WELCOME TO OUR WEBSITE

This website was created to mark the Centenary of Federation by providing online resources. We hope that the Federation resources on this web site will help you to deepen your understanding of this formative era in Australia's political history.

Web design

The website's design adds to the user's understanding and awareness of Federation by being easily navigable, by presenting material in logical order, and by reminding users that there are always opposing points of view.

The home page is set out as a concept map. The central button, called Federation: For and Against, links to a selection of documents on issues relating to Federation. The documents are arranged in three groups: Different Views on the Constitution and Regional Differences present opposing viewpoints about Federation, and Different Agendas contains selected platforms of different groups.

Supporting the arguments For and Against are the themes: Defence (including Railways), Nationalism, Racism, and Tariffs. Each theme button links to a selection of relevant documents to illustrate the issues surrounding Federation. Occasionally a document may appear listed under more than one heading because it may contain more than one theme: e.g. references to Defence crop up throughout documents in other themes, particularly in the theme of Racism.

In a bar on every page, including the home page, buttons link to a range of support material: Outcomes (what Federation achieved); Acknowledgments, Teacher Notes, Image Gallery, Select Timeline, Focus Questions and Biographies. In this bar there is also a Home button.

For and Against documents

In this section there are two groups of documents, expressing either support or opposition for an issue relating to Federation.

Documents by Theme

When researching documents that date back a hundred or more years, students need to make allowances for historical context. It is our sincere hope that in working with these documents, students will be able to develop an understanding of Federation times. Some of the motives behind the movement to federate are nothing to be proud of and some of our introductory comments are intentionally quite prescriptive as to how students should interpret certain documents. In the theme Racism, for example, extensive use has been made of inverted commas in order to remind students continually that the views expressed in these documents are based on racist assumptions.

Outcomes

The outcomes documents give some examples of what Federation did and did not achieve in the years immediately following 1901. Arranged by theme, these outcomes link back to the relevant Documents by Theme collection.

Focus Questions

Focus questions are provided to assist in comprehension. These questions are placed before the primary documents in each of the Themes and in two of the For and Against groups: Different Views on the Constitution and Regional Differences. There are no focus questions before Extra Documents, which have been included to provide extension or supplementary material.

Glossary Function

We have included a glossary function so that words or phrases that might be unfamiliar or otherwise difficult for the student to understand are highlighted. When the cursor moves on to the highlighted word, a 'call out' box appears with the word's definition. It is not possible to include all potentially difficult words, but every attempt has been made to provide some assistance for those words and phrases that may prove the hardest for students to find in a modern dictionary.

Introduction to Federation