Two Nations, One Legacy: How Australia and South Africa Diverged After Colonialism

Australia and South Africa—two nations shaped by British colonisation—share striking parallels in their early histories.

Both were settler-colonial societies established in the 18th and 19th centuries. Both dispossessed and oppressed their indigenous populations. And both moved into the 20th century under systems of racial segregation. Yet today, global perceptions of these countries are profoundly different.

South Africa is still seen as a global cautionary tale, forever tethered to its apartheid past. Australia, by contrast, maintains a reputation for liberal values and stability—even as recent revelations point to a darker history of genocide against Aboriginal peoples.

What accounts for this divergence? The answer lies not just in what happened, but in what was remembered—and what was forgotten.

Colonial Beginnings: Parallel Trajectories

Both Australia and South Africa were colonised by Britain. In South Africa, European presence began with Dutch settlers in the 17th century, followed by British colonists in the 1800s. Australia’s colonisation began in 1788 with the arrival of the First Fleet, establishing it as a penal colony.

In both countries, indigenous populations were numerous and diverse. South Africa was home to the Khoisan peoples and Bantu-speaking communities such as the Zulu and Xhosa. Australia was inhabited by hundreds of Aboriginal nations and Torres Strait Islander communities—upwards of 600 distinct groups.

At the point of first contact, indigenous populations in both regions numbered in the hundreds of thousands. But by the early 1900s, these numbers had diverged dramatically.

Mass Displacement vs. Mass Disappearance

In Australia, the Aboriginal population declined precipitously through a combination of frontier warfare, introduced diseases, starvation, and systemic violence. In Tasmania, for instance, nearly the entire Aboriginal population was wiped out by the 1830s in what historians often describe as a genocidal campaign.

South Africa, by contrast, saw large-scale land dispossession and subjugation—but not extermination. The indigenous population remained numerically dominant. Despite intense repression, they endured as a political and cultural force.

This demographic difference would prove crucial. In Australia, colonial authorities and settlers were able to marginalise Aboriginal peoples to the point of invisibility. In South Africa, the Black majority could not be ignored—and would later become a source of mass resistance.

Segregation Systems: Covert and Overt

By the 20th century, both countries had instituted segregationist systems. In Australia, Aboriginal people were placed under state guardianship, denied citizenship, restricted in movement, and forcibly separated from their children in the now-infamous “Stolen Generations.”

South Africa’s path was more blatant. The 1913 Natives Land Act barred Black South Africans from owning land outside designated “native reserves.” This laid the groundwork for apartheid—a legally enforced racial hierarchy instituted in 1948, under which the majority population was denied basic rights in all areas of life.

While both systems were brutal, apartheid was more visible to the international community. Australia’s policies, though deeply harmful, were often shrouded in legal ambiguity and bureaucratic euphemism. As a result, global outrage toward South Africa was louder and more sustained.

Reckoning With the Past

Since the end of apartheid in the 1990s, South Africa has struggled with the legacy of inequality, poverty, and institutional dysfunction. Despite a progressive constitution and racial integration, deep structural problems remain. The shadow of apartheid still looms large in how the world sees South Africa.

Australia, by contrast, has long enjoyed a reputation for fairness and multiculturalism. Yet that narrative is beginning to fray. In 2025, Victoria’s truth-telling Yoorrook Justice Commission officially declared that Aboriginal Australians were subjected to genocide—through massacres, child removals, cultural destruction, and forced assimilation.

This groundbreaking finding challenges the long-held belief that Australia avoided the racial atrocities seen elsewhere. It reveals a history that was, for many years, hidden in plain sight.

Global Perceptions: Uneven Judgments

Despite these revelations, Australia remains largely unscathed in the court of global opinion. Tourism thrives, foreign investment is strong, and political leaders are rarely asked to answer for colonial crimes.

South Africa, meanwhile, remains under scrutiny. Its present is often judged through the prism of its past—whether in media portrayals, diplomatic discourse, or economic commentary. Even as South Africa has moved forward in many respects, it cannot seem to outrun its international image as a nation in moral debt.

This disparity raises uncomfortable questions. Why is one country allowed to rewrite its past while another remains shackled to it? How does the near-eradication of a people become less damning than their survival?

History Is Not a Mirror—It’s a Choice

Australia and South Africa began with similar structures of dispossession and racial hierarchy. But history remembered them differently. One was seen as a land of promise; the other, a land of shame.

That narrative is now changing. As Australia begins to confront its genocidal past and South Africa continues to rebuild from its apartheid legacy, the world may need to reassess how it views both nations.

In the end, memory is political. Justice is not only about what happened—but about what we choose to see.