HISTORY Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago,

possibly with the migration of people by land bridges and short seacrossings from what is now South-East Asia. These first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. At the time of European settlement in the late 18 th century, most Indigenous Australians were, with a complex oral culture and spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime. The Torres Strait Islanders were originally horticulturalists and hunter-gatherers. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent were attributed to the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon (1606). He didnt make any attempt of settlement. In 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast of Australia, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. But it was Captain Arthur Phillip who led the First Fleet into Port Jackson on January the 26th 1788. This date became Australias national day. GOVERNMENT Australia is a constitutional monarchy with federal division of powers. It uses a parliamentary system of government with Queen Elizabeth II as the Queen of Australia. The federal government is separated into three branches: The legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The legislature consists of The Senate (upper house) and the House of Representatives (lower house). The party with majority support in the House of Representatives forms the government and its leader becomes Prime Minister. There are two major political groups that usually form government, federally and in the states: The Australian Labour Party and the coalition which is a formal grouping of the Liberal Party and its minor partner, the National Party. Julia Gillard became the first female Prime Minister in June 2010. ARTS Australian visual arts are thought to have begun with the cave and bark paintings of its Indigenous peoples. From the time of European settlement, a theme in Australian art has been the natural landscape, seen for example in the works of Arthur Streeton, Arthur Boyd. The countrys landscape remains a source of inspiration for Australian modernist artists; it has been depicted in acclaimed works by the likes of Sydney Nolan, Fred Williams, Sydney Long and Clifton Pugh. Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the only art movement

of international significance to emerge from Australia and the last great art movement of the 20th century, its exponents have included Emily Kngwarreye. Australia has one of the worlds highest attendances of art galleries and museums per head of population. Many of Australias performing arts companies receive funding through the federal governments Australia Council. There is a national opera company, Opera Australia, wellknown for its famous soprano Joan Sutherland. Australian literature has also been influenced by the landscape, the works of writers such as Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson captured the experience of the Australian bush. The character of the nations colonial past, as represented in early literature, is popular with modern Australians. In 1973, Patrick White was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Australian to have achieved this. MEDIA The Australian cinema industry began in 1906, but both Australian feature film production and the distribution of British-made features declined dramatically after World War I as American studios and distributors monopolised the industry and by the 1930s around 95% of the films screened in Australia were produced in Hollywood. By the late 1950s film production in Australia had effectively ceased and there were no all-Australian films made in the decade between 1959 and 1969. Thanks to initiatives by the Gorton and Whitlam federal governments, the so-called New Wave of Australia cinema of the 1970s brought provocative and successful films, for example: Mad Max (Mel Gibson), Gallipoli, Shine. Notable Australian actors include Errol Flynn, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger, Geoffrey Rush and Cate Blanchett. Australia has two public broadcasters, two national daily newspapers: The Australian and The Australian Financial Review. In 2010, Reporters Without Borders placed Australia 18th on a list of 178 countries ranked by press freedom.