https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/when-the-australian-ruling-class-embraced-fascism/

Quote, ''One consequence of this was the tendency of the colonial rulers to adhere more vehemently to British customs and culture than even was the case in Britain at the time. Indeed, contrary to the nationalist folklore of egalitarian mateship dominating Australian life, the Australian ruling elite has historically been more uptight, reactionary and resistant to change than their supposedly more stuffy European brethren. Defending the British empire and British customs from various threats was in fact an obsession for them, in stark contrast to the pervasive image of Australia as a laid back, happy-go-lucky paradise free from the class-ridden norms of Old Europe.

Related to this was the colonial ruling class’s acute fear of the masses and hostility to democratic reform of any kind. The achievement, for example, of universal male suffrage in 1859, along with the land laws of 1860-61, was profoundly unsettling for them. As Andrew Moore has argued, their “wistful longing for a pre-democratic age, for the ‘old days’ before the levelling influence of democracy…corrupted political life” was a defining characteristic of the colonial elite.1 Not surprisingly then, the numerous struggles and riots of the 1850s and 1860s perturbed them greatly. During the Lambing Flat riots of 1861, one historian describes how “in Sydney drawing rooms respectable people were talking of the advantage of military dictatorship in keeping down the unruly and vagabond element'' end quote

Is this true.