Death or Liberty: Rebels and Radicals transported to Australia
As Premier John Brumby signals that his government will take action in Victoria to advance Australia becoming a republic as part of his re-election campaign, a new book was launched by the Hon. Lindsay Tanner MP in Melbourne on June 29, entitled Death or Liberty, which reveals the history of the many British, Irish and North American republicans transported to Australia as political prisoners in colonial times.
“Those seeking a republic can draw inspiration from political prisoners who introduced the republican idea into Australia’s political culture from the earliest years of settlement in the 1790s to the last convict ship that arrived in 1868″ said Dr Tony Moore, Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University.