Australian regional rivalry

Australian regional rivalries refers to the rivalries between Australian cities or regions.

The oldest Australian regional rivalry dating back to 1804. Some people state that Sydney has traditionally been politically right-winged compared to Newcastle being politically centre-left. However, in actual fact almost all NSW Labor premiers have come from Sydney suburbs, and the NSW Labor Party has a long and proud history in Sydney. Newcastle's population was traditionally working class whereas Sydney was home to a mix of people including the working class, politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats. The Royal Australian Navy has been based at Sydney since it was founded. Even after more than 200 years, Newcastle's culture is still very independent from Sydney's culture even though they are only approximately 160 km apart.

There has been a long-standing rivalry between the cities of Sydney and Melbourne, the two largest cities in Australia. The rivalry between the cities was the reason that neither Sydney (the oldest and now largest city) nor Melbourne (the largest city at the time) was chosen as the capital of Australia when the nation was federated in 1901. Because of this disagreement, section 125 of the Australian Constitution specified that Melbourne would initially serve as the seat of government on a temporary basis, while the permanent capital of the new Commonwealth must be located within the area of New South Wales but at least 100 miles from Sydney. This city became Canberra. Melbourne operated as the de facto capital city from 1901 until 1927, when Canberra's Parliament House was opened. Various Commonwealth governmental bodies continued to operate principally from Sydney or Melbourne after 1927. Most civil service departments were moved to Canberra in the 1950s, and the High Court of Australia was finally moved from Melbourne to Canberra in 1980.

Rivalry and differences between the colonies was a feature of life in Pre-Federation Australia. There was a real rivalry between the most powerful colonies, New South Wales and Victoria, on trade matters. Both the two largest colonies believed that the new nation should follow their trade model. New South Wales had a policy of free trade where all goods coming that came into the state were not tariffed. Victoria had an opposite policy of protectionism with tariffs imposed on goods coming into the state from other colonies. This rivalry delayed the process of federation; eventually the two colonies agreed that trade between the colonies would be tariff free, but tariffs would be placed on goods from overseas (excluding the British Empire).

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