The first mistake occurs in 1605, when Captain Willem Jansz sailed the Dufken to explore territory south of New Guinea. An encounter with hostile natives decimated his crew and the ship was unable to explore any further the coast of northern Australia. What if Jansz had tread a little more carefully in this area, he may have returned with a fuller account of the southern continent?

Early in the seventeenth century, the Dutchman Isaac Lemaire founded the Australia Company, with a mission to reap the wealth of this new continent and establish a venture to rival the Dutch East Indies Company. Unfortunately, this competitor scuttled his plans by commandeering his ship while it was docked in Batavia. What if Lemaire has chosen a friendlier port, and uncovered some of the richer lands of western Australia?

The first settlement is blessed with rich farming land. The Dutch, however, are reluctant colonists. The thought of ending their days in a far-flung corner of the world had no romantic appeal. Lemaire returns to The Netherlands with the hope of inspiring more to join his ‘Nieuw Hollanders’. Fortunately, political circumstances are in his favour.

In the Twelve Year Truce between successive wars with the Spanish, anti-Catholic feeling is high. The majority opinion favours suppression of all religions apart from the dominant Calvinist belief. There are many Protestants, however, who support religious toleration. Their leader, Oldenbarnevelt, had been charged with treason and is about to be hung. Fearing riots, the government had commuted his sentence to exile. Seizing the opportunity, Lemaire offers Oldenbarnevelt a promised land of religious toleration for him and his supporters. With little choice, Oldenbarnevelt agrees and leads a large contingent of settlers, including some Catholics, some moderate Protestants, but mostly Flemish who have fled north during the wars and fear the onset of more bloodshed.

Enterprising Dutch merchants and traders quickly locate the main sources of wealth in Nieuw Holland. Mines for gold and other minerals are established throughout the west, particularly the northwest. Unscrupulous merchants import slaves from southern Africa to supply the manpower needed to run these operations. For many years, these workers are explained away as a peculiar tribe of Aborigines. Yet with so much open land surrounding the mines, the operators have difficulty keeping their slaves.

Many escaped slaves are harboured by Aboriginal communities displaced by European occupation. The Zulu tribesmen in particular teach indigenous Australians how to wage war on the settlers. This leads eventually to a bloody confrontation between black and white populations. Luckily, the presence of Tembu slaves provides the black peoples with a good stock of negotiators. The colonists eventually agree upon the establishment of several homelands for different Aboriginal groupings.

This contract is called the ‘Balanda Treaty’ after the Aboriginal pronunciation of Hollander. While appeasing the majority of parties, there is nonetheless continuing conflict over its details. Occasionally a strict Calvinist sect arises to claim a homeland of its own.

While the Australian Company concentrates on the broad sweep of the southern seaboard, the Dutch East India Company begins to establish an outpost on the north of Australia. The company also allows the establishment of a French penal colony on the northeast coast of the country. There is fierce resentment of this invasion, but little the Nieuw Hollanders could do to prevent it given the limited resources of their military and huge expanse of land to be protected. Instead, they concentrate on the technological challenges of a dry continent. A series of windmills along the central coast provides artesian water for agriculture. This eventually leads to the ‘greening’ of the dry centre.

The foremost wonder of their nation is the Tasman Bridge that links the island of Tasmania to the mainland. Nieuw Holland becomes a republic after the First World War, when the new country is anxious to extricate itself fully from the horrors of European battles. Defence of the motherland was never a powerful motive in Balanda life. The country is divided into sixty nine separate provinces, each with their own level of government. Nieuw Hollanders take to self-government very seriously, with high participation in local councils at ground level, and intense interest in the parlement at a national level.