New England Online > History of New England > Toil and Trouble
Toil and Trouble
The next few years of New England's history were particularly rough. The years between 2020 and 2032 are often referred to as the Toil and Trouble Years. The Pacific Corridor dispute marked a profound souring in the relationship with Australia, and set the two nations on a course to conflict. However, to begin with it was hoped that any potential war could be avoided.
The economy and population of New England was initially very weak, but by the end of the period both were booming at unprecedented levels. The toil and trouble years also saw the first death of a sitting First Minister, and the first fall of a government by a loss of support in Parliament. But despite this, the democratic process of the nation was in excellent shape. It was boosted by a new election system in 2024, and has gone on to be much more stable than the events of these years would have suggested.
- A New Government
- Migration and Economic Boom
- Corbett, Yee and Gates
- Davidson Again
- The Changes Within
A New Government
The unwieldy United/SDP/Labour/Green Government that came to power in 2020 immediately extended the olive branch to the Australians. The government sought to address many of Australia's grievances in the hope it would it would settle the ongoing issues that were still outstanding. The most important of these was the Macdonald Line. The incoming First Minister, Antonia Davidson, appointed her deputy, Alex Fendalton as Minister for Australian Affairs, and charged him with the successful negotiation of the Border Treaty. Fendalton, however, failed to get the Australians to even agree to resume negotiations.
Davidson's job was made harder by an economic downturn associated not only with the treaty and closed border but also by world events. An ever yawning gap was opening up both between the United States, Europe and China. As the decade wore on, these division became more of a threat to the global economy. Markets across the world reacted badly to the dissolution of NATO that occurred on 1 July 2020 after France, Germany and Britain withdrew from the alliance in 2019. The end of NATO signaled that Europeans now believed they were strong enough to fend off any attack or threat to the continent. Furthermore, the United States remained mired in conflict with the arab world, and could not extricate itself from conflicts in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
Back home, New England had chosen to ally itself with New Zealand and the Europeans. The reasons were obvious, New England had no large allies in the region and was pitted against the Australians who were becoming increasingly hostile. The only hope New England had lay in the same people that rescued them from the Australians during the Civil War. New Zealand, although still small, was not a nation that shied away from diplomatic conflict. They had taken on France and the United States in 1980's over Nuclear energy, and then Japan over whaling in the 2010's and on each occasion they had won the day. Taking on Australia over it's treatment of the New Englander's was just another diplomatic manoeuvre they believed was just.
Migration and Economic Boom
Yet despite the doom and gloom outside, on the inside New England was a nation on the brink of rapid change. Despite the economic downturn, the population was now growing rapidly. Immigration controls were lifted with the passing of the Immigration Control Act in 2020. The act set out a thirty-five year plan, with a massive skilled immigration program to lift New England's population. The plan also set up the Migration Assistance Commission (known as the MAC), which was charged with the job of headhunting talented professionals from Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Ireland, France, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States. The program offered deposit and interest free loans to help with migration and home ownership. It also offered a guaranteed job for life to a great number of professionals who were in short supply. The hard work of the MAC would pay off in the next twenty years as New England began to recover from it's traumatic beginnings. The first wave of new immigrants were greeted by Antonia Davidson when they arrived at Armidale Airport to great fanfare in late 2020:
"You have come from lands that are much larger and much stronger than we are here. But you will be joining a people who are strongest of all in spirit, determination and desire to see to it that our land is known all over the world as the best place to live."
These new workers were soon resettled in Armidale and other large centres. They were given large house blocks and the interest free loans to build a new home. In a matter of months, Armidale's population went from 30,000 to 45,000. By 2024, the population of the city had reached almost 100,000. This boom in construction soon meant that the city needed to build a whole new range of services to cope with the population influx. Railways, tramways and motorways were laid down to serve the new suburbs that sprung up at a rate of one a month. Despite the rapid changes enveloping the city, two global surveys conducted in 2022 and 2023 rated Armidale and Port Macquarie in the top fifty of the world's most livable cities.
After the short term housing boom, a small but solid economic recovery occurred in early 2024. The world market had divided into three evenly sized trading blocs. An agreement negotiated by the World Trade Organisation allowed a mechanism for trade between the blocs to be settled. New England could now trade freely with the asian markets that it had coveted since independence. Large amounts of sugar and wheat from New England were exported over the next couple of years to Singapore, Hong Kong and North Korea.
The recovery came too late for the Davidson Government, which was narrowly defeated at the 2024 General Election. Davidson led her party into an inglorious minor position within the opposition coalition. Her exit from the headlines of the media was short, when a merger of the opposition parties formed the Social Democratic Labour Party in 2025. Davidson was invited back as leader of the new party and quickly applied her trademark pressure the weak National/DCP coalition government. Davidson's attacks led to series of mistakes that would be the demise of the second National government.
Corbett, Yee and Gates
The incoming Corbett government struggled in it's short existence to grip the realities that New England now faced. The MAC had done such a good job that New England's professions were almost filled, and supply was starting to outstrip demand. To counter this, Corbett tried to persuade some of the new migrants into moving into academia, a plan that saw mixed results. Corbett himself did not get to see the outcome of this scheme, as he died after just five months in office. He was succeeded by Cassandra Yee of the Democratic Conservatives (DCP) who led the government for seventeen days until the election of Yvonne Gates as First Minister.
Gates lived on a knife edge in Parliament and had a two seat majority in the House of Assembly. She relied on a coalition of Democratic Conservatives and independents to hold onto power, although it was widely expected that this arrangement would come apart in a short period of time. Despite this, Gates was able to continue to try and get the Border Treaty negotiated and through firm economic management she was able to boost the economy by mid 2026. The achievements of the Gates Government were undermined three months later, when it was revealed that a number of leading government MP's had been involved in plans to allow Australian banks to buy out their New England competitors and had on several occasions allowed Executive Council documents to be stolen in return for kickbacks from the banks. Gates denied the charges in Parliament in early December when she was challenged by Antonia Davidson:
"Mr Speaker, this government is not in the business of undermining the economy or sovereignty of our great nation. The accusations that are being put before this house by the Member for Wellingrove are, to put it mildly, stupid nonsense."
Despite the denial by Gates, a number of governments MP's, including Cassandra Yee, rebelled in the caucus and called for the First Minister to resign. When she refused, eleven National and Democratic Conservative MP's crossed the floor in Parliament to support Antonia Davidson and SDLP when a motion of no confidence was put. This lead to the fall of the government and return of the SDLP to power with those ex-National and DCP members that chose to join the government.
Davidson Again
Antonia Davidson was sworn in as First Minister on the 21 December 2026 and was able to remain in office for another five and a half years. The first term of the new SDLP government saw a major redevelopment of the military after an internal paper revealed that a large scale invasion by the Australians would not be halted if it was launched. The paper recommended adopting the methods used by Israel in the Six Day War
of 1967. This plan was adopted, and the New England Defence Force was in a far stronger position by the end of 2028.
While these recommendations would serve New England in the upcoming Five Day War, it was apparent to many that the government did not have the stomach for an all out war with the Australians and had little faith in the ability of the Defence Force to repel any attack if it was launched. The election of Tony Charlton, an aggressive new Prime Minister in Australia only made matters worse. Despite the best efforts to show a united front to the electorate, the government lost all credibility when it botched intelligence gathered that indicated that South-West Pacific Fleet was beginning preparations for an attack. At the next election held just three months later, the National Party under John Tudor romped home and was able to govern it's own right.
The Changes Within
In the background of the election, it was announced that New England's population had reached one and half million on Christmas Day, 2031. New England was a changing nation. While the racial makeup was only slowly changing, religiously, a big change was afoot. Unitarianism, which had barely existed in New England twenty years earlier was now beginning threaten Christianity as the dominant faith.
Naturally, the church reacted rather poorly to this news and in a joint statement claimed:
"The heart and, most important of all, the soul of this nation is under threat from a sinister faith that would have us turn away from the love and word of Christ and send us all on a journey that can only end in damnation, both in our mortal lives, and the eternity that awaits beyond"
The reaction was the church was a classic example of misreading public opinion. To the average New Englander, Unitarianism was a faith that brought peace and happiness. The attack annoyed by many people, and only furthered to alienate people from the established church of the west. Despite this turn of events, church attendances picked up for both major faiths, and have remained high since. The years of uncertainty throughout the 2020's only served to ensure that many New Englanders sought the comfort of faith.
The faith of every New Englander would be tested to the limit over the coming years as the march to war became inevitable.
| Timeline of New England History | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: New Found Nation |
Toil and Trouble 1970 - 2002 |
Succeeded by: Five Day War |
| History of New England | ||
| Timeline: Pre-History · Colonial Times · Proudly Australian · Winds of Change · Shadows of Dissent · Civil War Transitional Government · New Found Nation · Toil and Trouble · Five Day War · Engagement To Europe · Recent Times |
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| Topics: Military · New State Movement | ||
