FLAGS FROM AUSTRALIA

The first official Australian flag seems to have been the 1867 flag of New South Wales, a British Blue Ensign defaced with the letters "NSW" in white in the fly, and was designed (as were all state flags) to comply with the recently passed British Colonial Naval Defence Act of 1865 which required that any colonial vessel should "wear the Blue Ensign with the seal or badge of the colony in the fly thereof." In 1870 New South Wales and Victoria both adopted a British Blue Ensign with the Southern Cross in the fly; six years later New South wales adopted the present flag as it was too similar to Victoria's.

Since then all Australian colonial flags that were adopted were defaced British Blue Ensigns and when Australia became a nation on 1 january 1901 the National Flag that was chosen as the result of a competition was of a similar design, with the Southern Cross in the fly and the "Federation Star", symbolising the separate states and territories, placed below the Union Jack. It was, however,only official adopted in 1954, the Union Jack having been used as Australia's flag until then, typical of the time when most Australians, when using the word "home", meant the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

But times change and when the Northern Territory attained Self Government in 1978 it adopted a totally different flag, using local symbols, followed in 1993 with a similarly designed flag for the Australian Capital Territory. Meanwhile, Australia's Aboriginal people had adopted a flag of their own in 1992, followed by the Torres Strait Island people' flag the same year. Some groups in the islands have adopted flags of their own, like the Kaurareg of the south western islands and the Mer people of Murray Island.

Note: most of the information on the flag pages are courtesy FLAGS OF THE WORLD.

NORTHERN TERRITORY QUEENSLAND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDS SOUTH EASTERN AUSTRALIA NEW SOUTH WALES VICTORIA TASMANIA SOUTH AUSTRALIA WESTERN AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIAN WILDLIFE OUTBACK FESTIVALS ABORIGINAL CULTURE CENTRAL AUSTRALIA THE TOP END BUSHTUCKER OUTBACK KIDS TIWI ISLANDS BUNGLE BUNGLES RODEOS ABORIGINAL ROCK ART GULF OF CARPENTARIA TRADITIONAL HUNTING OUTBACK WILDLIFE KAKADU NATIONAL PARK AYERS ROCK ABORIGINAL ART ARNHEM LAND	New South Wales	Australian Capital Territory	Victoria
	Tasmania	South Australia	Western Australia
	Northern Territory	Queensland	Aborigines
	Torres Strait Islands	Murray Island	Saibai Island
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