On the 3rd of December in 1854, at dawn the police and soldiers attacked the diggers at Bakery Hill at the Eureka Stockade. The Eureka Stockade battle took place because the gold miners were not happy about paying for gold licenses. They also weren’t happy because the Government was not treating them right.

The stockade was only a wooden barricade enclosing about an acre of the goldfields. The battle lasted for only 20 minutes. Five soldiers were killed and thirty diggers were killed or later died later of their wounds.

The immediate result after this fight was licenses became almost non-existent and the Victorian jury acquitted all but one of the thirteen miners charged. After the battle at the Eureka Stockade gold licenses were finally abolished and miners could buy a miners’ right costing one pound per year. This meant that miners were now able to vote in elections for parliament.

This battle gave us the right to vote for our prime ministers, it was the start of Australian democracy!