Editing History of Australia (section)

=== The long boom (1860 to 1890) ===
From the 1850s to 1871 gold was Australia's largest export and allowed the colonies to import a range of consumer and capital goods. The increase in population in the decades following the gold rush stimulated demand for housing, consumer goods, services and urban infrastructure.<ref>Goodman, David (2013). "The gold rushes of the 1850s". ''The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I''. pp.&nbsp;180–81.</ref>

In the 1860s, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia introduced Selection Acts intended to promote family farms and mixed farming and grazing.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Frost|first=Lionel|title=The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I|year=2013|pages=327–28|chapter=The economy}}</ref> Improvements in farming technology and the introduction of crops adapted to Australian conditions eventually led to the diversification of rural land use. The expansion of the railways from the 1860s allowed wheat to be cheaply transported in bulk, stimulating the development of a wheat belt from South Australia to Queensland.<ref>Hirst, John (2014), pp. 74–77</ref><ref>Macintyre, Stuart (2020). p. 108</ref>

[[File:William Strutt Bushrangers.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|[[William Strutt (artist)|William Strutt]]'s ''Bushrangers on the [[St Kilda Road, Melbourne|St Kilda Road]]'' (1887), scene of frequent hold-ups during the [[Victorian gold rush]] by bushrangers known as the [[St Kilda Road robberies]].]]

The period 1850 to 1880 saw a revival in [[Bushranger|bushranging]]. The resurgence of bushranging from the 1850s drew on the grievances of the rural poor (several members of the [[Ned Kelly|Kelly gang]], the most famous bushrangers, were the sons of impoverished small farmers). The exploits of Ned Kelly and his gang garnered considerable local community support and extensive national press coverage at the time. After Kelly's capture and execution for murder in 1880 his story inspired numerous works of art, literature and popular culture and continuing debate about the extent to which he was a rebel fighting social injustice and oppressive police, or a murderous criminal.<ref>Macintyre, Stuart (2020). pp. 47, 107–08</ref>

[[File:Seizure of blackbirder Daphne.jpg|thumb|right|The seizure of the blackbirder ship 'Daphne' ca.1869;<br> The [[Blackbirding|Pacific Slave trade]] operated between 1863 and 1904 saw tens of thousands of [[South Sea Islanders]] brought to the [[sugarcane]] plantations of Queensland either as [[Indenture|indentured workers]] or [[Slavery|slaves]]]]

By the 1880s half the Australian population lived in towns, making Australia more urbanised than the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.<ref>Macintyre, Stuart (2020). p. 118</ref> Between 1870 and 1890 average income per person in Australia was more than 50 per cent higher than that of the United States, giving Australia one of the highest living standards in the world.<ref>Frost, Lionel (2013). "The economy". ''The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I''. p. 318</ref>

The size of the government sector almost doubled from 10 per cent of national expenditure in 1850 to 19 per cent in 1890. Colonial governments spent heavily on infrastructure such as railways, ports, telegraph, schools and urban services. Much of the money for this infrastructure was borrowed on the London financial markets, but land-rich governments also sold land to finance expenditure and keep taxes low.<ref>Hirst, John (2014). pp. 79–81</ref><ref>Macintyre, Stuart (2020). p. 103</ref>

In 1856, building workers in Sydney and Melbourne were the first in the world to win the eight hour working day. The 1880s saw trade unions grow and spread to lower skilled workers and also across colonial boundaries. By 1890 about 20 per cent of male workers belonged to a union, one of the highest rates in the world.<ref>Hirst, John (2014). pp. 82–86</ref><ref>Macintyre, Stuart (2020). p. 134</ref>

Economic growth was accompanied by expansion into northern Australia. Gold was discovered in northern Queensland in the 1860s and 1870s, and in the [[Kimberley (Western Australia)|Kimberley]] and [[Pilbara]] regions of Western Australia in the 1880s. Sheep and cattle runs spread to northern Queensland and on to the [[Gulf Country]] of the Northern Territory and the Kimberley region of Western Australia in the 1870s and 1880s. Sugar plantations also expanded in northern Queensland during the same period.<ref>Goodman, David (2013). "The gold rushes of the 1850s". ''The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I''. pp.&nbsp;187</ref><ref name="Macintyre-2013">{{Cite book|last1=Macintyre|first1=Stuart|title=The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I|last2=Scalmer|first2=Sean|year=2013|pages=213–16|chapter=Colonial states and civil society}}</ref>

From the late 1870s trade unions, Anti-Chinese Leagues and other community groups campaigned against Chinese immigration and low-wage Chinese labour. Following inter-colonial conferences on the issue in 1880–81 and 1888, colonial governments responded with a series of laws which progressively restricted Chinese immigration and citizenship rights.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Willard|first=Myra|title=History of the White Australia Policy to 1920|publisher=Melbourne University Press|year=1967|location=Melbourne|pages=56–94}}</ref>