication that 100% of the population has been captured. Essentially, nothing in the infobox is useful on its own and it's not supposed to be as it's just a bullet point summary, just usually without the bullets.

It also concerns me that parents answering questions on behalf of their children will typically write their own religion in for their children. - That's because, in the vast majority of cases, children share the religion of their parents and it's not wrong. Parents make a lot of decisions for their children, what clothes they wear, what food they eat, where they go to school and, yes, religion too.

remove it from the infobox which is simply duplication - By its very nature the entire infobox is duplication, as is the lede. Both are supposed to summarise significant aspects of the subject and they can't do that without duplicating some content. That's how we write articles. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:24, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Philosophically, it's nonsensical to claim that a new born baby has a religion. HiLo48 (talk) 00:17, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

We're not talking philosophically, we're talking about cold hard data. --AussieLegend (✉) 05:34, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd call it very soft data. You cannot claim it is accurate or meaningful. HiLo48 (talk) 07:35, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm afraid that it's your claim that is soft. The data is compiled by the ABS, the authoritative source for collection of Australian statistics, it's sourced from everyone in Australia at one time and it's an offence to not complete your Census form accurately. It's the most accurate data that you're ever going to get whether you like it or not. --AussieLegend (✉) 08:20, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I removed the religion part from the infobox, anticipating that as the eventual outcome, If there is some agreeable way of compressing the relevant section to an data statement, that can be included. cygnis insignis 10:28, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

And did that again. There is no consensus for inclusion, never was, just restores and invitations to wax lyrical about its problems. It is an infobox, I recognise that I am arguably falling afoul of infobox sanctions, but the onus is on consensus for inclusion as a first principle. cygnis insignis 12:26, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

You now have 2 of the people who have opined in favour of removal reverting your premature action. Please respect the process and wait for consensus. "the onus is on consensus for inclusion as a first principle" is true when new material is added, not when retention is the status quo. There's absolutely no need to circumvent the discussion process, so please don't. Thank you. -- Begoon 12:40, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

The inclusion of a particular field in the infobox code is a clear implication that there is already consensus for its use. That the data has been in the infobox for so long implies consensus for its inclusion, per

WP:SILENCE so the argument that there was never consensus for its inclusion in the first place doesn't fly. Most every infobox includes something that had no consensus for its initial inclusion so it's really silly to argue that as justification for arbitrary removal. What we need now is consensus not to continue including it. --AussieLegend (✉

) 13:08, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Australia/Popular_topics&action=history – cygnis insignis 14:00, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

What's your point? --AussieLegend (✉) 14:07, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

I searched the archives on infobox and that subsection turned up, I linked the revision history. The point is whatever anyone wants to make of that in the context on infoboxes, contentiousness and consensus, there was too many points for me to list and I've left it to others to reflect on that. In short, infoboxes suck. What was an option becomes compulsory, I don't think a deviation from encyclopedic presentation should be compulsory for what I think are obvious reasons. cygnis insignis 14:44, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

I still don't get it. What was the point of linking the revision history of that page? It's had 2 edits. How does that relate to a discussion on religion? If you look at the actual page, there are no religion discussions. As for infoboxes, whether or not you like them is irrelevant to the discussion. In any case, they are used in literally millions of articles and they're not going anywhere. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:18, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Smile and walk slowly away, AL. It's for the best, trust me. -- Begoon 17:41, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Cygnis, in answer to the question you removed, I meant that philosophical discussions about the merits or evils of infoboxes never go anywhere good, so let's stick to the simpler question of whether we have religion in this one. -- Begoon 17:57, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

I removed it for what I thought was a good reason, is replying to that helpful. If this was regular content I could fix any concern, it is not and any objection requires debating the matter extensively (no joke, six months and still going). Not how wikipedia works where it does work, it is as simple as that, we are not Wikidata. Infobox guidelines preclude the inclusion of contentious items without consensus, for obvious reasons to any editor of content proper. cygnis insignis 18:05, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

"for obvious reasons to any editor of content proper." ok. -- Begoon 18:10, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

To clarify my previous comments, my position is this is far too complicated to include in the infobox. In addition, some people might identify with a denomination but not identify as Christian (regardless of the denomination identifying as Christian), so aggregating 54.6% (or whatever) as "Christian" is inappropriate. Jack N. Stock (talk) 18:49, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

"I'm Catholic but I'm not Christian, I'm a pretzel." --AussieLegend (✉) 19:17, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

The ABS does the adding up for total percentage of Christians, but puzzlingly, comes up with a different number from the one we have in the article - 52%, compared with our claim of 54.6%. See https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/7E65A144540551D7CA258148000E2B85 What's going on? HiLo48 (talk) 00:14, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

I didn't do the religion chart so I will look at the 2016 census Community Profile xls for Australia on the weekend and work it out.--StormcrowMithrandir (talk) 03:39, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Ahhh...... I now regret opening this can of worms. The discussion shouldn't be around whether these people actually believe in a God or whether parents are choosing for children, etc. This is official ABS census data from the entire population and whatever else anyone comes up with is not nearly as good. Every census, not just Australia does it this way (self description rather than some test of what they actually believe and with parents completing for minors). There is no question that the data which is a very important demographic statistic which exists in all country articles should be there and should include a figure for all major world religions including small ones like Judaism. The only question is whether it should be in the infobox as well as the relevant section in the article, to which I would say no (even ancestry/ethnicity doesn't appear in the infobox for the Australia article despite being in the infobox of basically all other country articles) so my position is that religion and other demographic statistics beyond population should not go in the infobox. In the event it is contentious though and there are people who feel strongly about keeping it, I feel there is no harm at all to keeping it there.--StormcrowMithrandir (talk) 03:36, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

StormcrowMithrandir, Well, I don't think that's really a fair reflection of the discussion. There's a fair consensus (5:1 if you want to "count votes") not to have it in the infobox, as it stands at the moment, as far as I read it. The fact that the conversation got "muddied" a bit by some of us going off on a tangent about the quality/interpretation of the data and another tangent about the pros and cons of infoboxes in general shouldn't be allowed to obscure that. You certainly shouldn't "regret" starting the discussion. -- Begoon 04:25, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

There is no question that the data which is a very important demographic statistic - Being a very important demographic statistic justifies inclusion in the lede and the infobox.

There's a fair consensus (5:1 if you want to "count votes") - Except that we don't count votes, we look at the strength of the arguments and some of the exclude arguments amount to

) 05:34, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

"This is an FA so we need a fairly strong consensus, maybe even an RfC. A weak "consensus" based on flawed arguments could result in loss of the FA status." - That argument would, of course, be a little stronger if, at the time of the last FA review: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Australia/archive1 (29 June 2010), the infobox had, in fact, contained religion - but as far as I can see it didn't... I've personally no objection to your turning this into an RFC if you think it's merited, though. -- Begoon 06:38, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

As there has been no further discussion I will do that. --AussieLegend (✉) 20:32, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Moreover, The Age says that Menzies' book was even a best-seller, stimulating heated academic debate over the issue. This is exactly the kind of stuff that needs to be put on wikipedia, in this case not whether Menzies is right or not but the fact that there is an academic controversy in the first place. The Altaic languages are also widely discredited by linguistic scholars, but it has a whole wikipedia article dedicated to it. Wikipedia is a place to promote these kinds of intellectual discussions and thoughts, not a place to tailor or edit history to one's own fantasies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexkyoung (talk • contribs) 15:06, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

The book and its controversy is already covered in detail at Gavin Menzies. The claims don't need to be reiterated at Australia, North America, Northeast Passage, or any of the other places he claimed were visited. — Pelagic (talk) 07:52, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

British naval officer and author Gavin Menzies argues that the Chinese, through naval voyages like those of Zheng He of the Ming dynasty, arrived on the shores of Australia in 1422.^[1] British journalist Martin Jacques mentions this as well.^[2][3] Moreover, to quote from The Age:

Zheng's vice-admirals, Hong Bao and Zhou Man, beat Cook by almost 350 years. The two men, both eunuchs (as was the custom for captains), arrived in Australia in 1422 - Hong on the west coast, Zhou on the east - and spent several months exploring, landing in several places. Their ships were massive - 122 metres long by 27 metres wide - not that much smaller than a modern aircraft carrier and absolute giants compared with those used by Columbus about 70 years later. The captains navigated by the stars. Each ship had up to 1000 sailors.^[4]

Archaeological evidence suggesting early Chinese interaction has also been found, including Chinese coins and items imported from East Africa, other areas of Zheng He's voyages.^[5] However this is contested.^{[citation needed]} -- User:Alexkyoung —Preceding undated comment added 01:05, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

No need for non academic junk ....Historians have rejected these theories and assertions outright ^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]} and have categorised this amateur work as pseudohistory.^[12][13][14] --Moxy 🍁 04:04, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

talk

) 05:19, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Why would we add Pseudohistory claim with ZERO proof or academic backing to a history article?--Moxy 🍁 06:28, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

These claims do not belong anywhere in Wikipedia's coverage of Australia's history, as they are WP:FRINGE theories not endorsed by any serious historian. Menzies also believes that Atlantis was real and visited North America... [32] Nick-D (talk) 08:41, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. And The Age article is being misrepresented in the selective quote used above. Nickm57 (talk) 09:10, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Washington Post

. If Menzies is a 'pseudohistorian' then why would any sane person allow his book to be published and then marketed? His book is still on Amazon, and people still buy it. I personally may or may not agree with Menzies myself, but that does not matter, as the above passage is just reporting what others have said. However, it is still speculation, well-cited by sources, and the information should be published for the benefit future readers. One day, some historian or archaeologist may read this and decide to verify or refute these claims even further. It does not hurt to publish.

On the references Moxy used: 6 is missing, the reliability of 7 and 8 are questionable; after all why was the original website taken down? 9 is a book review, from a not so reputable source, and is invariably pov; 10 Finlay 2004 does not link anywhere, and specification is needed; these pseudosources are not worth including.

11-14 may be worth including in the above.

Please make an effort to educate yourself about WP policies - particularly some of those listed above by other editors. Just because you find Menzies theories interesting doesn’t mean it’s appropriate in this collaborative project - which has its own rules and policies. A personal blog is not a bad alternative if you want to write without a policy framework like this project has. Nickm57 (talk) 15:41, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I have, but your points do not address any of the points I brought up. Please make an effort to educate yourself about how to make a constructive intellectual counterargument rather than personally attacking others. I am waiting for a response to these claims. According to the BRD cycle, I can make a new bold edit, especially if nobody has addressed these concerns.

Exactly where have I attacked you personally? I suggest a way forward is for you to a) use indenting b) sign all your posts c) put “your points” exactly as that - just points you wish to include to improve the article d) don’t jump off onto people’s talk pages. This is the place for your ideas. And e) Don’t keep adding great slabs of text here it’s so unwieldy.

and yes - you are going to have to wait for considered responses to your further ideas from other editors. Nickm57 (talk) 16:04, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

New proposal

British naval officer and author Gavin Menzies argues that the Chinese, through naval voyages like those of Zheng He of the Ming dynasty, arrived on the shores of Australia in 1422.^[1] British journalist Martin Jacques mentions this as well.^[2][3] Moreover, to quote from The Age:

Menzies claims Zheng's vice-admirals, Hong Bao and Zhou Man, beat Cook by almost 350 years. The two men, both eunuchs (as was the custom for captains), arrived in Australia in 1422 - Hong on the west coast, Zhou on the east - and spent several months exploring, landing in several places. Their ships were massive - 122 metres long by 27 metres wide - not that much smaller than a modern aircraft carrier and absolute giants compared with those used by Columbus about 70 years later. The captains navigated by the stars. Each ship had up to 1000 sailors.^[4]

Archaeological evidence suggesting early Chinese interaction has also been found, including Chinese coins and items imported from East Africa, other areas of Zheng He's voyages.^[5]

However this is contested, and some have rejected Menzies' claims.^[6][7][8][9]

Alexkyoung (talk) 14:56, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I think we should review other edits see if this is a problem in others areas. --Moxy 🍁 16:12, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

• [I'm aware of the discussions elsewhere about Alex's editing patterns, but for completeness offer the following.]

Including the whole quote from The Age is undue weight. I haven't checked the sources, but wording below may be more accurate, based on what's been said above. Doubt it belongs in the main Australia article, Prehistory_of_Australia#Contact_outside_Australia would be more appropriate.

Author Gavin Menzies claimed that the Chinese, through naval voyages of Hong Bao and Zhou Man, arrived on the shores of Australia in 1422, a view that garnered media attention.^{[10][11][12][13]} These claims have been rejected by historians.^{[14][15][16][17]} Archaeological evidence suggesting early Chinese interaction has also been found, including Chinese coins and items imported from East Africa. These may have arrived via trade with South-East Asia.^[18]

(Sorry for doubling-up the references, not sure if named ref's work with {{Reflist-talk}}?) — Pelagic (talk) 07:13, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

• After reading some of Fritze (can't access the others), I don't think we should mention Menzies even as a proactive debunking exercise. The article at Gavin Menzies covers it well enough. —Pelagic (talk) 07:40, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oops, I just realised that Moxy already spoke of the same location – Prehistory_of_Australia#Contact_outside_Australia – in the preceding section. Sorry to reiterate. —Pelagic (talk) 08:20, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

References

1. ^ Menzies, Gavin. 1421: The Year China Discovered America.
2. ^ Jacques, Martin (2012). When China Rules the World. Penguin Books. p. 502.
3. ^ "Full text: Hu's speech". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2003-10-24. Retrieved 2019-06-09.
4. ^ "It's official: Admiral Zheng beat Cook to Australia". The Age. 2002-11-25. Retrieved 2019-06-09.
5. ^ "Did Chinese mariners reach Australia before the Europeans?". {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
6. ^ Goodman, David S. G. (2006): "Mao and The Da Vinci Code: Conspiracy, Narrative and History", The Pacific Review, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 359–384 (367–372)
7. ISBN 978-1861898173
   .
8. doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00649.x
   .
9. doi:10.3138/jsp.39.4.354
   . Retrieved 10 October 2013.
10. ^ Menzies, Gavin. 1421: The Year China Discovered America.
11. ^ Jacques, Martin (2012). When China Rules the World. Penguin Books. p. 502.
12. ^ "Full text: Hu's speech". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2003-10-24. Retrieved 2019-06-09.
13. ^ "It's official: Admiral Zheng beat Cook to Australia". The Age. 2002-11-25. Retrieved 2019-06-09.
14. ^ Goodman, David S. G. (2006): "Mao and The Da Vinci Code: Conspiracy, Narrative and History", The Pacific Review, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 359–384 (367–372)
15. ISBN 978-1861898173
    .
16. doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00649.x
    .
17. doi:10.3138/jsp.39.4.354
    . Retrieved 10 October 2013.
18. ^ "Did Chinese mariners reach Australia before the Europeans?". {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)