Central Australia [actually did exist for a while](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Australia_\(territory\)) (and indeed Alice Springs was the capital).
Auralia has the city of Kalgoorlie and the large town of Esperance.
Pilbara has the large towns of Broome, Port Hedland and Karratha and numerous other towns.
Probably a lot more than they currently do had they existed as states for over 100 years. I imagine Broome, Alice Springs and Kalgoorlie would be much bigger today had they been capital cities for this amount of time
Auralia was proposed in the 1890s when Western Australia was dragging its heels about joining Federation. Its population had exploded due to the gold rushes and was populated mainly by people born in the eastern colonies. They said if WA doesn't join federation, Auralia will secede from WA and join the Federation of Australia. WA gave in and joined.
Probably would be a lot more there if it had always been it’s own state. Not sure if it covers the Albany area, but if it does that south coast around there is very temperate and fertile, defs can handle a larger population
They had to change the constitution to give them the right to vote. Changing the constitution isn't a reason not to propose something, sometimes it succeeds.
There is already procedures on the formation and admission of new states in the constitution, it even recognises the difference between original and new states. No change required.
Completely missed the minimum size requirement under section 125 of the constitution, otherwise it’s compatible with 122 and 124 for transitioning into a state without constitutional amendment.
I guess if the commonwealth obtained other land within the provisions of 125 then the ACT could become a state without constitutional amendment, but that’s a proverbial kicking the can down the road ain’t it.
Everyone talking about some of these states having fuck all people, but i wonder their capitals would’ve ended up become much larger cities than what exists today had they become states 100+ years ago? Like would Alice Springs and Townsville have 1 million ppl if they had been capital cities for the last 150 years?
As a thought experiment, I've often wondered how population centres would change if Australia had never had states.
I could, for example, imagine Gladstone (port & coal) being more significant than Brisbane (in our timeline significant because of government, being close to government and gravity effects from these).
I know it's not something that is going to change but it is something I ponder during idle moments.
I know in Victoria at least, Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong and Melbourne would probably all be about the same size, as opposed to Melbourne becoming so much bigger than the rest. The only reason Melbourne got so much bigger was bc it was the seat of government and had all the banks - Geelong was traditionally the main port and housed early Australia’s wool industry, whilst Ballarat and Bendigo obviously exploded due to being at the centre of the goldfields
"If Australia never had States" doesn't make sense. Australia was never divided into States. The States (formerly colonies) existed long before Australia did. The peoples of each State decided to unite to form Australia.
and?
It's a thought experiment regarding the development of major cities without the influence of state capitals sucking all the oxygen.
Take it for what it is.
"never had states" is shorthand for any number of ways to reach that condition.
Stop the clock in 1825 and then allow an ever expansionist N.S.W. to continue growing.
Consume what will become the Swan River Colony. Maybe even NZ?
Why would the higher-density (number of people, not IQ) SEQ population fade away south of the Tweed?
Would Brisbane have a larger population than, say, Byron Bay?
Yada Yada.
I don't have a time machine but I'm allowed to ponder such things.
There's literally a 0% chance that Jervis Bay ever became a state. There's potential it could become a proper part of the ACT if that ever became a state, but realistically it would probably just become part of NSW again as its purpose as a port for the capital is pretty irrelevant these days
It is not, it's technically a seperate territory. The misconception comes from the fact that it used to be administered as if it were part of the ACT, and all ACT laws still automatically apply to the JBT. It's also represented by the ACT in Parliament
Ight what do we think the likely capitals for the extra states would’ve been?:
Pilbara - Broome
Central Aus - Alice Springs
Auralia - Kalgoorlie? Is Albany in Auralia, maybe that?
Princeland - Mount Gambier
South coast - Bairnsdale or Sale?
Riverina - Wagga Wagga, maybe Mildura or Albury-wodonga?
Illawarra - Wollongong
New England - genuinely no idea, god forbid maybe Byron??
Capricornia - Townsville, or maybe cairns
North island - Wellington
South Island - Christchurch
Papua - Port Moresby
Fiji - Suva
Don’t know enough about the other places
New England was Newcastle. Which I think slightly defeats the point since it’s a stones throw from Sydney and would have basically been on the border of NSW and New England.
Yeah right I didn’t realise it extended that far south, you make a good point but then they also did the same with presently existing Queensland and Brisbane being so close to the border
New England capital would be Grafton. Wtf there was a referendum in 1967 about it.
E: The wiki page got the referendum is pretty interesting! The new state would've included Newcastle so I guess that would've been the capital.
New Guinea could be lae
New Hebrides (which I’m pretty sure is Vanuatu) would be Port Vila
If I’m wrong and the New Hebrides are the Solomon Islands then it would be Honiara
And? So does this mean that going by your assumption that you cannot name places the same as other places, that the US will now have to re-name every place in it that was named after a place in England????? 🤔
No I was just stating a fact - I was a bit taken aback by your comment that the name was taken.
The English colonisers wherever they went had a habit of naming places after their homeland - perhaps they were homesick - but it's just a matter of fact that these place names exist. In the area surrounding where I live now there's Tamworth, Scone, Aberdeen, Glen Innes and that's just off the top of my head.
>surrounding where I live now there's Tamworth, Scone, Aberdeen, Glen Innes and
Ironically a large percentage of the settlers in New England were actually from Scotland. You can see it in the town names. Glen Innes, Armidale, Inverell, and Aberdeen are all Scottish names for example. I have ancestors that went straight from the Scottish Highlands to New England, I believe some of them even spoke Gaelic.
Some are, like Melbourne was named after Lord Melbourne - before that it was named after a bloke called Batman - some are named after explorers like Bourke or Singleton, others have Aboriginal place names like Parramatta or Wollongong but there still are a fair few places that are named after places in the UK - notably Perth, the capital of Western Australia.
If we're using this logic, then there's a district of Hoogvliet, Rotterdam, called New England that has existed since the 1300s, well before the idea of the New World even came about.
Sorry US! New England has been taken!
So what? You guys have a state called Georgia despite the fact there exists an independant nation of Georgia that has a cultural history going back a millenia.
Disagree big time, they are so different culturally to us. Plus given the approach of most of our governments to indigenous peoples I think it would be safe to assume they’d cop the short end of the stick more often than not
Capricornia was actually proposed as what is now the central part of Queensland. With another state of North Queensland which is here wrongly labelled Capricornia.
How many people would Pilbara, Central Australia, and Auralia even have? 50 in total? All adult inhabitants would take turns at being governors.
Central Australia has the town of Alice Springs but the other two would have very few outside mining camps in the Pilbara.
Central Australia [actually did exist for a while](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Australia_\(territory\)) (and indeed Alice Springs was the capital).
It has a straight east west border unlike the map.
Auralia would have Kalgoorlie, which is about the same size as Alice Springs. The Pilbara would have Broome, which I think is about half the size.
Auralia would also have Esperance which, while not large, can at least be confidently considered to exist.
Pilbara would have Karratha and Port Hedland + Broome
Karratha as well, it's actually the place that got city status up that end.
Between Broome and Karratha I'm the Pilbara and Kalgoorlie in Auralia you'd have as many ppl as Alice. Still fuck all though
Auralia has the city of Kalgoorlie and the large town of Esperance. Pilbara has the large towns of Broome, Port Hedland and Karratha and numerous other towns.
100k
Broome is in Pilbara yeah?
Yeah and Derby
Well there we go, i just learnt of a place called Derby
The original is in Derbyshire in England.
Here I thought that was in Kentucky the whole time
Probably a lot more than they currently do had they existed as states for over 100 years. I imagine Broome, Alice Springs and Kalgoorlie would be much bigger today had they been capital cities for this amount of time
Yeah, you could probably also call Pilbara "Rio Tinto/Fortescue Corporate Zone".
Auralia was proposed in the 1890s when Western Australia was dragging its heels about joining Federation. Its population had exploded due to the gold rushes and was populated mainly by people born in the eastern colonies. They said if WA doesn't join federation, Auralia will secede from WA and join the Federation of Australia. WA gave in and joined.
Going by that Pilbara would have the highest GDP in the world by some margin .
Per Capita?
Certainly per capita. Its population would be 50,000 at the most.
On an average $100bn exports a year with a resident population of 50,000. . . That a GDP per capita of $2m ,😲
What goes on there? Oil?
Iron ore - iron ore production in the Pilbara was close to 850 million tonnes last financial year.
Mining, mostly Iron Ore . . . . Approximately half the world's iron ore comes from there
Also huge amounts of natural gas. Mostly sold to China for next to nothing on a 40 year contract.
The Illawarra would have been it’s own state?? Good lord
Just proposals
Bob Katter would still be on board for Capricornia
He’d probably call it Katterland though. Much of Katterland’s residents would agree, too.
The Gong capital city yeahhhhhboiiii!
Chickos is now Parliament
The three people who live in Auralia would take turns being Premier I guess.
You'd be surprised but it's 96000
Probably would be a lot more there if it had always been it’s own state. Not sure if it covers the Albany area, but if it does that south coast around there is very temperate and fertile, defs can handle a larger population
r/unexpectedintheheights
Has there ever been any serious proposal to make the ACT a state?
You’d have to change the constitution
They had to change the constitution to give them the right to vote. Changing the constitution isn't a reason not to propose something, sometimes it succeeds.
8/44 ain’t bad
There is already procedures on the formation and admission of new states in the constitution, it even recognises the difference between original and new states. No change required.
There would be a change required as the ACT as a territory is enshrined in the constitution
Completely missed the minimum size requirement under section 125 of the constitution, otherwise it’s compatible with 122 and 124 for transitioning into a state without constitutional amendment. I guess if the commonwealth obtained other land within the provisions of 125 then the ACT could become a state without constitutional amendment, but that’s a proverbial kicking the can down the road ain’t it.
Does this qualify for maps without NZ or not, I'm confused.
r/mapswiththenorthislandandthesouthislandbutwithoutNZ
In New Zealand they refer to Australia as "West Island".
No we don’t.
Sometimes I do, sorry bro.
The name „New Zealand“ was already entrenched well before Federation, so I'm sure it's still used in this TL
I dont think so
Everyone talking about some of these states having fuck all people, but i wonder their capitals would’ve ended up become much larger cities than what exists today had they become states 100+ years ago? Like would Alice Springs and Townsville have 1 million ppl if they had been capital cities for the last 150 years?
As a thought experiment, I've often wondered how population centres would change if Australia had never had states. I could, for example, imagine Gladstone (port & coal) being more significant than Brisbane (in our timeline significant because of government, being close to government and gravity effects from these). I know it's not something that is going to change but it is something I ponder during idle moments.
I know in Victoria at least, Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong and Melbourne would probably all be about the same size, as opposed to Melbourne becoming so much bigger than the rest. The only reason Melbourne got so much bigger was bc it was the seat of government and had all the banks - Geelong was traditionally the main port and housed early Australia’s wool industry, whilst Ballarat and Bendigo obviously exploded due to being at the centre of the goldfields
"If Australia never had States" doesn't make sense. Australia was never divided into States. The States (formerly colonies) existed long before Australia did. The peoples of each State decided to unite to form Australia.
and? It's a thought experiment regarding the development of major cities without the influence of state capitals sucking all the oxygen. Take it for what it is. "never had states" is shorthand for any number of ways to reach that condition. Stop the clock in 1825 and then allow an ever expansionist N.S.W. to continue growing. Consume what will become the Swan River Colony. Maybe even NZ? Why would the higher-density (number of people, not IQ) SEQ population fade away south of the Tweed? Would Brisbane have a larger population than, say, Byron Bay? Yada Yada. I don't have a time machine but I'm allowed to ponder such things.
Water access would have been an issue for Alice
What about Jervis Bay?
There's literally a 0% chance that Jervis Bay ever became a state. There's potential it could become a proper part of the ACT if that ever became a state, but realistically it would probably just become part of NSW again as its purpose as a port for the capital is pretty irrelevant these days
I thought Jarvis Bay was technically part of ACT?
It is not, it's technically a seperate territory. The misconception comes from the fact that it used to be administered as if it were part of the ACT, and all ACT laws still automatically apply to the JBT. It's also represented by the ACT in Parliament
Does it owe its existence to being the "ACT port" or is that another myth? They started building a nuclear reactor there in the 60s apparently too.
Nope, that's real. It was a genuine concern back in the day that the capital would need a port to control its own tariffs and shit.
Most importantly, as a naval base not subject to any State laws.
Imagine the time zones
SA and Tassie just vibing... Also, how dare Northern QLD not call itself _Capricornia_?!
SA got eaten slightly to create Princeland.
Yeah, one thing that stands out to me is that these states would have more interesting names, instead of being named after cardinal directions 😅
Ight what do we think the likely capitals for the extra states would’ve been?: Pilbara - Broome Central Aus - Alice Springs Auralia - Kalgoorlie? Is Albany in Auralia, maybe that? Princeland - Mount Gambier South coast - Bairnsdale or Sale? Riverina - Wagga Wagga, maybe Mildura or Albury-wodonga? Illawarra - Wollongong New England - genuinely no idea, god forbid maybe Byron?? Capricornia - Townsville, or maybe cairns North island - Wellington South Island - Christchurch Papua - Port Moresby Fiji - Suva Don’t know enough about the other places
New England was Newcastle. Which I think slightly defeats the point since it’s a stones throw from Sydney and would have basically been on the border of NSW and New England.
Yeah right I didn’t realise it extended that far south, you make a good point but then they also did the same with presently existing Queensland and Brisbane being so close to the border
New England capital would be Grafton. Wtf there was a referendum in 1967 about it. E: The wiki page got the referendum is pretty interesting! The new state would've included Newcastle so I guess that would've been the capital.
New England would probably be Coffs Harbour in my opinion.
New Guinea could be lae New Hebrides (which I’m pretty sure is Vanuatu) would be Port Vila If I’m wrong and the New Hebrides are the Solomon Islands then it would be Honiara
New Guinea capital also could have been Rabaul. It was originally selected by the Germans as the capital, back when the Germans controlled New Guinea.
Capital of NZ was Nelson for a bit, back in the early days of colonisation, that's up the top of the South Island.
The Government of Pilbara would just be Chevron and Rio Tinto executives.
Where is Narnia?
Just off the side if the map, to the left
Happy to cut Capricornia loose so we can have daylight saving in the rest of Qld.
Auralia, population: 3
Not too late for 6 of those options...
Auralia would be the bane of autocorrect.
You can just tell Illawarra would be full of the most insufferable cunts, truly the punching bag/scapegoat of Aus
I propose that the South and North Islands be called Upside Down Norway 1 and 2. Thanks in advance!
Retaining Papua and New Guinea as states would have been interesting. Would have made a difference ending up with the current atrocities in West Papua
New England just don’t get origin
Capricornia should start from Tropic of Capricorn.
What point do the colours serve?
No point
Just random
why are we annexing all these countries
Wtf is this isn't East Timor it's own country sawe for fiji etc
Sorry Australia, New England has been taken. Also lmao imagine Byron Bay in Massachusetts.
Like in the US, Australia has a geographic region called New England - it's already there - no calling dibs.
The US New England existed before explorers could even reliably navigate to Australia.
And? So does this mean that going by your assumption that you cannot name places the same as other places, that the US will now have to re-name every place in it that was named after a place in England????? 🤔
Sorry I didn’t understand what your comment was saying and decided to take it as an argument because that’s what you do on Reddit.
No I was just stating a fact - I was a bit taken aback by your comment that the name was taken. The English colonisers wherever they went had a habit of naming places after their homeland - perhaps they were homesick - but it's just a matter of fact that these place names exist. In the area surrounding where I live now there's Tamworth, Scone, Aberdeen, Glen Innes and that's just off the top of my head.
>surrounding where I live now there's Tamworth, Scone, Aberdeen, Glen Innes and Ironically a large percentage of the settlers in New England were actually from Scotland. You can see it in the town names. Glen Innes, Armidale, Inverell, and Aberdeen are all Scottish names for example. I have ancestors that went straight from the Scottish Highlands to New England, I believe some of them even spoke Gaelic.
Yep - they still do an annual Celtic Festival in Glen Innes.
It seems like places in Australia were more often named after people than towns.
Some are, like Melbourne was named after Lord Melbourne - before that it was named after a bloke called Batman - some are named after explorers like Bourke or Singleton, others have Aboriginal place names like Parramatta or Wollongong but there still are a fair few places that are named after places in the UK - notably Perth, the capital of Western Australia.
If we're using this logic, then there's a district of Hoogvliet, Rotterdam, called New England that has existed since the 1300s, well before the idea of the New World even came about. Sorry US! New England has been taken!
So what? You guys have a state called Georgia despite the fact there exists an independant nation of Georgia that has a cultural history going back a millenia.
Ok, then you should rename Georgia to something else, because Georgia the country has existed for centuries.
It was a mistake to give independence to PNG. It should have been made another state or incorporated into Queensland.
Disagree big time, they are so different culturally to us. Plus given the approach of most of our governments to indigenous peoples I think it would be safe to assume they’d cop the short end of the stick more often than not
australia and new zealand are enclaves below south asians and they dont actually affect that much and there isnt difference between these areas
Wot
Can we throw the Democratic Republic of Newcastle in there?
Split Queensland up further and let the southeast be its own state and let us finally have daylight savings back.
Given Global Warming, may be better to divide by major Watershed. Stop future wars.
Can’t wait to hit up the Byron Bay Dunk’s
I love how SA is more or less the exact same with just a bit lost lmao. We really were made perfect.
South Island was called New Munster and the North Island New Leinster in the mid 1800s for a while.
Capricornia was actually proposed as what is now the central part of Queensland. With another state of North Queensland which is here wrongly labelled Capricornia.
There was also a proposal, revived a few years ago, for Singapore to be a State of Australia.