☭ Nueva Australia in Paraguay was Australia’s experimentation with Communism
Should you ever find yourself in eastern Paraguay, you might encounter a small township called Nueva Australia (New Australia). Therein lies a fascinating tale, known by informed Australians, but I’ve never met a New Zealander familiar with it. Its roots go back to an 1890 bitter Queensland shearers’ strike which quickly spread to other unions and into New South Wales. Such was the hatred between the striking workers and the bosses, it literally reached the stage of potential civil war, illustrated…
Book Review: Australian Utopian dream in Paraguay – A ticket to Paradise
Book for the Week – A ticket to Paradise Blue-eyed South Americans with surnames like Smith and McQueen live in the wilds of Paraguay. This is the intriguing story of their ancestors, an idealistic Australian journalist called William Lane, and a colony called New Australia. In 1893, Australian journalist William Lane dreamed of creating a utopia where his socialist ideals could flourish, far away from his home in Queensland. He enlisted 238 followers and convinced them to sail across the Pacific with…
