South Australia

South Australia, South Australia.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Eucalyptus trees in Flinders Ranges National Park, South Australia.Robert Francis—Robert Harding World Imagery/Getty Imagesstate of south-central Australia. It occupies one of the driest, most barren parts of the continent, but its southern fringe consists of well-watered and fertile lands and is where most of the population is located. It is bounded by Western Australia to the west, Northern Territory to the north, Queensland to the north and east, and New South Wales and Victoria to the east. To the south it fronts the Great Australian Bight, a marginal sea of the southern Indian Ocean (called the Southern Ocean in Australia). The capital is Adelaide, on the southern coast.

Occupying about one-eighth of Australia’s total land area, South Australia is fourth in size among the country’s eight states and territories. Its people make up less than 8 percent of the Australian population, ranking fifth among the populations of the states and territories.

The settled parts of South Australia form the western end of a crescent of closely settled and productive land in southeastern Australia that is the economic heartland of the country. The state’s commercial links are strongest with Melbourne and Sydney. Area 379,725 square miles (983,482 square km). Population (2011) 1,596,572.



South Australia.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Lake Torrens, a normally dry salt lake in central South Australia.Marion Bull/AlamySouth Australia is a land of vast plains, low uplands, and extensive salt- or clay-encrusted lake beds that rarely contain water. More than four-fifths of the state is less than 1,000 feet (300 metres) above sea level. The highest point in the state, Mount Woodroffe, in the Musgrave Ranges of the northwest interior, rises to only 4,708 feet (1,435 metres).

The generally smooth southeasterly trend of the coastline is interrupted by the major indentations of Spencer Gulf and Gulf St. Vincent, which extend inland some 200 and 100 miles (320 and 160 km), respectively. Kangaroo Island, which has an area of about 1,680 square miles (4,350 square km), lies south of Gulf St. Vincent.

The state can be divided into seven major regions on the basis of surface landforms. The four westernmost regions are part of a vast and geologically stable shield of ancient Precambrian rocks (at least 540 million years old). In the far northwest are the Musgrave and Everard ranges, composed of granite and gneiss and forming bald rounded hills or rugged hilly terrain. In the far west the Great Victoria Desert extends into Western Australia, consisting of west-east-trending sand dunes. Southward this region adjoins the eastern portion of the Nullarbor Plain, a flat limestone plateau dotted with sinkholes and underlain by very long caves that contain some of the oldest dated evidence of humans in Australia. This plain meets the ocean at the head of the Great Australian Bight in a spectacular line of cliffs. The Eyre Peninsula, although part of the continental shield, is climatically moister and consists of low, rounded hills, often of granite, rising above limestone and stabilized sand dune plains.

The south-central part of the state—the gulfs and adjacent ranges and plains—was the region most attractive to European settlement because of its higher precipitation and more diverse and productive soils. The main feature is an arc of sedimentary rocks, predominantly of sandstone and quartzite, extending from Kangaroo Island through the Mount Lofty Range to the Flinders Ranges. These rocks have been folded and faulted repeatedly, creating a sequence of narrow ranges, intervening or flanking valleys, and small plains of alluvium.

The sixth region is the Murray Plain and the Southeast Plain, developed on lime-rich deposits from early Cenozoic time (roughly 50 million years ago). The Murray Plain is characterized by west-east-trending stabilized sand dunes. In the wetter Southeast Plain there are parallel limestone ridges with flats, formerly inundated in winter but now drained for farming. Near the town of Mount Gambier, several prominent volcanic cones and craters mark eruptions that occurred some 5,000 to 10,000 years ago.

The final region encompasses the deserts of the north and northeast, consisting of stony or sand dune deserts, low tablelands, and vast dry lakes. Lake Eyre, the largest of these, only rarely fills completely with water; it lies some 50 feet (15 metres) below sea level, the lowest point on the continent.











Plant and animal life

Clumps of porcupine (spinifex) grass in the Strzelecki Desert, northeastern South Australia.Konrad Wothe—Minden Pictures/Getty ImagesVegetation in the vast arid areas ranges from low woodlands of acacia species, cypress pines (Callitris), and beefwood (Casuarina), through shrub savannas dominated by acacia, to low shrublands of bluebush (Maireana and Chenopodium) and saltbush (Atriplex) that provide the basis for inland sheep and cattle grazing. The stony and sandy deserts support a sparse growth of hummock grasslands of porcupine (also called spinifex) grass (Triodia).

Before European settlement the southern regions, with higher rainfall and a more temperate climate, supported three principal ecosystems. Dry sclerophyll forest, dominated by rough-barked species of eucalyptus, occurred in areas receiving 30 inches (750 mm) of rain or more. Mallee vegetation, a tall open scrub of multistemmed eucalypts, occurred inland in areas with rainfall between about 12 and 20 inches (305 and 510 mm). In the intermediate rainfall zone was an open grassy savanna with smooth-barked eucalypts; this was the area that attracted the first European settlers. In more recent times, extensive managed forests, principally of pine (Pinus radiata), were established by the state government and by private companies on former scrubland and heathland in the southeast.

Short-beaked echidna, Kangaroo Island, South Australia.Kristi L. BowmanSouth Australia shares many animal, bird, and reptile species with adjacent parts of Australia. Widespread clearing of vegetation for agriculture and the competition of domesticated livestock in the arid pastoral zone have depleted numbers of most wild fauna, especially mammals. However, the echidna (spiny anteater), an unusual egg-laying mammal, is still seen regularly on the South Australian mainland and on Kangaroo Island. More than one-fourth of the some 50 species of marsupials originally native to the state are now extinct, but others are still common, including western gray kangaroos, red kangaroos, and brush-tailed possums. The state has the sole surviving population of the formerly more widespread hairy-nosed wombat. Hundreds of species of birds (including more than 20 introduced species) inhabit or visit South Australia. The state is also home to more than 200 species of reptiles and amphibians. The gibber dragon (Ctenophorus gibba), a type of lizard, and the Woomera slider (Lerista elongata), a variety of skink, are among several species of reptiles that are endemic to the state. Common amphibians include the brown tree frog, the spotted grass frog, and the eastern banjo toad.


Population composition

In common with the other Australian states and territories, the ethnic composition of South Australia’s population has changed markedly since World War II. Before the war, most of the people in the state traced their ancestry to Britain; the state has since become a more diverse, multicultural society.

In the early 21st century, some one-fifth of South Australians were born overseas. The state’s population growth rate has exceeded that of Australia as a whole during only two periods. The first, from 1861 to 1881, was an era of rapid wheat-farming expansion and copper-mine development. The second, from 1947 to 1966, was a time when manufacturing grew rapidly and was associated with a program of European immigration fostered by federal and state governments. This brought large numbers of non-English-speaking immigrants from Italy, Greece, areas of the Soviet bloc in eastern Europe, Germany, and the Netherlands, in addition to a substantial British inflow. Since the last quarter of the 20th century the net gains from immigration have been smaller and have been composed largely of immigrants from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and European and Southeast Asian countries.

Settlement patterns and demographic trends

The Torrens River at Adelaide, the capital of South Australia.Steve Vidler/SuperStockSouth Australia has a closely settled core surrounded by an area of diminishing population density and decreasing economic productivity. The heart of the state, metropolitan Adelaide, is home to some three-fourths of the state’s total population. With ongoing rural-to-urban migration, the city continues to expand.

Near Adelaide the land is used intensively for dairy, fruit, and vegetable farming, and the area includes the well-known wine-producing regions of the Barossa Valley and the Southern Vales. Beyond this zone are the intensive sheep- and cattle-raising districts of the southeast and the wheat-, barley-, and sheep-farming districts in the Murray River and north-central areas and on the Yorke and Eyre peninsulas. Beyond the edge of the cultivated land, sheep grazing occurs on native pastures and shrubs. Most remote of all are the extensive cattle-raising properties of the northern arid zone.

Outside of the greater Adelaide area, there are some 60 cities and towns of more than 1,000 people. The largest cities are Mount Gambier, Whyalla, Port Augusta, and Port Pirie. Roughly one-tenth of the population is classified as rural.

Compared with the rest of Australia, the census profile shows that the South Australian population generally has fewer children under 15 years of age but more adults over 65 years, a slightly lower percentage of persons born overseas, fewer Roman Catholics and Anglicans, more than three times the Australian average of Lutherans, a smaller share of households in the top income brackets, and generally a higher level of unemployment. For more than a century, South Australian women have had fewer children than women in other states, and the average life expectancy has continued to rise. These factors, combined with persistent out-migration and low levels of immigration, have held South Australia’s population growth in check; since the late 1980s the state’s growth rate has remained among the lowest in the country.

The Aboriginal population is small, constituting less than 2 percent of the state’s total population; roughly half of the community resides in the Adelaide vicinity, and much of the remainder lives in the remote northwest, where title rights to traditional lands were first granted in 1981. Access to quality health care, secure employment, adequate education, and other social services has remained a challenge for the Aboriginal population.


South Australia shares many features of the Australian economy in general—notably an agricultural and mining base oriented strongly toward export markets, and a manufacturing superstructure concerned mainly with the home market and dependent to a considerable degree on the assistance of tariffs on imported goods. Estimates of the value of goods produced in the early 21st century showed that more than half of the state’s total income came from manufacturing, and roughly one-fourth was from farming. Most of the remainder was derived from mines, quarries, and natural gas fields, and a small fraction came from fisheries. A small portion of the workforce was employed in the primary activities of farming, forestry, fishing, and mining; a slightly larger segment—some one-tenth—was in manufacturing; and the rest of the labour force was in construction, sales, education, finance, administration, and community and personal services.

Agriculture and forestry

Harvesting grapes in the Barossa Valley, South Australia.WorldFoto/AlamyWheat growing for export has long been a mainstay of South Australian farming, and up to about one-seventh of Australian production of wheat comes from the state. Barley is a crop of more recent importance, and the state produces about one-fourth of the national crop. Livestock production ranges from extensive “open range” cattle rearing in the northern deserts to intensive pig and poultry raising near Adelaide. South Australia’s sheep make up about one-tenth of the Australian total, and its dairy cattle make up about half that proportion.

Intensive production of grapes, vegetables, and orchard fruit (especially oranges), normally grown under irrigation, involves some one-fifth of all farm holdings. Fruits and vegetables are grown in districts of varying soil quality and climate, ranging from the hot-summer irrigation districts along the Murray River through the rain-fed Barossa and Clare valleys to the cool-climate districts of the Mount Lofty Range and the southeast. Grapes alone constitute some one-sixth of the value of the state’s primary farm commodities. More than two-fifths of Australia’s vineyard area is located in South Australia.

Australia’s largest grouping of managed softwood plantations, largely Pinus radiata, is in the southeast of the state and supports Australia’s most important concentration of wood-processing industries.

Resources and power

The Australian mining industry began with small-scale extraction of lead and silver in the hills near Adelaide in 1841. This was followed by large copper discoveries at Kapunda, Burra, Moonta, and Kadina between 1842 and 1861. In the 1970s one of the world’s largest deposits of copper-gold-uranium mineralization ever found was identified in the desert at Olympic Dam, west of Lake Torrens, and commercial mining began in 1988. Mining operations in copper, iron, and uranium expanded rapidly in the following two decades. The South Australian government provided enthusiastic support for large-scale mineral exploration and exploitation in the north and west of the state. In addition, advances in technology have facilitated the mining of deep and extensive mineral deposits in central South Australia. Large reserves of high-grade iron ore were identified in 1890 in the Middleback Range, west of Whyalla. From 1915 these ores were shipped to Newcastle and later to Port Kembla, both in New South Wales. Local production of pig iron began when the first blast furnace was opened at Whyalla in 1941, and construction of an integrated iron and steel plant began there in 1958. Most of the world’s opals come from South Australia, from three fields in the central interior deserts at Coober Pedy, Mintabie, and Andamooka. Much of Australia’s salt and gypsum comes from coastal sources in South Australia.

South Australia’s energy resources are remote from population centres. Coal reserves, although substantial, are low-grade subbituminous and lignite deposits; impurities restrict their use. The long-known coal deposits at Leigh Creek have been worked by large-scale opencut operations since 1954. Coal from Leigh Creek supplies electric power stations at Port Augusta. Natural gas (largely methane) has played a major role in the state’s energy supply since 1970. Extensive gas and petroleum fields have been developed since their first discovery in 1963 in desert lands of the Cooper Basin in the remote northeast. Gas pipelines to Adelaide and Sydney were completed in 1969 and 1976, respectively. The Torrens Island power station at Adelaide is the state’s largest electric power-generating unit and the first in Australia to use natural gas. Other major sources of electricity are the national electricity grid (linked through Victoria) and power stations at Port Augusta and Pelican Point. A pipeline some 400 miles (650 km) long brings a mix of oil and gas from the interior to Port Bonython, near the head of Spencer Gulf, where the various hydrocarbons are processed; a considerable amount is converted to liquefied petroleum gas and is exported.


To a long-established base of primary processing industries there was added in the 1920s a motor vehicle assembly industry. A manufacturing boom of the mid-20th century was based on the expansion of vehicle manufacture and of production of larger household durable goods such as refrigerators, washing machines, and stoves. Machinery and equipment have remained South Australia’s primary manufactures into the 21st century, followed by processed food and beverages and metal products. A soda ash plant near Port Adelaide is the main producer in the Australian alkali industry. One of the world’s largest multimetal smelters operates at Port Pirie, accounting for a significant portion of the world’s output of refined lead and zinc. A large steel mill at Whyalla makes structural steel sections.


Railway station at Port Lincoln, South Australia, Australia.Brian Voon Yee YapPassenger and freight transport services of all types centre on Adelaide, although substantial export cargoes of grain and minerals are sent directly overseas and interstate from the state’s other significant outports. Port Adelaide is the dominant port for seaborne imports. Roads, most of which are paved, carry the bulk of the state’s passenger and general freight traffic. South Australia’s rail system is owned and operated primarily by private companies, with an emphasis on long-haul mainline traffic to and from places outside the state. The State Transport Authority of South Australia operates a suburban passenger rail system within metropolitan Adelaide that is integrated with an extensive bus system and a streetcar line. Australia’s most innovative public transport facility, the German-designed O-Bahn guided busway, provides high-speed access via the Torrens Valley to Adelaide’s outer northeastern suburbs.

Adelaide Airport, one of Australia’s major commercial air hubs, provides international passenger and freight services. In addition, hundreds of regional airports and airstrips are scattered across the state, although only a handful of these have scheduled flights. Another few dozen offer irregular commercial charter services and provide emergency access to remote areas. The overwhelming majority of the state’s regional airports serve private interests.

Government and society

Constitutional framework

Since the passage of the Constitution Act of 1856, South Australia has had a parliament. This bicameral legislature consists of a House of Assembly, with 47 (originally 36) members representing single-member electoral districts, and a Legislative Council of 22 (originally 18) members, who are elected at large in the state. Voting is on the basis of universal suffrage, uses a preferential system, and is compulsory. Legislation requires the assent of both houses.

In common with the other state governments, the governor is the representative of the British crown. The governor accepts the advice of ministers (cabinet) who, by constitutional convention, are responsible to the House of Assembly. The premier is usually the leader of the majority party in that chamber. Alteration of the Constitution Act is in the hands of parliament itself. The two main parties are the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party of Australia.

The highest court in South Australia’s judiciary system is the Supreme Court, followed by the District Court and the Magistrates Court. Jurisdiction of the various courts is limited by the seriousness of the cases. The Supreme Court hears the most-serious civil and criminal cases; the District Court is the primary trial court; and the least-serious matters are handled in the Magistrates Court. Other courts include a Youth Court and courts of summary jurisdiction.

The main function of state governments in Australia is the administration of primary and secondary education, hospitals, public housing, prisons and police, roads, water supply, and land resources. Commonwealth (federal) government powers are focused on defense, foreign affairs, trade and economic policy, immigration, welfare payments, shipping, and aviation. Through its capacity to make specific-purpose financial grants to the states, the federal government has substantial de facto influence on many state functions, including higher education, health care, housing, and assistance to industry.

There are several dozen local government areas in South Australia, including a number of rural Aboriginal communities and the Outback Areas Community Development Trust. Each local government area is controlled by councils elected by property owners and residents.

Health and welfare

The state government is responsible for providing the major health services for the Aboriginal community, senior citizens, and people with disabilities; these services include hospitals, psychiatric facilities, and drug and alcohol treatment programs. Policy is influenced by funding arrangements between the Commonwealth and state governments. In addition to public and private hospitals, there are community health services, services concerned with education and health promotion, and domiciliary care services. The School Dental Service provides care for children up to age 18.

In 1995 South Australia enacted the Consent to Medical Treatment and Palliative Care Act. This landmark legislation gave citizens the power to predetermine their medical treatment in the event that they become incapacitated and also relieved medical practitioners of liability should the treatment chosen by the terminally ill incidentally hasten death.


Compulsory education dates from 1875 and now applies to children from age 6 to 15, although most enter school at 5 years of age. Primary classes are designated as years 1 through 7, and secondary classes are designated as years 8 through 12. Government schools are tuition-free, and the government pays independent schools a variable sum per pupil on the basis of assessed needs. Most government secondary schools are comprehensive coeducational high schools, although there is some concentration of resources in particular schools to provide specialized education in areas such as music, certain languages, and some technical fields. In the early 21st century, nongovernment schools accounted for more than one-third of combined primary and secondary enrollment.

Two types of postsecondary education are available in South Australia. The Technical and Further Education Commission provides a wide range of courses at community colleges and colleges of further education. Courses are provided at many levels, from the basic trade apprentice to technical and paraprofessional levels. Professional and research-focused education at a higher level is provided at three institutions. The centrally situated University of Adelaide, established in 1874 and opened in 1876, is the third oldest university in Australia. Flinders University opened in 1966 on the southern outskirts of Adelaide. The University of South Australia was formed in 1991 by the merging of three campuses of the former South Australian College of Advanced Education—itself originating in 1876 as the Adelaide Teachers College—and the three-campus South Australian Institute of Technology, which was founded in 1889 as the South Australian School of Mines and Industries; it is the state’s largest institution of higher learning.

Cultural life

The arts

The Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide houses collections of Australian, European, and Asian art, including one of the finest collections of Southeast Asian ceramics. The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra gives regular concerts, especially in the refurbished 19th-century Adelaide Town Hall. The Adelaide Festival Centre, opened in 1973, provides venues for a variety of activities, from drama and rock concerts to grand opera. Rundle Mall, the main shopping street, is used by individual and small-group street entertainers, as well as for open-air community arts activities.

Adelaide Festival Centre in South Australia.John F. White/SuperStockAboriginal rock art depicting a lizardlike animal, in the North Flinders Range, Hawker, S.Aus.Holle Bildarchiv, Baden-Baden, GermanyThe Adelaide Festival, held in March every two years since 1960, is a major cultural event that draws crowds of hundreds of thousands. The festival has been instrumental in bringing to South Australia many notable performers and artists and has been the site of world premieres of works commissioned specifically for the event. The South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) produced many feature films for television and cinema before changing in 1994 from a production company to an agency that facilitates filming and promotes the industry within the state. The SAFC has been involved with numerous award-winning films, including The Tracker (2001), Rabbit-Proof Fence (2000), and Breaker Morant (1980), all of which were filmed largely in the South Australian outback. Various ethnic communities contribute to the state’s cultural life by staging festivals, and the main wine-growing areas promote seasonal wine tastings. Many Aboriginal groups host tours highlighting the art, natural environment, and culture of their communities.

Sports and recreation

Parklands along the Torrens River, Adelaide, S.Aus.Picturepoint, LondonThe long sweep of the metropolitan sea beaches provides uncrowded and year-round opportunities for informal aquatic recreation. The relatively sheltered gulf waters favour yachting, while Adelaide and the country towns have abundant recreational open space and sports grounds. The most popular participant sports are aerobics, netball, golf, cricket, squash, and Australian rules football. The main spectator sport is Australian rules football, played during the autumn and winter, from March to September. Year-round horse racing is popular. Adelaide hosted the World Formula One Grand Prix of auto racing from 1985 to 1995; it was seen over the 10-year period by hundreds of thousands of people on the track and by a worldwide television audience.

Media and publishing

South Australia’s primary daily newspaper is The Advertiser; the Sunday Mail is a weekly with wide circulation. A press association based in Adelaide manages production and distribution of many local papers in the smaller towns and rural areas. Transmitting stations of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are located in larger cities in the southeast part of the state, and several commercial companies operate television and radio stations mostly in and around Adelaide.


The period before British colonization

The area that is now South Australia has been inhabited by humans for tens of thousands of years. Archaeological discoveries on the Nullarbor Plain in the west have revealed that human life was already present in the region about 34,000 years ago and that Kangaroo Island has been home to human settlement for perhaps 16,000 years. Other locations in Australia possess much earlier evidence of habitation, which suggests that South Australia either was settled later or has received less intensive archaeological investigation. It is clear, however, that for thousands of years there were numerous centres of indigenous population, especially along the banks of the Murray River, and that substantial trade existed between these Aboriginal groups despite the vast distances that separated them. Some trade routes extended across central Australia as far north as Cape York in present-day Queensland. But the indigenous population was probably already in decline at the end of the 18th century. The Aboriginal peoples had little resistance to introduced diseases such as smallpox that were transmitted down the Murray River system in advance of the arrival of European settlers on the southern coast.

European exploration of southern Australia was slow and intermittent. In 1627 the Dutch East India Company vessel Guilden Zeepaard, captained by Francois Thyssen, conveyed Pieter Nuyts as far east as Fowler’s Bay in the Great Australian Bight. His reports were unfavourable, and almost two centuries passed before further information reached Europe. The entire coast was finally charted by Matthew Flinders in the Investigator early in 1802, a little before a similar expedition led by the French navigator Nicolas Baudin in Le Géographe. The two expeditions met at Encounter Bay.

Sealing parties, operating out of eastern Australian centres, frequented the southeastern coast from 1803 onward and made intermittent settlements on Kangaroo Island. George Sutherland reported on the island in 1819 and greatly exaggerated its potential for settlement. European knowledge of the interior of South Australia was negligible until 1829–30, when Charles Sturt navigated the full length of the Murray River system to its disappointing outlet into the southern Indian Ocean. Sturt located substantial habitable land in the southern reaches of the territory, and his reports were the practical prerequisite for developing British plans for a new colony. The great inland regions of South Australia were not traversed for many years, and the challenge of a south-north crossing was not met until the expedition of John McDouall Stuart in 1862. The territory was not fully explored until the 1890s. The colonists learned what the Aborigines had known for thousands of years—that the interior was extremely inhospitable to most forms of permanent settlement.

European settlement




Colonial development in the mid-19th century




Aspirations and disappointments



Shifting the economic base

The development of mining at Broken Hill in New South Wales in the 1880s generated new activity in South Australia, but the economy remained dependent on a narrow rural base. The local market was too small to sustain rapid development of the manufacturing industry, and economic diversification was slow to materialize. Hence, for many decades South Australia’s economic growth rate fell behind those of other parts of the continent. Its rate of population growth, once the highest in Australia, also lagged. The population retreated from outlying districts, concentrating increasingly around Adelaide. After 1921 a rising majority of South Australians lived in metropolitan Adelaide; by 1961 only 12 percent of the workforce was employed in rural industries.

Poor economic growth from the turn of the 20th century until the late 1920s was associated with worsening budget deficits, migration to other states, and then severe drought at the end of the 1920s. During the Great Depression of the 1930s there was serious distress in both city and country, and South Australia suffered worse unemployment than most of Australia. The depression threatened to extinguish the infant industrial growth that had emerged in the 1920s, and there was a particular danger that South Australia’s automobile industry would be lost entirely to Victoria. The state government intervened and offered exceptional advantages to industries that would become established and stay in the state. Recovery in the late 1930s sustained the foundations for accelerated industrialization in the Adelaide region during World War II (1939–45). Heavy industry at Broken Hill and Whyalla emerged strongly, and munitions factories were developed near Adelaide.

The growth of war-related industries was translated into broader industrialization after the war, when the economy expanded rapidly and the state adopted a vigorous immigration program. Industrialization was undertaken through a combination of private and public enterprise, the state taking over responsibility for much of the basic infrastructure of the new economy and for the attraction of external capital. Premier Thomas Playford was a vigorous salesman for the business prospects of South Australia, emphasizing its lower wage costs, cheaper housing and land prices, lower taxes, and better industrial relations. He promoted the state operation of basic utilities, including electricity (in 1946 his government took over the private Adelaide Electric Supply Company), coal supply, housing, water, schools, and hospitals. Government enterprise also promoted the rural sector by means of soil improvement with trace elements and through new settlement schemes. A satellite town at Elizabeth was created for the further development of the industrial-urban base of the state’s economy.

Between 1947 and 1954 population growth in South Australia was again faster than elsewhere in Australia. It was surprising that South Australia, a relatively small community on the southern fringe of the continent, far from the larger markets and population centres of eastern Australia, was able to sustain such a vigorous program of industrial development. But the long upswing in economic activity began to weaken in the 1970s. South Australia followed the path of many other industrial economies in the last decades of the century, and the proportion of the population employed in manufacturing fell below 10 percent in the early 21st century. There was a concurrent shift of the workforce into service activities. The government placed great emphasis on promoting high-technology growth in the economy and attracting imported capital connected with high value-added industries. Its efforts to recruit industry often emphasized the stability of the workforce and the high quality and relative cheapness of living standards.

Population history

The Aboriginal population may have been about 25,000 at the time of British colonization. Well-intentioned government policies to protect their interests were rarely given practical effect, and the combined impact of introduced diseases, loss of land, and falling fertility rates accelerated the decline in numbers. By 1860, colonial opinion fatalistically expected the Aborigines to die out within a few decades. In fact, there was a resurgence of their numbers, if not of their status and economic condition, probably assisted by intermarriage with colonists. Government policies shifted toward assimilation by the 1960s. Only then were South Australian Aborigines accorded full citizenship. Aboriginal land rights became an active political issue in the 1970s.

The white population began with large infusions of immigrants, many from the southern parts of England. South Australia’s population increased fivefold between 1844 and 1855, but the colony attracted relatively fewer Irish and Scottish than the rest of Australia. There was a secondary inflow of Germans, whose descendants faced considerable persecution and loss of rights during World War I (1914–18). New immigration programs were instituted in the 1850s and ’70s and before and after World War I. Larger inflows from 1945 to 1965 brought many immigrants from continental Europe, notably from Italy, Greece, Poland, and Yugoslavia and later from Southeast Asia. These later waves of immigration substantially altered the formerly homogeneous character of the population.

At other times population growth was disappointing. There were outflows of South Australians in the early 1850s and in the 1880s, 1930s, and 1970s and ’80s. Moreover, the rates of natural increase generally declined, and birth rates fell below national levels and eventually below the level of net reproduction. Mortality rates also have fallen, however, and South Australia’s infant mortality rate is among the lowest in the world.

Political characteristics

From the start, South Australians had an unusually progressive attitude toward social experimentation. The early colonists expected a swift transition to self-government and to popular representation. The colony’s initial commitment to religious toleration attracted a disproportionate number (though never a majority) of Nonconformists, especially Methodists. Their collective influence was most evident in the lively public debates about the role of state support for education. In the 1850s South Australia became the first colony in the British Empire to disestablish religion (thereby separating church and state).

The decisive intervention of the British government into colonial affairs during the financial crisis of 1841–42 curbed the experimental pretensions of the colonists and checked their progress toward self-government. Nevertheless, during the 1850s there was a renewal of the original zeal. In 1851 partial self-government was introduced, and the Legislative Council was reformed to include two-thirds elected membership, based on a property franchise. Pressure for greater autonomy mounted, and in 1856 South Australia instituted some of the most advanced arrangements in the empire. These included triennial parliaments, manhood suffrage, the absence of property qualifications for the lower house, and secret ballots.

Thus, South Australia had established a relatively advanced democratic bicameral government, and its first election on this basis was held in 1857, when the European population was roughly 110,000. But its subsequent legislative record was less exciting than its conception. Some historians say that South Australia had lost its experimental and intellectual zest and that it was not recovered until the last part of the 20th century.

In 1884 South Australia was the first colony in Australia to introduce direct taxes on income and land. This reflected not so much advanced redistributive philosophies, however, but rather recurrent overspending by the government on public works programs and an excessive reliance on the London capital market.

Progress toward popular representation was curiously fitful. There were remarkable accelerations, as in 1894, when, in advance of virtually all other democracies, South Australia extended the vote to women. Yet it was slow to vote women into parliament. In 1973 full adult suffrage was accomplished when property qualifications for the upper house were finally abolished. Payment to members of parliament was introduced in 1887. In 1876 South Australia became the first of the Australian colonies to give legal recognition to trade unions. Unionization nevertheless was slow to develop, and there were generally fewer and less damaging strikes in South Australia than elsewhere in Australia.

Political parties became more clearly defined when leaders emerged to represent the urban and working population. The formation of the United Labor Party in 1891 was a prelude to the first fielding of Labor candidates in elections. This precursor of the contemporary Australian Labor Party became the dominant vehicle for the interests of the left. Partly in response to Labor, conservative elements notably converged into the Liberal and Country League in 1932.

The conservative party was generally dominant, and it ruled from 1933 to 1965. For the last 28 years of that period Thomas Playford was premier. During the Playford era the state was transformed from a mainly agricultural economy with a population of 600,000 to a predominantly industrial society with more than 1,000,000 people. The Liberals retained power through an electoral system that grossly underrepresented metropolitan Adelaide. By the 1960s it was generally, but not unanimously, agreed that the electoral system was the most unbalanced in Australia and had become a political scandal. Opposition to the system became vociferous but was resisted until 1969, when the Liberal government initiated electoral reform despite great internal controversy. When Labor attained power, more thoroughgoing legislation was introduced to redistribute voting power toward the metropolitan population. In 1975 electoral readjustments became the responsibility of a permanent Electoral Commission.

The Playford administration was marked by two extraordinary paradoxes. Under the direction of the auditor-general, J.W. Wainwright, Playford committed the Liberals to state-induced industrialization, in contravention of conventional conservative doctrine. This helped to reinforce the influence of state policy in shaping local society, in opposition to the powerful influences emanating from the federal centre in Canberra. The resulting expansion of the urban and industrial population effectively undermined the electoral foundations of the Liberal Party itself.

Except for two years of a Liberal-Country coalition government (1968–70), the Labor Party held sway from 1965 to 1993. Under Premier Donald Dunstan’s administration, South Australia became highly image-conscious, especially in its commitment to culture. Dunstan pledged to make the state the technological, design, social reform, and artistic centre of Australia. Dunstan’s program depended on the affluence connected with industrialization. This affluence had, however, in its turn depended on high levels of effective protection for the local motor vehicle, household appliance, shipping, and electrical goods industries, a large proportion of the products of which was traded outside the state.

Sustained economic growth until 1977 favoured the political program, and unemployment rates in South Australia were lower than in the rest of Australia. But the employment base was relatively narrow and vulnerable to market shifts. During the 1980s and ’90s South Australia suffered greater than average reductions in the level of economic activity, and a growing nervousness affected the business climate of the state. In the last years of Dunstan’s tenure and during the administration of his successor, John Bannon, industrialization seemed to falter as tariff protection became less comprehensive. Earlier advantages diminished, and employment in the manufacturing sector fell. Plans to build a new city at Monarto, near Murray Bridge, were shelved. The state government became more receptive to plans for the exploitation not only of natural gas fields but also of the extraordinary ore bodies around Olympic Dam. Since these ore bodies contained rich uranium reserves, the mining policy of the government became a matter of great political controversy, especially in the Australian Labor Party.

Under Dunstan there had been a rush of adventurous legislation easing censorship and restrictions on liquor, gambling, and shopping hours; extending the vote to 18-year-olds; permitting beach nudity; and reforming the law relating to adult homosexuality. But social experimentation decelerated as the government attempted to consolidate the industrial base of the economy. Under Bannon in the early 1990s, plans were advanced to facilitate large-scale international investment in an elaborate scheme incorporating high technology into the metropolitan area, known as “the multifunction polis.”

The Labor Party, much strengthened by the long-term impact of electoral reform, redefined its relationship with the trade unions while appealing to the middle strata of South Australian society for electoral support. This was emulated by a reunited Liberal Party and by a small coalition called the Australian Democrats that briefly held the balance of parliamentary power several times in the 1980s. Despite the vicissitudes of the state economy, there was no weakening of the central commitment to the parliamentary system of representative democracy.

Having been ascendant for nearly two decades under Dunstan and Bannon, the Labor Party’s popularity declined abruptly in the early 1990s in tandem with the collapse of the State Bank, which had accrued a significant debt as a result of ambitious lending strategies. In the 1993 election the party experienced its heaviest defeat in 60 years. The new Liberal government committed itself to a reduced role in the economy. It privatized many public utilities and sold the State Bank.

The state economy was in the doldrums throughout the 1990s, with higher unemployment and lower economic growth than the national average. However, during that time South Australia sought new growth opportunities in the information technology industry and in exports, and grain and wine exports expanded vigorously. Nevertheless, the state’s recovery from recession was slower than that of the rest of the country, despite the implementation of debt-reduction policies. Expansion in the mining industry at Olympic Dam and large expenditures by the federal government on the construction of new naval submarines at Port Adelaide helped buoy the economy, and a new consortium emerged in 1999 that also brought trade benefits, employment, and new demand for steel production at Whyalla. By the end of the decade, wine, motor vehicles, grains, seafood, and electronics were all exporting well, and strong economic recovery was under way.

Although severe drought reduced agricultural yields in the early 21st century, the state continued to grow in other areas; in 2004 the long-anticipated rail link between Darwin in the Northern Territory and Adelaide, a grand national project first mooted in the 19th century, was finally completed.The Liberals were defeated in the election of 2002, which presaged the return of a Labor government. In 2004 Labor, under Mike Rann, issued a strategic plan focusing on economic development and improvements in health and education over the coming decade. Rann also persuaded the Labor Party to adopt a more positive attitude toward uranium mining.