VCE Australian History

The history of Australia from the earliest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies to the present is studied as a story of continuity and change. A historian asks what stayed the same, what altered, how far, how fast and for whom, and the answers depend on whose experience is placed in the centre. The same event can look like a turning point for one group and an unbroken pattern for another. ## Continuity and change Change is a difference between one time and another; continuity is something that persists across it. Most periods contain both, so a useful argument says which is stronger and why. The 1967 referendum, for example, changed the Constitution, but many everyday forms of discrimination against Aboriginal people continued for years afterwards. Historians describe change by several features. - Pace: whether it came suddenly, as with the gold rushes of the early 1850s, or slowly, as with the shift in attitudes towards homosexuality over several decades. - Direction: whether it moved towards wider rights and inclusion, or towards restriction, as White Australia policies did after 1901. - Depth: whether it altered the way people lived or only the law and the language used about them. - Extent: how many people were affected, and whether some groups were left out. A turning point is an event after which the direction or pace of change was different from before. Naming one is an argument. The Eureka Stockade of 1854 is sometimes called a turning point for…