WHO SHOULD CARE for those unable to look after themselves? That became a hot issue after the economic depression of the early 1890s, when poverty became widespread. At that time, the elderly or infirm received no governnment financial support, so their care fell to family, religious and charitable institutions or government asylums.
Australia had a history of innovation around social and political rights, which included compulsory primary schooling, emergence of on 10 June of that year.