History of South Australia - 20th Century

20th Century

On 1 January 1901, following a proclamation by Queen Victoria, South Australia ceased to be a self-governing colony and became a state of the Commonwealth of Australia. In 1906, South Australia's first uranium mine was opened at Radium Hill. In 1910, the government of John Verran served as the first complete Labor party government in the world.

28,000 South Australians volunteered to fight during Australia's involvement in the First World War. Adelaide enjoyed a post-war boom but with the return of droughts, entered the depression of the 1930s, later returning to prosperity with strong government leadership. Secondary industries helped reduce the state's dependence on primary industries. The 1933 census recorded the state population at 580,949, which was less of an increase than other states due to the state's economic limitations.

After the second world war, the Woomera rocket range was established in 1947 as part of the Anglo-Australian Joint Project - at that time one of only four rocket ranges in the world. Busy through the 1950s, Woomera played an important role in the development of space technologies. With US assistance, Wresat 1, the first Australian satellite, was launched from Woomera, in November 1967 - a joint project of the Weapons Research Establishment and the University of Adelaide. The project made Australia only the 4th country to launch its own satellite from its own territory - and a landmark in Australian science.

Rocket launches largely ceased from the early 1970s, though some space related activity has continued into the 21st century and the base is now controlled by the Royal Australian Airforce. The University of Adelaide has a long history of scientific research and scholarship of international significance, and five Nobel Laureates have been associated with the University: Sir William Henry Bragg (Physics 1915); Sir William Lawrence Bragg (Physics 1915); Sir Howard Walter Florey (Physiology or Medicine 1945); J. M. Coetzee (Literature 2003); Robin Warren (Physiology or Medicine 2005).

After World War II, an assisted migration scheme brought 215,000 emigrants of all nationalities to South Australia between 1947 and 1973.

The 1960s and 1970s saw the introduction of a series of landmark Australian legislative "firsts" in South Australia, including: the 1966 Prohibition of Discrimination Act, which prohibited discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, or country of origin; and 1975 The Sex Discrimination Act, which made discrimination on the grounds of gender, marital status, or sexuality unlawful. In 1975 Parliament "decriminalised" homosexual acts; and in 1976 rape in marriage was made a criminal offence.

Construction of the Adelaide Festival Centre began in 1970 and South Australia's Sir Robert Helpmann became director of the Adelaide Festival of Arts. The South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) was established by the Don Dunstan government in 1972 and played a significant role in the revival of Australian cinema, with such works as Picnic at Hanging Rock and Breaker Morant.

In 1976, the Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act gave the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjarra Aboriginal peoples inalienable freehold title over 100,000 km of their land. That same year, South Australia appointed the first Aboriginal governor of an Australian state when Sir Douglas Nicholls was made Governor of South Australia.

In 1987, copper, gold, and silver production began at the Olympic Dam mine. Olympic Dam also possesses the world's largest known deposit of uranium.

During the commercial property boom of the 1980s the State Bank of South Australia was the fastest growing bank in Australia - but in 1991, the bank collapsed and Labor Premier John Bannon announced that, due to bad debts, the bank would have to be rescued by the taxpayers - subsequently, the bank's book debt rose to $3 billion. A Royal Commission was called and Premier Bannon resigned after appearing before it.