ABSTRACT
The growth of Australia’s third sector has been assisted by nine important enabling factors. An active associational culture requires that people have time and at least a modest amount of income to devote to causes. The United Kingdom, from whence the immigrants came, provided many examples of charitable efforts to assist the poor. It also provided many examples of self-help organisations such as friendly societies, mutual insurance societies, cooperatives and trade unions. A final important enabling factor in the growth of a strong Australian third sector was the diversity or heterogeneity of the population. Nineteenth-century Australia had many different versions of the Christian religion and many organisations set up to worship and in other ways to celebrate or protect those differences. The many enabling factors present in the colonial environment would not in themselves have produced a strong third sector. Religion played a central role in the growth of education.
