Ballarat in the context of Geelong

James Henry Scullin (18 September 1876 – 28 January 1953) was an Australian politician and trade unionist who served as the ninth prime minister of Australia from 1929 to 1932. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), having briefly served as treasurer of Australia during his time in office from 1930 to 1931. His time in office was primarily categorised by the Wall Street crash of 1929 which transpired just two days after his swearing in, thus heralding the beginning of the Great Depression in Australia. Scullin remained a leading figure in the Labor movement throughout his lifetime, and was an éminence grise in various capacities for the party until his retirement from federal parliament in 1949. He was the first Catholic to serve as prime minister.

The son of working-class Irish-immigrants, Scullin spent much of his early life as a laborer and grocer in Ballarat. An autodidact and passionate debater, Scullin made the most of Ballarat's facilities – the public library and South Street Debating Society. He joined the Australian Labor Party in 1903, beginning a career spanning five decades. He was a political organizer and newspaper editor for the party, and was elected to the Australian House of Representatives first in 1910 and then again in 1922 until 1949. Scullin quickly established himself as a leading voice in parliament, rapidly rising to become deputy leader of the party in 1927 and then Leader of the Opposition in 1928.

The 2006 Commonwealth Games, officially the XVIII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Melbourne 2006, were an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth held in Melbourne, Australia between 15 and 26 March 2006. It was the fourth time Australia had hosted the Commonwealth Games. It was also the largest sporting event to be staged in Melbourne, eclipsing the 1956 Summer Olympics in terms of the number of teams competing, athletes competing, and events being held.

More than 4,000 athletes from 71 Commonwealth Games Associations took part in the event. Zimbabwe withdrew its membership from the Commonwealth of Nations and Commonwealth Games Federation on 8 December 2003 and so did not participate in the event. With 245 sets of medals, the games featured 17 Commonwealth sports. These sporting events took place at 13 venues in the host city, two venues in Bendigo and one venue each in Ballarat, Geelong, Lysterfield Park and Traralgon.

Geelong (/dʒɪˈlɒŋ/ jih-LONG; Wathawurrung: Djilang/Djalang) is a port city in Victoria, Australia, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, about 75 km (47 mi) southwest of Melbourne. With an estimated population of 282,809 in 2023, Geelong is the second-largest city in the state of Victoria. It is the administrative centre for the City of Greater Geelong municipality, which is Port Phillip's only regional metropolitan area, and covers all the urban, rural and coastal reserves around the city including the entire Bellarine Peninsula and running from the plains of Lara in the north to the rolling hills of Waurn Ponds to the south, with Corio Bay to the east and the Barrabool Hills to the west.

The traditional owners of the land on which Geelong sits are the Wadawurrung (also known as Wathaurong) Aboriginal people of the Kulin nation. The modern name of Geelong, first recorded in 1827, was derived from the local Wadawurrung name for the region, Djilang, thought to mean "land", "cliffs" or "tongue of land or peninsula". The area was first surveyed by the European settlers in 1838, three weeks after Melbourne. During the 1850s Victorian gold rush, Geelong experienced a brief boom as the main port to the goldfields of central Victoria. The town then diversified into manufacturing, and during the 1860s became one of the largest manufacturing centres in Australia with its wool mills, ropeworks, and paper mills. During the city's early years, inhabitants of Geelong were often called Geelongites or Pivotonians, derived from the city's nickname of "The Pivot", referring to the city's role as a shipping and rail hub for Ballarat and the Western District.

The Eureka Rebellion involved gold miners who revolted against the British administration of the colony of Victoria, Australia, during the Victorian gold rush. It culminated in the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, which took place on 3 December 1854 at Ballarat between the rebels and the colonial forces of Australia. The fighting resulted in an official total of 27 deaths and many injuries, the majority of casualties being rebels. There was a preceding period beginning in 1851 of peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience on the Victorian goldfields. The miners had various grievances, chiefly the cost of mining permits and the officious way the system was enforced.

Tensions began in 1851, with the introduction of a tax on gold mines. Miners began to organise and protest the taxes; miners stopped paying the taxes en masse. The October 1854 murder of a gold miner, and the burning of a local hotel (which miners blamed on the government), ended the previously peaceful nature of the miners' dispute. Open rebellion broke out on 29 November 1854, as a crowd of some 10,000 swore allegiance to the Eureka Flag. Gold miner Peter Lalor became the rebellion's de facto leader, as he had initiated the swearing of allegiance. The Battle of Eureka Stockade ended the short-lived rebellion on 3 December. A group of 13 captured rebels (not including Lalor, who was in hiding) was put on trial for high treason in Melbourne, but mass public support led to their acquittal.

At the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, nine events in sprint canoe racing were contested. The program was unchanged from the previous two Games in 1948 and 1952. The competition was held on Lake Wendouree in Ballarat.

Snow in Australia is rare at sea level, but is common on the highlands of the southeast, in the states of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and in the Australian Capital Territory. Snow has been recorded in every state and territory, though among the state capitals only Canberra, Hobart and Melbourne have recorded snow. However it is much more common in the regional areas, with the cities of Orange and Ballarat featuring annual snowfalls and populations of over 40,000 and 120,000 respectively.

Snow sports are well established in Australia's south-east and Tasmania, though climate change has substantially reduced natural snowfall and opportunities for snowmaking at Australian resorts, particularly at the lower elevations, representing a threat to the viability of Australia's ski industry.