How did Australia develop from an early criminal exile to a developed country?

First, use criminals to open up wasteland. There is basically no cost in using criminals to open up wasteland. Rely on the labor of criminals, slaughter and expel the aborigines who occupy Australia's high-quality land, and then choose to build more criminal exile sites on high-quality land. When criminals completed the infrastructure construction in various exile places, Britain began to encourage freemen to move to Australia to realize the growth of Australia's population. Without population, there will be no development, and with population, development will become a matter of course.

Secondly, I hitched a ride on the British industrial revolution. During the British industrial revolution, what was most lacking was the origin of raw materials and the commodity market. At first, Britain regarded the thirteen States of North America as raw material producing areas and commodity markets, but due to excessive squeezing, the North American War of Independence broke out and the United States became independent. Since then, Britain has a long memory and began to treat these colonies established by British immigrants, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in the most enlightened way.

Britain granted these three colonies autonomy, upgraded them to autonomous territories, and adopted reasonable ways to conduct economic exchanges with them. Since then, Australia has gradually changed from a prison farm to an autonomous colony. Australia has no reason to resist, but wholeheartedly acts as the raw material producing area and commodity market of Britain.

Australia is considered to be a country sitting on a mine car and riding on the back of a sheep. It is rich in mineral resources and has a vast territory, which is also very suitable for the development of animal husbandry. At that time, the British industrial revolution not only increased the demand for minerals, but also increased the demand for wool in the textile industry. So these resources in Australia are exactly what Britain needs. Since then, Britain has continuously increased its funding to Australia to help Australia build infrastructure to obtain resources. According to statistics, 80% of Australia's railway construction funds in the19th century were supported by Britain. Not only did the British government strongly support it, but also British businessmen came to Australia to spend money, some mining and some raising sheep. These measures have greatly promoted the development of mining and animal husbandry in Australia. Relying on the support of British capital, Australia has accumulated a lot of wealth by relying on these two items, laying an economic foundation for Australia's further development.