This land is old or new, depending upon how you look at it.  We arrived here some 40-60 thousand years ago.  Science should be able to define it better than that.  It is still at work.  We did not arrive in America until 12-14 thousand years ago.  Ditto.  So, Australians like to say the occupation has been longer here.  But, there is really no structure on the continent that is earlier than 19th Century.  Everything is new.  The first people seem not to have built or carved old structures that have persisted, and Europeans did not settle until 1788 when the British “First Fleet” conveyed convict settlers to this land inhabited in its various regions by various tribes of Melanesian people.  

One would think that the British, after their experience in America, would have considered colonization a poor idea, but then the English are optimists.  In fact the land was good and much went famously for the new inhabitants, so much so that after a time it was not seen as punishment to be sent to Austrailia.  The settlers never developed an antagonism toward the crown although this island continent became its own country in 1901.  Still a member of the commonwealth, Elizabeth II smiles on some of the currency.

The natives did not adjust well to the fusion and while some survived, many of their descendants still have not become part of what is now the dominant culture here.  And while the native culture was always poor, when it was alone its struggles did not contrast with a prosperous one along side.  Efforts were made at integration, but these have not been really successful.