From convicts to a Commonwealth: Former prime minister Tony Abbott tells the real story of Australia’s birth

Both strategic and commercial motives guided the British government’s choice of New South Wales as a convict colony.

It would have been cheaper to send prisoners to the West Indies or Canada.

However, the east coast of Australia offered something grander and more ambitious: a new port of call in the East, far beyond the customary world, ushering in a new phase of British imperial endeavour.

Watch part one of former prime minister Tony Abbott’s documentary series ‘Australia: A History’ here .

Cook’s second expedition had identified that in Norfolk Island there was bounteous growth of a flax plant, whose fibrous stalks were thought to be a source of sailcloth and rope; and Joseph Banks, the brilliant botanist who had sailed on Cook’s first expedition, had reported on the habit