The Eureka Rebellion, far from the expectations of many political thinkers at the time, did not lead to increased political liberties within the seven constituent colonies of Australia. Rather, they convened in Sydney and chose to take a more draconian approach to Australian governance. This was contrary to the new society which was emerging from the synthesis of Oceanykan traditional culture and British values, whose pillar was the concept of "mateship". Hundreds of thousands of British troops from across the Empire (many of them Oceanykans themselves) cracked down on the continent, sometimes engaging in acts of plain injustice. It was during this period that Britain's Australian colonies became the Empire's most important source of raw materials.
As evidenced by Ned's Rebellion, an armed struggle led by legendary bushranger Edward "Ned" Kelly, these policies only increased resentment and revolutionary sentiments. Appeasement came in the form of the Federation of the Commonwealth of Australia, a new state which was nominally self-governing and oriented towards the needs of Oceanyka's peoples, but in reality, remained anchored to London and acted as an apartheid state. Veterans of this armed conflict spurred on a brutal guerilla war (see: Oceanykan War of Independence) against the British-aligned government, raging on until a compromise was achieved in the 1907 Imperial Conference, where Queen Victoria officially granted Oceanyka full independence. This event signals the beginning of the Early Republican Age.
It is said by a number of historians that Britain's over-reliance on Oceanykan raw materials, which led to the underdevelopment of its colonial holdings within South Asia and Africa, was a leading cause of British defeat in the Great War.