‘Westralia shall be free!’ How Western Australia’s secessionists stoked British fears the Empire was at risk
- Written by Benjamin Wilson Mountford, Associate Professor in History, Australian Catholic University
Around 90 years ago, two-thirds of Western Australian voters voted in favour of leaving the Commonwealth at a state referendum.
This 1933 result – often seen as a protest vote against the economic and political disadvantages imposed on WA and exacerbated by the Great Depression –...