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Chapter Seven: 1988 Bicentennial Era
7.1 Historical context
The year 1988 is an important one in Australian history, being the 200 year anniversary of the
arrival of the First Fleet from England to Port Jackson, Sydney in 1788. This event
effectively began the modern history period of the Australian continent, being the first colony
of Great Britain on the Australian continent. The First Fleet, led by Captain Arthur Phillip
(who was also given authority as the first Governor of New South Wales), was sent by the
British government to set up a colony on the east coast of the continent with three main
purposes. First, as a penal colony to disperse convicts from overcrowded prisons in Britain;
second to act as a trading port; and third to source raw materials, such as flax, in order to
make items such as ship sails. In more recent times, the impact of the arrival of the First Fleet
on the Australian continent in the year 1788 has been described variously as settlement,
colonisation, occupation, or invasion, depending on the perspective of the author; and as
relevant to this research, all four terms have been used at different times in school curriculum
(as demonstrated through the analysis conducted in this chapter, in Appendix A: Contexts and
also in Chapter 6: Black Movement in Australia 1964-1975).
The year 1988, as the bicentennial of the arrival of the First Fleet, is particularly relevant for
this project, with the intersection of the two exemplar topics—Indigenous representations and
British heritages—particularly conspicuous in the public arena during this time period for
their relationship to the 200 year anniversary. Viewing this period of history as a time of
rapid social (if not so much political) renewal is supported by the number of popular histories
written in an accessible way for the general public, often supported through public funding or
commissioned by major publishing houses. Sample publications include The Ashton
Scholastic History of Australia (Clark, Hooper & Ferrier, 1988) and The Penguin
Bicentennial History of Australia (Molony, 1987). Overarching the histories published during
the lead up to the 1988 Bicentennial (even those that seek to explore the complexities of the
nation’s history—past and present), is a discourse of celebration, arguably the most dominant
discourse surrounding the marking of this historical event (for an extensive critique of this
discourse of celebration, see Bennett, Buckridge, Carter & Mercer’s Celebrating the nation,
1992). This is demonstrated, for example, in Source 7.1, an introduction written by then-
Governor General Sir Ninian Stephen in a Sydney Morning Herald magazine insert titled
Australia: 200 years and beyond (Anderson, 1987), one year prior to the Bicentennial.
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