what was the first newspaper called in australia?
Sydney Gazette
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 Australia has two public broadcasters ( the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the multicultural Special Broadcasting Service ) , three commercial television networks , several pay @-@ TV services , and numerous public , non @-@ profit television and radio stations . Each major city has at least one daily newspaper , and there are two national daily newspapers , The Australian and The Australian Financial Review . In 2010 , Reporters Without Borders placed Australia 18th on a list of 178 countries ranked by press freedom , behind New Zealand ( 8th ) but ahead of the United Kingdom ( 19th ) and United States ( 20th ) . This relatively low ranking is primarily because of the limited diversity of commercial media ownership in Australia ; most print media are under the control of News Corporation and Fairfax Media . 

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 The name Australia ( pronounced [ əˈstɹæɪljə , -liə ] in Australian English ) is derived from the Latin Terra Australis ( " southern land " ) a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times . The earliest recorded use of the word Australia in English was in 1625 in " A note of Australia del Espíritu Santo , written by Sir Richard Hakluyt " , published by Samuel Purchas in Hakluytus Posthumus , a corruption of the original Spanish name " Austrialia del Espíritu Santo " ( Southern Land of the Holy Spirit ) for an island in Vanuatu . The Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia ( Jakarta ) in 1638 , to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south . The first time that the name Australia appears to have been officially used was in a despatch to Lord Bathurst of 4 April 1817 in which Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledges the receipt of Matthew Flinders ' charts of Australia . On 12 December 1817 , Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted . In 1824 , the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia . 

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 Australian literature grew slowly in the decades following European settlement though Indigenous oral traditions , many of which have since been recorded in writing , are much older . 19th @-@ century writers such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson captured the experience of the bush using a distinctive Australian vocabulary . Their works are still very popular ; Paterson 's bush poem " Waltzing Matilda " ( 1895 ) is regarded as Australia 's unofficial national anthem . Miles Franklin is the namesake of Australia 's most prestigious literary prize , awarded annually to the best novel about Australian life . Its first recipient , Patrick White , went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973 . Australian winners of the Booker Prize include Peter Carey , Thomas Keneally and Richard Flanagan . Author David Malouf , playwright David Williamson and poet Les Murray are also renowned literary figures . 

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 After Australian federation in 1901 , the upsurge in nationalism led to the search for an official national floral emblem . The New South Wales waratah was considered alongside the wattle Acacia pycnantha , and debate raged between proponents of the two flowers . The economist and botanist R. T. Baker proposed that the waratah 's endemism to the Australian continent made it a better choice than the wattle , as well as the prominence of its flowers . He was nicknamed the " Commander in Chief of the Waratah Armed Forces " . The South Australian Evening News also supported the bid , but to no avail . 

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 In the early 1890s , for mainly patriotic reasons , the Australian Natives ' Association helped establish the Federation League , a society dedicated to the creation of a federal nation . Following a series of addresses by the future Prime Minister , Edmund Barton to large crowds , some 15 League branches were established in the towns along the southern border . One of these towns , Corowa , was the location for the first conference of the Australian Federation League in 1893 . At this conference , Dr John Quick , a delegate from Bendigo , proposed a resolution calling for the colonial legislatures to pass an act providing for the election of representatives to a convention to develop a federal constitution . This has been seen as the turning point in the push for Federation . The momentum generated from this point lead to a series of conventions and elections and finally , the inauguration of a federal constitution on 1 January 1901 . 
