The former relics and ruins of Tasmania's infamous secondary penal station, the Port Historic Site is arguably Australia's premier non- Indigenous historic site. Since the tragic events of 28 April 1996, when 35 people were killed and another 23 wounded the Site has received an increased public profile which has translated into significant public funding of both its tourism and conservation operations. However, public funding in the two preceding decades evidenced a pattern of largesse followed by parsimonious tight-fistedness by both State and Federal governments. Such fickle funding arrangements have had a major impact upon the cultural significance of the Site and have wider implications in respect to the community's access to its history and heritage. This paper will explore the failure of successive Federal and State governments to intervene effectively for the long-term conservation of the Port Arthur Historic Site.

Post-colonialism has provided a useful mindset by which contemporary historians can challenge previously held notions of national history, or see better how the national narrative can be considered from a perspective other than that of a grand imperial story of nation building. This paper reveals how post-colonialism enriches, and can often provide, a more accurate, balanced and nuanced comprehension of the accepted version of past events. It specifically demonstrates how post-colonialism has also opened a window whereby the Māori's own story of the New Zealand Wars challenges the imperial version. The imperial vision, one which glorified and exaggerated British military prowess, had downplayed Māori strategic thinking and falsified the historic record. This is evident in the way in which the first of the New Zealand Wars, Heke's War or the Northern War of 1845-46, has usually been interpreted. In this case, and generally, post-colonialism can create a new collective understanding of the past, one that contributes to improving the race relations between different peoples and the lands they inhabit.

The eighteenth and nineteenth century European invasion of the Pacific led to many atrocities, but - as a separate 'internal' part of the progressive European conquest of Polynesia - none was more brutal or more devastating than the Maori invasion of the Chatham Islands and the subsequent slaughter of the unwarlike Moriori, the indigenous inhabitants of this small isolated island group. Curiously, and for far too long, has the so-called 'Moriori holocaust' been manipulated and incorporated into a founding legend that actually legitimises the subsequent British colonisation of New Zealand. It is a fabricated myth, and one that continues to influence modern race relations in that country.

Post-colonialism has provided the means by which contemporary historians can challenge the previously held notions of national history and folklore. Using the specific example of the Wairua Affray, an early violent confrontation between settlers and Maori in New Zealand, this paper demonstrates how post-colonialism enriches and provides a more accurate, balanced and nuanced comprehension of past events. The creation of a new collective understanding of the past contributes to improving race relations between different peoples and the lands they inhabit.

Bạch Mã Hill Station was a French mountain resort, built on top of Bạch Mã Mountain in Central Vietnam between 1932 and 1945. Bạch Mã was one of seven similar sites in Indochina intended to provide a cool mountain retreat for the French expatriate population, in this case, of Huế. Hill stations throughout Asia became symbols of European colonialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the postcolonial period, Bạch Mã continued to be represented in significant historical developments that have shaped Central Vietnam at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Through an examination of the archaeological fabric of the hill station in the context of the historical period in which it developed, this study addresses four issues related to colonial occupation and the postcolonial experience in Central Vietnam. The study examines the broader historical context that influenced Central Vietnam, and the development of Bạch Mã, in the first part of the twentieth century. The 1930s was a turning point for French colonialism in Indochina and for the Vietnamese nationalist movement. From 1940 to 1945, Indochina was occupied by the Japanese and was an important base for their war against the allies in the Pacific. The pro-Vichy colonial government of French Indochina was the only European administration retained under Japanese occupation in Southeast Asia during World War II. This study relates the character of Bạch Mã to the changing political environment in Indochina and suggests that hill stations represented more than a holiday retreat for the colonial elite.

From 1885 to 1965, successive New South Wales governments made repeated attempts to break up large pastoral estates into family farms. This policy, which became known as closer settlement, was expected to address a range of pressing social and economic problems. This thesis takes a case study approach to assess the impact of this policy in a specific area, the county of Sandon on the NSW northern tablelands. It tests, at the local level, current theory and models of the land question, with the aim of furthering comprehension of this central issue in the development of New South Wales.
From the passing of the Crown Lands Act 1884, the NSW government was increasingly intrusive in determining where land settlement should take place, who was permitted to acquire Crown land, and how large their farms should be. By the turn of the century, the attention of both the government and the community at large became focussed on the need to buy back land locked up in the large pastoral estates to create family farms for those who did not already own land. Under legislation passed from 1901 onwards, across the state many thousands of acres of freehold and leasehold land were compulsorily and voluntarily resumed for this purpose. In the county of Sandon, this resulted in some private subdivisions in response to the threat of compulsory resumption, a voluntary resumption in the late 1930s, and both voluntary and compulsory resumptions to provide farms for returned servicemen and women after the two world wars.
The impact of closer settlement in the county of Sandon was marginal, in terms of the expected outcomes. A First World War soldier settlement at Kentucky in the south of the county resulted in an increase in the production of stone and pome fruit and a modest increase in population, with many of the soldier settlers being attracted from outside the district. A modest number of settlers came from outside the district to take farms created by the voluntary and compulsory resumptions in the late 1930s and following the Second World War, but otherwise there was no significant population increase. Over time successful farmers bought out their neighbours, and by 1965 most were engaged in the enterprise which had characterised the district in the first half of the nineteenth century, the grazing of sheep and cattle. Thus, there was no long-term change in agricultural output in the county.
Based on this evidence, a new model of land settlement is proposed, that there are three forces which interact to determine the size of rural properties:
∙ Government policy which was aimed at creating family farms of what was known as ‘a home maintenance area’, that is, just large enough to support a family in average conditions, undertaking an enterprise best suited to their land;
∙ A tendency for more successful farmers to purchase additional land and so increase the size of their holdings, or to eventually provide farms for their children; and,
∙ A tendency for farms, over time, to either enlarge or contract to a size which is the most efficient.
While it would seem that the first force would be the most powerful, since governments had the power to legislate a maximum farm size, the experience in the county of Sandon demonstrated that this was not the case, as there was a marked trend towards properties of an efficient size. Thus, this study has demonstrated that the policy of closer settlement had little impact on the pattern of land settlement.

Chinese market gardeners were widely dispersed across rural areas of Australia and New Zealand by the late-nineteenth century and could be found in the most marginal areas for agriculture, from the rugged ranges of Central Otago to the deserts of Australia. Adapting practices they brought with them from China, particularly their skills in water management and intensive cultivation, and adopting developments in European technology, they successfully turned the challenges of life in such environments to their advantage. This thesis explores the history of Chinese market gardens and market gardeners in Australia and New Zealand from the 1860s to the 1960s. It interprets that history through the use and adaptation of some key theoretical and conceptual approaches in the social sciences: technology transfer and the diffusion of innovation, transnationalism and social capital. Applying these conceptual approaches, this study positions Chinese market gardeners and the agricultural practices they brought to new lands within the particular environmental, economic and social contexts they encountered and explores how the history of Chinese market gardening in Australia and New Zealand was shaped by such factors as political and legal institutions as well as organisational structures. It places this history within the context of longer term processes of social, economic, environmental and technological change. This study also interprets the history of Chinese market gardening as a process of ongoing interactions between different knowledge systems - indigenous, European and Chinese horticultural traditions. The study reveals remarkable continuity in traditional Chinese horticultural methods and how, at the same time, Chinese market gardening underwent technological change and adaptation in new environments.

The Sunshine Coast Region of South East Queensland formally came into being in March 2008, when three local government areas - Maroochy Shire, Noosa Shire and Caloundra City - were amalgamated into one unit. This thesis examines twenty memorials which existed within the boundaries of the Sunshine Coast region before the amalgamation. It investigates how the history of the region to that time has been documented and evidenced by these memorials, and how these memorials have reflected that history. Memorials are canvases on which stories are written and rewritten, not frozen in time by the materials of which they are constructed or societal conventions and ideologies at the time of their construction. An individual memorial can relate not only the story of the subject of its commemoration but also the story of those who chose to commemorate it. Responses to a memorial may change over time, and the reflections of those changes may portray more about society than about the memorial subject. Many different aspects of the history of the Sunshine Coast region have been revealed through the twenty memorials used as case studies. These memorials not only exemplify the history of the region, they are an expression of that history. Through them the history of the Sunshine Coast is expressed by those who erected the memorials and those who have viewed them. Some memorials have lost their ability to tell their intended story through physical or social changes that have occurred over time. Some draw us in to become part of their story despite age or physical condition. They are part of a living regional history which is not bound by facts and figures but which encompasses the lives of those who made the Sunshine Coast region what it is today, and they provide an alternative 'text' for those who wish to investigate that regional history.

In the second half of the nineteenth century a conservative paternalistic benevolence permeated middle-class thought, leading to demonization and criminalisation of pauper invalids, many of whom were ex-convicts. This paper examines some aspects of the mechanics of the charitable system as practiced in nineteenth-century Tasmania through an analysis of life inside the institution. It examines the institutional environment, the conditions which inmates were subject to, and how institutions implemented a regime of coerced labour, strict discipline, confinement, surveillance, regimentation and punishment as a means to control the lives of pauper invalids.