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[See Candobetter Editor's comment at the end of this comment on use of the term 'White Australia.']

On this day 1854 the diggers of Ballarat made a stand for democracy and justice against an old order of patronage and privilege.

The miners "rebellion" on the Ballarat gold fields of 1854 left  Australians a powerful legacy:  The Eureka Stockade incident and its Southern Cross Flag were elements in defining who the Australians were in the then environment of imperial control of the continent.

Today, the freedoms won by past struggles - from our working conditions, to our culture, heritage and European derived identity - all the values that make for our Australian way of life - are being undermined by the UN/Globalisation Agenda, presided over by Lab/Lib/fake Greens.

Yet a rebellious spirit is on the march in declining Australia today as Australians consider their national future.  

The men of Eureka were not a riotous mob, but had formed the Ballarat Reform League  on 11th November 1854, which submitted their complaints to authority in an orderly fashion through democratically decided resolutions, appeals and formal deputations. 

The miners’ grievances related to restrictive licence fees, and enforcement. They were also disturbed by the presence of “coolie labour”; wanted access to land,  and sought the vote and representation in government. But in the face of an authoritarian administration serving colonial interests, they sought to attain their rights as free men.

This was the first time on our continent that men from the old nations of Europe joined together with an Australian mindset and under a uniquely Australian flag. Australia's nativist movement, from the 1850's onwards, celebrated the Eureka Stockade as an inspiration for the character and identity of Australians - European, democratic, independent, mateship, disliking of authority, determination, just returns from labour. 

The Southern Cross flag was subsequently taken up in the quest for independence and freedom from colonialism in the struggle to build "the Great Southern Nation".  In our history it has been acclaimed as "the Australian flag", "the safeguard of  Australian nationality", "the symbol of Australian liberty and unity",  "the emblem of White Australia".

In confirmation of solidarity, hundreds of the diggers swore an oath - "We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by one another and to fight to defend our rights and liberties".

The fight took place at 4 a.m. on Sunday 3rd December 1854 when the diggers’ stockade was charged by the troopers and police, being overwhelmed in a short time, the stockaders and bystanders continuing to be brutalised after surrender. The camp, as a peoples’ militia, was a failure, with some thirty diggers killed, as well as five troopers. Our Cross of the South was trampled in the dirt of Bakery Hill.

But at the price of the diggers’ blood, although the true spirit of their demands was never accepted,  the basic reforms they sought later came to be implemented, and the incident passed into our folklore tradition as "the finest thing in Australian history". 

In these new times our Southern Cross flag remains above all, a  flag to be raised high in our struggle for survival against the globalisation agenda for foreign dictates and financial control,  overpopulating by mass immigration, doctrines that compromise a future for our Australian nationality, and disaster for the ecological order of our ancient continent.

The Eureka flag reflects the spirit of Australians still - freedom, identity, democracy,  independence.

Commemorate the Anniversary.

Editor's comment

Candobetter Editor: Note that the White Australia policy, although later remarketed as something gratuitously racist, was historically an anti-slavery and cheap labour policy obtained by workers in exchange for allowing a free market to manufacturing. It was supposed to protect Australian workers' wages and conditions from being undermined by the import and use of slave labour. 

The British had managed with difficulty to gain an agricultural foothold in Australia, first by using ‘white’ slaves in the form of convicts, many of whom were convicted of crimes of political resistance or of poverty.  Their number was later supplemented by indentured labour, displaced aboriginals, and, until Federation, ‘black-birding’ – the practice of kidnapping Pacific Islanders and bringing them to work in Australia, principally for the Colonial Sugar Refinery Company.

The gold-rushes of the 1850s attracted capital, finance and economic migrants, resulting in rapid population growth and  economic and class diversification, and the formation of a working class. This class made a national wage-fixing pact with capital at Federation in 1904 and also obtained the agreement of the Colonial Sugar Company (CSR ) to outlaw black-birding and the importation of other 'non-white' labour, widely perceived as synonymous with slaving.  Australians did not want the problems that slavery had brought the United States.

“With Federation, the Commonwealth Parliament became dominated by spokesmen for ‘White Australia’. In October 1901 legislation was passed prohibiting the introduction of Pacific Islanders after 31 March 1904.” ( McKillop, R.F., referring to Bolton, G.C., A Thousand miles away: A History of North Queensland to 1920, ANU Press, 1972, p. 239, in “Australia’s Sugar Industry” on the Light Railway Research Society of Australia site, www.lrrsa.org.au/LRR_SGRa.htm)

The Colonial Sugar Company aroused similar responses among indigenous Fijians who also objected to black-birding as well as to the importing of Indian indentured labour. (“The Indian Connection”, Frontline, Volume 17 - Issue 12, June 10 - 23, 2000, www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1712/17120130.htm.)

The White Australia policy was abolished by the Whitlam Government. At the time, Australia had a relatively robust system of state industrial awards and a reasonable system to deal with industrial disputes across state boundaries. This system meant there was little profit in importing labor from overseas because you had to pay most industries according to the awards and that applied to migrants too.  Under John Howard around 2009, this was radically changed with the abolishing of state awards, and it became profitable and possible to import cheap labour. Migration has since been massively ramped up. (See https://candobetter.net/admin/blog/4612/sheila-newman-kennett-population-policy-numbers-and-flow-ons-regional-migration-and)

See also https://candobetter.net/sheila-newman/blog/287/overpopulation-immigration-multiculturalism-and-white-australia-policy