Australasian Federation (A Blow for Freedom)

The the A Blow for Freedom timeline, the Australasian Federation is the successor to the Commonwealth of Australia which was disbanded in August 1932 after direct British intervention in the civil conflict in New South Wales and other states. The Federation was inaugaurated on Anzac Day, April 25, 1947, two years after the Axis defeat in the Second World War. It consists of the entirety of the Australian continent, as well as New Zealand and Fiji, though there is a strong movement for Fiji's secession. The Federation is a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II as Head of State. Since the 1932 crisis, in which New South Wales Premier Jack Lang was killed and a facist coup orchestrated in that state, wariness of a strong central government has been the prevailing philosophy across Australasian politics. It is only in the last two decades that centralisation of services and policy has begun to increase substantially. Australasia (as it is usually called) consists of the six original Australian states, plus three more that have sprung up since the New Guard's coup - New England (formerly part of northern New South Wales), Riverina (encompassing part of southern NSW and some of northern Victoria) and North Queensland, which consists of everything north of Townsville. New Zealand and Fiji's membership brings the total number of states to eleven.