At the Australasian Federation Conference held in Melbourne in February 1890, politicians from the six Australian colonies and New Zealand affirmed the desirability of an early union under the crown and committed themselves to persuading their governments to send delegates to a convention which would consider and report on a scheme for a federal constitution.

The records of the Australasian Federation Conference of 1890 and the Australasian Federal Conventions of 1891 and 1897/8 are among the most significant founding documents of the Australian nation.

Excerpts from the Official Record of the Proceedings and Debates of the Australasian Federation Conference, Melbourne 1890. The texts are courtesy of the University of Sydney Library.

Sir Henry Parkes, Premier of New South Wales: We have now reached a stage of life when we are not behind any nation in the world, either in the vigour, the industry, the enterprise, the foresight, or the creative skill of our working populations, in which I include the directors of labour, and we are not behind in all the higher refinements of civilised society.
There is no obstacle in the path before us except impediments which we have created ourselves. Nature has created no obstacle. That principle of Divine goodness call it what you may which exists, and over-rules the world, has created this fair land of Australia, situated as it is, wisely created it for a grand experiment in human government.

The union of the Australian people is a thing that so commends itself to the most far-seeing of those who have come from other lands, and which so intertwines itself with the very life of the native born, that nothing can possibly stop its progress…I do not see how it is possible to shut our eyes to the fact that our duty, at all events, is to ask the Parliaments of the different colonies to consider whether or not the time is come… I submit it, Mr. President, with the full belief that it will be supported, and with the full belief that it will meet with the concurrence and emphatic approval of a large majority of the people of all the colonies.

Captain William Russell, New Zealand Colonial Secretary: New Zealand has a large sea-coast; she may be open to attack on the part of hostile cruisers should they ever come into these waters, and we should be only too happy I can speak with absolute certainty as to that to join with Australia in any system of naval defence.

With a population of 700,000 people in New Zealand, dwelling in an island where the climate is dissimilar to a very great extent from that of Australia, which has been colonized in an entirely different manner, and, speaking colloquially, having had a very much rougher time than the colonies of Australia, we are likely to develop a very complete individuality a distinct national type.

Not only have the settlers had to struggle against the forces of nature, but against a proud, indomitable, and courageous race of aborigines. That native race has been treated in a manner so considerate that the condition of no other native and savage race on the face of the globe can be compared to it. Their right to their lands was recognised from the first.

One of the important questions in New Zealand politics for many years to come must be that of native administration, and were we to hand over that question to a Federal Parliament to an elective body, mostly Australians, that cares nothing and knows nothing about native administration, and the members of which have dealt with native races in a much more summary manner than we have ventured to deal with ours in New Zealand the difficulty which precluded settlement for years in the North Island might again appear.

As it is not my object to throw the apple of discord into this fair community, as I desire by every means in my power to assist the federation of the colonies, and as I wish that not only New Zealand but the remoter colonies of Australasia shall have an opportunity of coming into this federation as soon as they can see any advantage to be gained by it, I hope Sir Henry Parkes will consent to change the word Australasian in his motion to Australian.

Samuel Walker Griffith, Member of the Legislative Assembly, Queensland: The end we have in view is the establishment of a great Australian nation.

The means which may be adopted for attaining that end may be various. I remember, when I was a boy, a gentleman, for whom I had the greatest respect, saying that the practical definition of wisdom was the proper adaptation of means to ends. We shall require a great deal of this kind of wisdom in bringing about the end we have at heart.

Matters such as those of fiscal policy are, after all, only means, not ends, in themselves. Whatever conclusion may be arrived at in regard to such matters, it is our business not to lose sight of the one great end in view of the establishment of a nation. The moral effect upon the people of Australia of the accomplishment of such an object would be very great indeed… I shall be deeply disappointed if, as the result of this conference, there are not laid the foundations of a real, strong, permanent, and complete Federal Government of Australasia.

Alfred Deakin, Chief Secretary, and Member of the Legislative Assembly, Victoria: It is upon the existence of the tie of affection between us that we rely when we ask assent to a resolution which expresses an aspiration native to every citizen of Australia, which cannot be rooted out of our hearts which should inspire our lives the aspiration of seeing these colonies united in one great nation…

This sentiment of our nationality is one which, I believe, we shall see increasing in its intensity year by year, and it will count for much more than it now does when the people of these colonies have become a people sprung from the soil, a people the vast majority of whom will know no other home than the soil of Australia. I believe that this passion of nationality will widen and deepen and strengthen its tides until they will far more than suffice to float all the burdens that may be placed upon their bosom… The crimson thread of kinship, as Sir Henry Parkes so happily and poetically termed it, running, as it does, through all the colonies, has not merely the strength of a thread, but is stronger than links of steel… We must direct much of the loyalty which is now attached to individual colonies to a central ideal of the national life of Australia, so that our countrymen shall exhibit their loyalty to the nation, and the nation only.

Image: The Australasian Federation Conference, Melbourne, 1890, National Library of Australia. From left to right (standing): the Hon A I Clark MP (Tas.); Captain Russell MP, Colonial Secretary (New Zealand); Sir Samuel Griffith KCMG MP (Qld); Sir Henry Parkes KCMG MP (NSW); the Hon T Playford MP (SA); the Hon Alfred Deakin MP, Chief Secretary (Vic); the Hon Stafford Bird, MP, Treasurer (Tas); Mr G H Jenkins, Secretary to the Conference. Seated, left to right: the Hon William McMillan, Colonial Treasurer (NSW); Sir John Hall, KCMG, MP (New Zealand); the Hon J M Macrossan MP, Colonial Secretary (Qld); the Hon Duncan Gillies MP, Premier of Victoria and Chairman of the Conference; the Hon Sir John Cockburn MP (SA); Sir James Lee-Steere MP, Speaker (WA).