#australia #history #documentary

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Recommended reading:
Australia - https://amzn.to/3U8qUZ6
Great Southern Land: A New History of Australia - https://amzn.to/48YtxB5
A Shorter History of Australia - https://amzn.to/3UafqEK

Australia today is one of the wealthiest and most highly developed nations on the planet, boasting enviably high levels of education, healthcare and wages, which when coupled with its easy going and laid-back lifestyle, makes for one of the highest levels of living standards enjoyed anywhere in the world.

The quality of life in Australia is in fact so high that it’s five major metropolitan urban areas; Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, all regularly feature in the top 10 of the Global Liveability Index, which ranks cities based on their levels of stability, healthcare, culture, environment, education and infrastructure.

All of this culminates in Australia having one of the worlds highest levels of life expectancy, with males expecting to live to an average of 81.30 years of age and females to an average of 85.40 years. This marks Australia, alongside neighbouring New Zealand, as clear outliers in terms of life expectancy when compared to the levels of other nations in the southern hemisphere, where in some instances barely exceed the age of 50.

However, Australia hasn’t always enjoyed such high levels of life expectancy, nor any other measures of human development for that matter. Just over 150 years ago, in 1870, a new-born child was only expected to live to the age of 34 on average and just a few decades prior to that, the livelihoods themselves of many Australians consisted of little more than carrying out hard, arduous labour in a harsh and unforgiving environment. That is because for much of Australia’s early history, the country was governed as a penal colony for British convicts, who were transported to the far side of the world to lay the foundations of the first European settlements there.

But how did this country change to such a degree, going from a place where people were sent to be punished, into a place where many aspire to live today?

This is the history of Australia.