The site of the first British settlement in Australia in 1788, New South Wales is today the most populous and, after Victoria, the most industrialized state in the Commonwealth of Australia. Originally the name New South Wales was applied to all territory east of longitude 135° E. The colonies of Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland were successively carved out of its territory in the 19th century. The Australian Capital Territory at Canberra was ceded to the Commonwealth government in 1911, and the Jervis Bay enclave on the Pacific coast was similarly ceded in 1915 to provide a port for Canberra.
Although it is by no means the largest Australian state in area, New South Wales has the largest economy among them and, in its demographic, political, and economic variety, constitutes a microcosm of Australia as a whole. It reflects the problems of a semiperipheral country adjusting to changes in the world economy. Its formerly robust manufacturing base adjusted to competition from cheaper and better products from overseas, with heavier industries being replaced by the production of elaborately transformed goods. The state’s rural industries similarly faced world oversupply and declining prices for once-staple pastoral and agricultural exports—such as wool, wheat, dairy, and meat—and sought to develop more diverse crops and specialized markets, often with considerable success. Unemployment levels run relatively high, often above the national average and marked by considerable regional variations. The expansion of the property, financial, and business sectors accounts for much employment growth from the 1990s onward, and fluctuations in those areas similarly have an impact on the economic trends of the state overall. Rapidly expanding international tourism stimulated extensive development in services, although it has heightened vulnerability to global economic downturns, and the impact of large numbers of tourist arrivals placed strains on facilities and the environment.
Since the turn of the 21st century, the population of New South Wales has grown more slowly relative to most other Australian states, reflecting the dynamics of economic growth across the country. While most of the state’s population lives in the cities—and the great majority in Sydney—a pattern of new settlement is evident in regional centres, most often on the coast. Such settlement is driven by the greater presence of amenities in those areas, although it is also associated with concern about the degradation of the land resources of the state.
As in all the Australian states, the considerable autonomy of the state government under the terms of Australian federation in 1901 has been—especially since the 1940s—steadily limited by Commonwealth government control of the collection and expenditure of public moneys. More recently, there has been pressure to achieve greater levels of national coordination in the provision of health care, education, and the management of environmental resources and to outsource the provision of services once provided by public agencies. Even with those changes, New South Wales—by virtue of its history, diversity, and economy—exerts considerable influence over the culture and prosperity of Australia and over international perceptions of Australian society and identity. Area 309,130
A narrow coastal strip of fertile river valleys, plains, and granite outcrops is bounded to the north by a series of plateaus stretching from the New England Range, to the west by steep gorges and ascents leading up to the tableland, to the south and west by the central and southern tablelands, and to the south by the Monaro plateau. To the west of Monaro lie the Snowy Mountains, including the Kosciuszko massif, which rises to 7,310 feet (2,228 metres) in Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain in Australia. The general elevation of the tableland is 2,500 feet (760 metres), high enough to provide severe winters and snow. Except in the south, the descent to the inland slopes is gentle, providing a zone of undulating land intersected by rivers that have their origins in the tablelands. In the west are the semiarid plains, composed of colluvial material, with bedrock exposed in some areas, as in the Barrier Ranges. The far northwest of the state includes dune fields, and there is much sandy mallee country in the south that is very marginal for agricultural activity.
The coastal rivers carry vast quantities of water to the ocean, supplied by the coastal region’s relatively high but variable rainfall. The rivers’ economic value lies in the fertile alluvial plains they have created. Unusual for Australia, the coast consists mainly of beaches of sand deposited by these rivers, such as the Hunter, Clarence, and Shoalhaven.
The major rivers of the interior flow generally west from the Great Dividing Range. These include the Namoi, Gwydir, Macquarie, Lachlan, and Murrumbidgee rivers, which, after crossing some 500 miles (800 km) of slopes and plains, join the Murray and the Darling rivers—which then meet at the town of Wentworth in the western part of the state. As the Murray, this river flows to the Southern Ocean in South Australia. The Murray is also fed by winter rain from the tablelands and is augmented in spring by snowmelt. The Darling rises in Queensland and is fed by summer monsoonal rains, thus having a different regime, and it exhibits dramatic variation in flow rate. Much water is lost by evaporation, but irrigation inland is made possible by these rivers. Between about one-half and four-fifths of the average annual flow in west-flowing rivers is captured by dams and weirs.
The early settlers found the alluvial soils to be the most productive, but red-brown soils on upland slopes and in the state’s south-central Riverina region and black soils on the northern river plains also are exceptionally fertile. As a result of overgrazing, the clearing of trees and natural vegetation, and farming practices causing erosion, more than three-fourths of the soils in New South Wales suffer from degradation and gullying. Salinization is a major problem in the Murray-Darling basin, due to irrigation and the unwise removal of trees. The fertility of western soils cannot be fully exploited because of low rainfall and intense evapotranspiration.
New South Wales has a generally mild climate. The seasons are well-defined in the south, with a hot summer and cooler winter and spring and autumn transitions. Autumn begins in March, winter in June, spring in September, and summer in December. Seasonal variation is less apparent in the north, where summers are hot and wet and winters cooler and drier.
Precipitation in the state is highest with the orographic effect of the rise to the tablelands but generally declines northwestward. The Western Division, which consists of semiarid western plains, is recognized as an area of marked rainfall deficiency, and attempts have been made to rationalize land use there to minimize damage to the fragile environment. That portion of the state, roughly one-tenth of the total area, receives less than 10 inches (250 mm) of rainfall a year and lies beyond the westerly limit of wheat growing. About one-fifth receives between 10 and 15 inches (250 and 380 mm). The coastal districts have the most annual rainfall, varying from 35 inches (900 mm) in the south to 60 inches (1,500 mm) or more in the north.
Drought and flood are ever-present natural threats with which Australians live. Drought is closely related to the El Niño effect in Pacific Ocean waters.
The dry climate and abundant sunshine prevailing over the state present problems for the agriculturalist but make delightful living for those in the cities. It is rarely too hot in summer, though the north coast can be uncomfortably humid, and Sydney is without sunshine for an average of only 23 days a year. Inland it is both hotter in summer and colder in winter. Average temperatures range from about 75 to 84 °F (24 to 29 °C) in summer and from about 45 to 59 °F (7 to 15 °C) in winter. Temperatures over 100 °F (38 °C) are not uncommon in the summer months, and frost at night is common in winter on the tablelands and southern slopes. In the Snowy Mountains (Kosciuszko massif), heavy snow falls over an area larger than the Swiss Alps.
Except on the north coast, where remnants of subtropical rainforest survive, the vegetation is mainly xerophytic (adapted to frequent droughts). Clearing of the original forest that once covered most of the eastern third of New South Wales has gone on apace, often at a higher rate than in other Australian states, and environmental groups struggle to protect remnant stands. Dominant species are evergreen eucalypts (more than 600 species) and acacias. These take the form of scrub on the plains, where mulga, a species of acacia, is a valuable fodder tree, and there is also much damaged saltbush. Inedible spinifex grass grows in the northwest. Eucalypts are hardwoods suitable for chipping and construction, and there are only limited supplies of native softwoods such as cedar and hoop pine.
The rich birdlife includes many species of parrots and cockatoos, the flightless emu, the mound-building scrub birds, and mallee fowl. Lyrebirds are common in the coastal forests. Marsupials include koalas, wombats, kangaroos, wallabies, common and ring-tailed possums, bandicoots, and many others. Kangaroos and wallabies are plentiful, but, like many other species, face significant loss of habitat. The platypus may be common in quiet waterways, and the echidna, or spiny anteater, also survives, even in urban areas. Several species of poisonous snakes abound, including black, brown, and tiger snakes and the death adder; they are not aggressive, however, and loss of human life to snakebite is rare. There are two poisonous spiders, the red-back and the funnel-web. The best-known fish is the now-vulnerable Murray cod, found in the western rivers, which can grow to about 3 feet (1 metre) and reach weights of some 35 to 45 pounds (15 to 20 kg). Yabbies (crayfish) and other shellfish were an important part of the Aboriginal diet.
The environmental impact of European settlement on New South Wales has been enormous, and it is only now being recognized and to some extent remedied. It is believed that, since 1788, when the British began colonizing Australia, more than 35 plant species and a similar number of animal species—including more than two dozen mammals as well as various birds and frogs—have become extinct. In addition, several hundred plant and animal species are listed as threatened or endangered. One bright note was the discovery in 1994 of the Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis), one of the world’s oldest and rarest tree species, about 120 miles (200 km) northwest of Sydney.
Human remains found at Mungo indicate that Australia was inhabited about 46,000 to 50,000 years ago. Prior to European settlement, relatively dense populations of Aboriginal people lived close to the rich resources of the coast, and other groups concentrated around the major inland rivers. There are no accurate estimates of the Aboriginal population at the time of European settlement, but a figure of about 100,000 has been suggested for the area that would become New South Wales. These people lived in approximately 70 tribal or language groups.
Since European settlement the population of New South Wales has been representative of that of Australia as a whole; the successive phases of immigration have produced no major cultural or linguistic differences between the states. Nearly two-thirds of the people are of British extraction, but since 1947 there has been a major influx of immigrants, first from Britain, then from the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, the Balkan region, and Turkey. In addition, since the 1980s large numbers of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants also have arrived. Although Aboriginal people and those of Torres Strait Islands origin make up only a small fraction of the state’s population, New South Wales has the highest proportion of Australia’s Aboriginal population, and their numbers in the early 21st century were increasing at a greater rate than those of other groups of Australians.
Many immigrants have prospered, and there are recognizable national and ethnic concentrations in Sydney and other larger regional centres. In the early 21st century New South Wales had one of the highest proportions among the states of residents born overseas. These people included refugees or other immigrants associated with humanitarian programs, mostly from Iraq and southern Asia.
The greatest concentration of the Aboriginal population is in the western and southwestern areas of Sydney, although the highest proportion of the Aboriginal population (roughly one-fifth) is in western New South Wales.
Overall, ethnic tension is low, although cultural strains have sometimes flared, as they did in February 2004 when rioting broke out in Redfern (one of Sydney’s inner suburbs that has a strong Aboriginal community) in response to allegations of police brutality against Aborigines. Episodes of ethnically motivated crowd violence in Cronulla (a Sydney beachside suburb) in December 2005 were focused on a community of ethnic Lebanese there. Persistent discrimination against Aborigines is also experienced in some nonurban population centres.
By far the largest portion of the population professing a religion is Christian, although the number giving no religious preference rises at each census, and increasing numbers identify as Muslim and Buddhist. The largest active denominations are the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church of Australia. The Uniting Church, formed by congregations of Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists, also has a large adherence.
More than two-thirds of the state’s population is crowded into 2 percent of its area—namely, into Sydney, Newcastle, and Wollongong, its three largest urban centres. Since the 1980s there has been a movement of retirees and urban dwellers seeking a simpler life to inland regions and to the coastal areas north and south of Sydney. The growth of these “peri-metropolitan” patterns of settlement has become a strong feature of contemporary New South Wales and is associated with new demographic imbalances and service needs.
Outside of these concentrations the population is sparsely distributed. There are many country service towns, although few exceed 20,000 in population. The largest inland cities are Albury, Orange, and Dubbo, which are essentially administrative centres for surrounding agricultural districts. Areas of the inland and particularly far-western portions of the state have recorded sustained population decline for several decades.
The overall birth rate, death rate, and other vital statistics do not vary substantially from those of the rest of Australia. The population is aging, family size is falling, the death rate is in decline, and life expectancy is increasing. These trends became evident in the 1970s and continued into the 21st century. The aging of the population is most evident in growing coastal communities. For Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, however, the profile on all health indicators is significantly worse than for the rest of the population, and the age distribution is largely reversed.
Economically, New South Wales is the most important state in Australia, with about one-third of the country’s sheep, one-fifth of its cattle, and one-third of its small number of pigs. It produces a large share of Australia’s grain, including wheat, corn (maize), and sorghum, and most of its silver, lead, and zinc. The state’s share of dairy production has greatly declined because of industry deregulation and more efficient Victorian production, and its share of coal production has fallen with the rise of Queensland exports, although it remains a major producer from open-pit, or open-cut, mines in the Hunter River valley. The state has retained the largest concentration of manufacturing of any Australian state, but an expansion in heavy industries around the mid-20th century came to an end in the 1970s. As in the rest of Australia, the sector has declined since then due to reduced tariffs, a small market, lack of skills, and a floating Australian dollar.
From the 1980s the downturn in these aspects of the state’s economy has been partially balanced by growth in the service sector. Sydney in particular became a national and Asia-Pacific centre for finance and insurance offices, banking headquarters, property and business services, and information and communications management. Growth in these areas led to the city’s marked deindustrialization, and manufacturing employment declined significantly there after 1980. However, postindustrial Sydney has proven vulnerable to international economic instability, particularly as New South Wales has not received the kind of increased income from the resources sector that has benefited states such as Queensland and Western Australia. While the growth of services in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has created new jobs and contributed to a downward trend in unemployment, the associated labour market was volatile and characterized by relatively high rates of part-time employment.
Agriculture is practiced throughout the state, except in the western third. About three-fifths of the acreage under crops is sown for wheat for domestic consumption and for a precarious export market threatened by subsidies in other wheat-exporting countries. Other grains include corn, oats, rice, millet, and sorghum. Potatoes, alfalfa (lucerne), grapes, sugarcane, citrus fruits, and pome fruits (fleshy fruits of the rose family, such as apples and pears) are also grown. Farmers live on their farms, which range in size from 200 acres (80 hectares) in the coastal dairy and sugar belt to 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares) in the “fat-lamb” country of the tablelands and in the wheat-sheep areas of the slopes. Beyond lie the vast leaseholds of the Western Division, where tracts of 100,000 acres (40,500 hectares) are not uncommon. Historically, excellent wine has been produced in the Hunter valley, and the production of wine grapes has spread extensively through New South Wales. The state’s viticulture reflects regional variations and has received increasing international recognition. Cotton has rapidly increased in irrigated areas, as has rice growing, although both sectors have had to adapt to prolonged drought conditions. New South Wales farmers have emphasized the relatively chemical-free nature of their production to international markets interested in “green” agriculture, and they have adopted advanced techniques in the selection and breeding of plant varieties in order to increase yields and capture more specialized markets.
New South Wales is Australia’s most important timber-producing state, accounting for about half of Australia’s production. Historically, this activity has been encouraged by the very low prices set by the state’s forestry commission, Forests NSW, and since the 1990s has been the regulated by a series of regional agreements and restructurings to place the industry on a sustainable footing. Reforestation, of both eucalypts and pine forests, is a regular program. There also is a major program of replanting trees over much of the cleared inland forests.
The fishing resources of the New South Wales coast are limited by a narrow continental shelf. Several species have been identified as overfished, and both commercial and recreation catches are closely monitored. Intensive aquaculture industries—for example, in Sydney rock oysters—have been developed.
The most important mineral resource is the black coal of the Sydney Basin, which is mined at Wollongong, at Lithgow, and in the Hunter valley. Coalfields are also located in the Gunnedah and the Narrabri areas. Many old shaft (underground) mines have closed, and open-pit mines have opened in the Hunter valley and at Ulan. The main silver, lead, and zinc deposits are at Broken Hill; fluctuating prices have limited full exploitation of the resources. Copper mining is important in Cobar. Tin is still obtained in small quantities in the New England region of northeastern New South Wales, and mineral sands mining extracts rutile, the basis for titanium.
Coal is the main power source. There is, however, some hydroelectric power from the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme, a major development initiated in 1949 by interstate cooperation. Natural gas supplies are piped in from South Australia and Victoria. Renewable energy sources—solar, wind, and biomass—were increasingly exploited in the early 21st century, although the initial investment costs were high.
Employment in manufacturing has declined steadily in New South Wales since the 1970s, and the sector proved slow to respond to streamlining measures taken in the 1980s, such as staff reductions and the reduction of tariffs. Given a relatively high (for Australia) orientation to export markets, the sector has also been vulnerable to international fluctuations. While one-third of Australian manufacturing remained in New South Wales as of the early 21st century, employment in the sector continued to decline. Textiles, clothing, and footwear manufacturing were particularly affected by the importation of cheaper goods. Food, tobacco, and printing were not affected to the same extent, but paints and chemicals were also in decline in terms of production, employment, and wage and salary levels.
Almost three-fourths of the state’s manufacturing industries are located in Sydney, with engineering, metal trade industries, oil refining, petrochemicals, and food processing particularly concentrated there. Sydney also bore the brunt of factory closures and unemployment as industries increasingly relocated from away from the inner city to outer suburban areas. Newcastle’s steelworks closed in 1999, and with them went many associated industries.
New management strategies, centring on innovation, investment in human capital, and niche capabilities, have been adopted to meet these pressures. Medical, biomedical, pharmaceutical, and surgical products, architectural aluminum, aerospace components, and computing equipment are among the areas in which New South Wales accounts for a large part of Australia’s manufacturing production. The sector continues to confront the challenges of lower-cost international competitors, rapid technological change, and restricted access to capital and skills.
The costs associated with introducing transport, communication, and other infrastructure to a new colony that was being settled amid rapid industrialization meant that, in the early days of New South Wales, these undertakings were most often seen as the responsibility of government. Until the 1980s, government agencies provided most infrastructure and social services. In 1950, for example, an Electricity Commission (which in 1992 was restructured and renamed Pacific Power) was established to coordinate the provision of electric power across the state. Increasingly, however, the introduction of market pricing systems—beginning with the provision of water in the Hunter valley in 1982—and the privatization of public facilities (such as hospitals and prisons) and creation of public-private partnerships (as in road construction) brought greater competition and the application of business principles to the provision of such services.
The characteristics of the labour force have reflected these transitions in the economy and its regulation. Retail trade is the largest employer, with property and business services, manufacturing, and health and community services following close behind. With the exception of manufacturing, these are also the sectors in which part-time and female employment is highest. Employment in these workplaces tends to entail greater mobility and less job security. There are considerable regional variations in unemployment and in vulnerability to unemployment.
The steady expansion of domestic and overseas tourism to New South Wales, particularly since the 1970s, has been a major influence on the state’s economy and on the labour market in particular. The state has long been the main Australian destination for short-term visitors, although the proportion of tourists it receives has fallen over time, largely due to the increasingly popularity of Queensland as a destination. Within the state, Sydney has been both the gateway and the main tourist destination.
A well-organized trade union movement has adjusted to a decline in its industrial power base and membership rates. Union membership is highest in the areas of mining, government, and education. Employers have also made adjustments to a more-deregulated economy and the competitively oriented and privatized provision of services that were once owned and managed by the government. The main representative of employers’ interests is the New South Wales Business Chamber.
State finances are dominated by the national (Commonwealth) government, which since 1942 has collected all income taxes, the chief source of public revenue. From that time on, all Australian state governments have been reimbursed from these receipts according to a fixed formula that favours certain “disadvantaged” states at the expense of wealthier states such as New South Wales. In the 1970s the Commonwealth also began awarding fixed grants to the states for specified purposes. A national goods and services tax (GST) was introduced in 2000; state-based taxes were abolished, and the Commonwealth became responsible for distributing all GST revenue to the states as well as continuing its special-purpose grants. The calculation of such distributions, however, remained an area of regular disagreement between all states and the Commonwealth.
In addition to funds distributed from the Commonwealth, the state government of New South Wales receives revenue from taxes on property, financial transactions, employers’ payrolls, motor vehicles, and duties on a range of goods and services, including gambling. Local governments and city councils draw revenue mainly from taxes on utility fees and from property taxes for expenditure in areas including the construction and maintenance of roadways and the provision of local health and sanitary services.
The principal public transport facilities are owned and operated by the state government. The railways reach many parts of the interior and were built to concentrate traffic in Sydney. The longest direct line is to Broken Hill. State-funded railway construction began in 1854, with main lines extending south from Sydney (reaching the border with Victoria by 1883), west (reaching Broken Hill in 1927, and north (reaching the Queensland border in 1888). Interstate connections were notoriously troubled by the lack of a standard gauge between the states, and a truly national railway service was not achieved until 1995.
In Sydney, planning and investment in metropolitan public transportation have lagged behind development, leading to inefficiencies and unreliability. Although patronage of suburban train and bus services has remained largely unchanged since the 1960s, the use of private automobiles has increased significantly, as has the associated congestion. Transport services are poor in the vast new suburbs to the west.
In the 1970s and ’80s many miles of rail line in the state were closed down; rail services were greatly reduced, with buses taking over unprofitable passenger routes. Several proposals to link cities on the east coast on a fast train line have been discussed through the years.
There are some 200,000 miles (320,000 km) of public roads in the state, and an increasing number of tollways are being created, built with various mixtures of public and private funding and responsibility. The building of this road system across great distances for a sparse population is perhaps the state’s greatest achievement in infrastructure, though many roads are narrow and in poor repair.
There is no commercial water traffic except for some tourist boats on the Murray River. There was once extensive water transport on the Murray, Darling, and Murrumbidgee rivers, which in the early 20th century gave way to rail and road transport. Coastal shipping services were superseded by roads by the 1950s.
Historically, the state’s major ports were Sydney (Port Jackson), Botany Bay, Newcastle, and Port Kembla. Congestion led to Sydney’s port function having largely moved to Botany Bay, located to the south of the city. Both Newcastle and Sydney are among the country’s top ports in terms of both cargo weight and value. Newcastle and Port Kembla concentrate on shipments of coal, grains, containers, bulk liquids, and alumina and bauxite (aluminum ore).
New South Wales has extensive internal air services. They include regular schedules to all large country towns from Sydney and many schedules between towns. Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport, located near the city centre, is one of the oldest continually operating airports in the world and is very congested, handling both national and international traffic.
In theory, the state government administers internal matters, while the Commonwealth government is responsible for defense, foreign policy, immigration, trade, customs and excise, postal services, and air and sea transport. Within those limitations the state government is said to be sovereign and has powers to make laws for the peace, welfare, and good government of New South Wales. In fact, the Commonwealth government has used its financial powers to limit the powers of the states. Like other states, New South Wales has no armed forces apart from the police.
Parliament—which meets for four years but can be dissolved earlier—consists of two houses. The lower house, or Legislative Assembly, has 93 members elected to four-year terms from single-member constituencies by optional preferential voting. The upper house, or Legislative Council, has 42 members who (since 1978) are directly elected at large by preferential voting and proportional representation. The members are elected to serve during two sessions of Parliament and thus serve for a maximum of eight years in their first term. The cabinet is chosen from the party that commands a majority in the Legislative Assembly. It is headed by a premier. Through the party system there is effective executive rule, which may, however, be frustrated by a failure to control the Legislative Council.
The governor is the local representative of the British crown and is appointed by the British monarch on the recommendation of the premier. The titular head of the government, the governor has since 1946 always been an Australian. In 2001 Marie Bashir became the first woman to be appointed governor of New South Wales. Although the duties of the office are mostly formal, the governor may play an important role in a political crisis.
All elections are conducted on the basis of universal adult suffrage. Every citizen over the age of 18 is required to vote in all elections, including those for local government offices.
The basic local government areas are urban municipalities and rural shires. Bodies called county councils are organized to coordinate common services such as flood control and electric power supply in districts that comprise a number of local government units.
Political parties are usually state branches of the federal political parties and tend to have the same policies and interests, though “states’ rights” are jealously guarded even among political allies. The three chief parties are the Liberal Party and the Nationals, which generally form a coalition, and the Australian Labor Party, which traditionally has been allied to the trade unions. Smaller parties and independent members can play a significant role in influencing policy by trading their votes. This has been particularly true since the 1978 establishment of direct election to the Legislative Council on the basis of a statewide constituency, which enabled a greater diversity of candidates to win support.
State law and its administration are generally based on the British system. Legal procedure includes trial by jury in criminal and some civil cases, the right of appeal, and an independent judiciary. The highest state court is the Supreme Court, from which appeals can be made to the High Court of Australia. Minor offenses are dealt with by magistrates in the Local Courts, while more serious cases are brought before a judge and jury in the District Court. There is a juvenile justice system administered by magistrates.
The state government is responsible for the administration of public health, hospitals, and medicine. Health care is nominally free under the Commonwealth government’s Medicare program, which is funded by deductions from taxable personal income, but the whole system has long been in a state approaching collapse because of inadequate funding. Those who can afford it patronize private hospitals, which are strongly supported by the medical profession. However, moves to privatize existing public hospitals, beginning in 1992, met with much public opposition, and it was debated whether services and efficiency had been improved.
Unemployment benefits and social security pensions to the aged, the disabled, widows, and single parents are paid by the Commonwealth government. Family allowances are paid to parents with dependent children. Despite this support system, poverty is a condition shared by many. Low-income households tend to be highly concentrated in certain areas of chronic disadvantage and to be characterized by low levels of home ownership, and it has been estimated that hundreds of thousands of children live in poverty.
Industrial awards (agreements setting out wages and conditions of employment) were for long set by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission at the federal level and by the Industrial Relations Commission of New South Wales at the state level. In 2010 a more streamlined set of awards was introduced under a national workplace relations system administered by the federal government. Most awards provide for a 38-hour workweek. New parents are entitled to 52 weeks of unpaid parental leave without loss of job or seniority. Child care for working parents, however, is considered by many to be inadequate.
Australia has limited government housing and only a small rental market, so buying a place to live is the chief burden for most people establishing their first home. There is a rapidly growing number of retirement homes and nursing homes for the aged, but debate has frequently arisen over the quality of care available in this often underfunded and poorly regulated sector.
Schooling is compulsory for all children between the ages of 6 and 15. An increasing number continue to age 18, and many go on to subsequent higher education. Most children are educated in free nondenominational primary and secondary schools. A significant proportion use the alternative Roman Catholic system of schools, however, and there is an increasing move towards enrolling children in private schools; the trend reflects the wealth of families as well as concerns over standards and opportunities. There are several universities in the state, financed by the Commonwealth or by some combination of Commonwealth, state, and private funding. The University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales are among Australia’s leading educational institutions. Overall, there are 12 universities in the state, seven of them based outside of Sydney. There also are state-run technical colleges.
The state cannot claim a unique culture that sets it apart from the rest of Australia, though in historical terms writers from New South Wales such as Henry Lawson and A.B. (“Banjo”) Paterson at the end of the 19th century helped to shape and promote the “bush ethos” in Australian identity. Yet the diversity of its geography and landscapes, its spread of settlement and industries, means that the arts and culture of New South Wales reflect a broad span of Australian experience. The fact that in the early 21st century approximately one-fifth of the state’s citizens spoke a language other than English in their homes indicated the increasing diversity of society.
Given its size, its “first city” status, its international orientation, and its periods of reinvention, Sydney has exerted great influence over the cultural life of the state and even the country. It claimed centre stage in events such as the 1988 Bicentennial celebrations and the 2000 Olympic Games and asserted itself to the international arts community through the widely recognized symbol of the Sydney Opera House, designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2007, and the standing of figures such as the New South Wales novelist Patrick White, winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature. The culture of Sydney is diverse and of great vitality in all areas. In dance, for example, the Sydney Dance Company has been highly innovative since its founding in the late 1970s, and Bangarra Dance Theatre, established in 1989, gained international recognition in drawing from the culture of indigenous Australians. Opera Australia tours extensively from its home base in Sydney. The city is also a centre of film and television production.
Yet the regions of New South Wales—the mountains, plains, coasts, and river valleys—have marked identities of their own, expressed (if increasingly with an eye to the same tourist market) in local heritage, festivals, and specialities. Since 1973, for example, Tamworth has put on an annual festival showcasing the various genres of Australian country music. Orange hosts an annual food festival, Thirroul (a beachside suburb of Wollongong) mounts a yearly seaside and arts festival, and Bermagui, farther south, presents a biennial festival of classical and world music.
Cultural activities in New South Wales are relatively well supported by government funding, although the tendency has been for assistance to flow more to heritage-defined areas (nature parks, reserves, museums, and libraries) and less to the performing arts than in other states. There are strong movements to conserve the natural environment, and several of Australia’s most influential conservation battles have been fought in New South Wales. Such struggles have occurred over the preservation of urban built and recreational environment, including the “Green Bans” instituted in the 1970s to protect Sydney’s historic buildings and green spaces, and protection of forests in the north and south of the state into the 1980s. There are hundreds of national parks and reserves around the state; the largest is Kosciuszko National Park.
Sydney has exerted considerable influence over Australian painting as the home to some of most prestigious art prizes in Australia: the Archibald (portraiture), Wynne (landscape), Sir John Sulman (genre), and Blake (religious) prizes. The question of whether there exists a “Sydney school”—as contrasted with the rival claims of aesthetics of a “Melbourne school”—has provided a context for debates about main currents in Australian art more generally, especially given Sydney’s more marked modernist, sensualist, decorative, or simply commercial influences.
Significant figures in 20th-century painting associated with the state include Sir William Dobell; Sir Russell Drysdale, whose bush images continued a tradition dating to the Heidelberg school of nationalist Australian landscape painters of the late 19th century; Margaret Preston, whose modernist work took inspiration from the colours and forms of Australia’s natural environments and Aboriginal culture; and Brett Whiteley, who painted more richly urban, erotically charged works. Obsession with landscape is the centre of Australian art, in New South Wales as elsewhere, but there are great contrasts between the eccentric Broken Hill mining landscapes of Pro Hart and the more brooding environmental awareness in similar scenes by Mandy Martin.
In literature, the prizewinning poets Judith Wright and Les Murray encompassed a range of causes in their writing and public influence, including Aboriginal rights, conservation, and cultural politics. Eric Rolls brought a new voice to many genres while engaging with similar themes. Dramatist and screenwriter David Williamson exposed the Sydney middle class and its concerns with style and property, while poet Dorothy Porter probed deeper into crime, sex, and innocence in verse novels and extensive collaborations.
As a result of his commitment to “civic sculpture,” Tom Bass’s work appears on many public buildings in Sydney and beyond. Architects Sydney Ancher, Ken Woolley, and Harry Seilder brought a distinctive fusion of modernism and environmental awareness to their projects—the latter with more frequent moments of controversy. Later, Glenn Murcutt built strongly vernacular themes into this tradition, refining a recognizable idiom. Photographers Max Dupain and David Moore produced enduring images spanning portraiture, cityscapes, the suburbs, and the country. William Yang has combined photojournalism with performance in documenting issues of ethnicity and sexuality and evoking the creative subcultures of Sydney.
The state has many theatres and art galleries, the majority of which are located in the capital. In Sydney the Australian Museum focuses on natural history and ethnography, the Powerhouse Museum on the history of technology, and the Museum of Sydney on the early years of colonization. There is a strong movement for historical preservation, served by the private National Trust of Australia (NSW) and by the state Heritage Council, which has sweeping powers to prevent demolition or alteration of buildings identified as having historical value.
The Australia Council, the country’s main arts-funding body, has been based in Sydney since its formation in 1973. Another national cultural flagship in New South Wales is the National Institute of Dramatic Art (1958)—located in the Sydney suburb of Kensington—which has provided the Australian and international entertainment industries with actors, directors, designers, producers, and craftspeople; among its notable graduates are actors Cate Blanchett, Judy Davis, and Mel Gibson and director and screenwriter Baz Luhrmann. The Sydney Conservatorium of Music has produced many leading musicians and has taught, or had on its staff, some of Australia’s most prominent composers, including Richard Meale, Larry Sitsky, Malcolm Williamson, and Peter Sculthorpe.
The Mitchell Library of the State Library of New South Wales houses an extensive collection of Australiana and is a major research library. The Art Gallery of New South Wales holds significant collections of Australian, European, and Asian art. Both these institutions also complement a highly regarded system of regional and local public libraries and galleries. Regional Arts New South Wales seeks to align its programs with the goals of community development, integration, and diversity.
Thematic and local museums are widespread. These range from the Sydney Jewish Museum (1992) and the National Art Glass Collection (1992) of the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, located in that city’s Civic Centre, to the National Motor Racing Museum at Bathurst, which is associated with a major touring car race held annually since 1938 at the nearby Mount Panorama racing circuit.
Rugby league is New South Wales’s dominant winter spectator sport, and cricket is the equivalent in summer. Both are organized in local, state, national, and international competitions and attract considerable corporate sponsorship. The National Rugby League (NRL) and the Australian Rugby League have their headquarters in Sydney, and a majority of NRL teams are from the state. Major advertising and commercial initiatives have sought to heighten the profitability and professionalism of both sports. In terms of participation in organized sports, however, tennis and football (soccer) are the most popular. Swimming, fishing, golf, cycling, running, and netball are also among the preferred recreations.
The Royal National Park, 58 square miles (150 square km) in area and located some 20 miles (30 km) south of Sydney, was established in 1879. It was the world’s second national park (after Yellowstone, in the United States), reflecting the strong association with outdoor recreation from early in the state’s history. Early bushwalking clubs generated their own maps and conservation ethics and, led by figures such as Myles Dunphy and his son Milo, campaigned for the creation of new national parks and the declaration of wilderness areas. Kosciuszko National Park, formally declared in 1967, is the state’s largest with an area of approximately 2,664 square miles (6,900 square km) in the southeastern part of the state. It largely comprises alpine land and contains all of New South Wales’s ski areas. Taronga Zoo, established in Sydney in 1916, and its associated Taronga Western Plains Zoo, an open-range facility in the west-central part of the state, are both popular with visitors and have conservation, education, and preservation programs.
Together with zoological gardens and aquariums, botanical gardens figure prominently in the nominated cultural or recreational activities of the New South Wales population. The Royal Botanic Gardens, founded in Sydney in 1816, is both the oldest scientific institution in Australia and a valued refuge in the centre of the city.
Among sports that originated in New South Wales, two are notable: campdrafting (a competitive cattle-herding event), first staged at Tenterfield in the 1880s, and polocrosse (a combination of polo and lacrosse), developed at Ingleburn, near Sydney, in 1939. The inaugural Sydney to Hobart (Tas.) Yacht Race was held in 1945. Sydney hosted the 1938 British Empire Games (now Commonwealth Games) as well as the 2000 Olympic Games.
Like many of New South Wales’s other cultural institutions, publishing and other media are centred in the capital. From 1887 New South Wales’s leading publishing house was Sydney-based Angus & Robertson, which combined educational and literary lists. The firm also established a nationwide chain of bookstores. The difficulty of maintaining a broadly based journal of news, comment, and literature in Australia was evident in the successive phases of the magazine The Bulletin, which celebrated emerging radical nationalism from its foundation in 1880, fostered the popularization of Australian literature in the early 20th century, became a leading domestic newsmagazine in the 1960s, and, after a decline in popularity, finally ceased publication in 2008.
The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia’s longest continually published newspaper, launched in 1831, was the flagship for one of the country’s most prominent media dynasties, the Fairfax family, until the family lost control of the paper in 1990. Throughout the 20th century the Fairfax Group had grown to control an extensive network of newspaper and magazine publishing. Its reach expanded alongside that of a rival family company, the Packer family’s Australian Consolidated Press, whose flagship was the Daily Telegraph until it was bought by media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 1972. Throughout various name changes and changes in ownership, both empires have exerted considerable influence over the state’s style of journalism, its cycles of taste and celebrity, and even the fortunes of its politicians.
The Australian Broadcasting Commission, established as a Commonwealth-run national broadcaster in 1932, has its headquarters in Sydney, conferring the subtle stamp of that city on several aspects of its services, from entertainment to current affairs reporting. The Commonwealth-funded national multicultural television broadcaster, SBS (Special Broadcasting Service), launched in 1980, also has its headquarters in Sydney. Australia’s first commercial radio station was licensed in Sydney in 1923, and the country’s first commercial television broadcasts also began there, in 1956. Both the Packer and Fairfax companies already held radio licenses and subsequently secured television licenses, increasing their influence through the ownership of major broadcast networks. In New South Wales, as elsewhere in the world, the concentration of media ownership and influence was an enduring point of concern in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. An extensive network of commercial, public, and community radio stations extends across the state. However, in remote regions the provision of television service and the quality of reception lagged behind the more-urbanized areas.