A petition was presented to Queen Victoria, but was rejected. This proposed colony resulted from a movement in the 1860s to create a new colony that incorporated the isolated western Victoria and south-eastern South Australia regions centred on Mount Gambier and Portland. This proposed state would take in the northern part of New South Wales from Taree to the Queensland Border, mainly in the north east, and excluding most of north west NSW. However the idea has continued in various incarnations ever since with most movements proposing the state's capital be situated in 'Illawarra City', or the amalgamation of the Shellharbour and Kiama local government areas. Originally this idea arose after disagreements between local landowners and migrants from Sydney in the mid-19th century. Illawarra Province ДЄlso known as the Illawarra Territory, this proposed new state would consist of the Illawarra region centred on Wollongong on the New South Wales south coast. It found some support from the ethnic Chinese community, fearful of independence or integration with Indonesia but was disbanded when the Australian government rejected the idea in 1975. East Timor Дuring the process of Portuguese decolonisation in East Timor in 1974, a political party was formed called ADITLA AssociaГ§ГЈo DemocrГЎtica para a IntegraГ§ГЈo de Timor Leste na AustrГЎlia (Democratic Association for the Integration of East Timor into Australia) by local businessman Henrique Pereira. However, the population in the modern region of Goldfields-Esperance is currently lower than that of the Northern Territory, and there is little evidence of recent support, although the idea of a state centred around Kalgoorlie was proposed in 2003. Proposed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the state of Auralia (meaning 'land of gold') would have comprised the Western Australian Goldfields, the western portion of the Nullarbor Plain and the port town of Esperance. Map showing the proposed boundaries of the new Goldfields colony of 'Auralia'. There was also a proposal in 1857 for the 'Seven United Provinces of Eastern Australia' with separate provinces of Flinders Land, Leicharts (sic) Land (taken from the name of Ludwig Leichhardt) and Cooks Land in modern day Queensland (also named from James Cook). This meant that central and western Australia were divided into several states, despite their low populations both then and now. These proposed states were geometric divisions of the continent, and did not take into account soil fertility, aridity or population. Van Diemen's Land in modern-day Tasmania.Flindersland in south central Australia.Carpentaria south of the Gulf of Carpentaria.Tasmania in Western Australia (not to be confused with the modern Tasmania).Victoria in southwestern Australia (not to be confused with the modern Victoria).The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society published Considerations on the Political Geography and Geographical Nomenclature of Australia in 1838, in which the following divisions were proposed:

North Australia was briefly a colony between February and December 1846. There were proposals for new colonies in the 19th century that did not come about. Note that although the names 'Victoria' and 'Tasmania' appear, both are geographically distant from the current states of the same name. This map shows a proposal for subdivisions of Australia from 1838.

Victoria 2 state map