ABSTRACT
The campaign to unlock the lands had little effect on the inequality of wealth in Australia for the dice were loaded too heavily against the very class of labouring men and women who were meant to be the chief beneficiaries. The hunger for land was apparent before the gold rushes, especially in the towns where working men sought access to plots of land so that they might escape from the status of wage-earner and achieve independence. The invocation of natural and social justice is an important aspect of the land debate but it tells only part of the story. For as soon as such arguments are situated in their contemporary context, and the identities of those who employed them are specified more precisely, a less altruistic picture emerges. Of course the land policies of the colonial governments were affected by a variety of more immediate considerations.
