Extract from ABC News
Ballarat Trades Hall secretary Brett Edgington with the unions' Eureka flag, also known as the Southern Cross flag. (ABC Ballarat: Alexander Darling)
In short:
The Eureka Rebellion was a battle fought between gold miners and government soldiers at Ballarat in 1854.
While the miners were defeated quickly, they won favour with the public and eventually earned more rights, including the right to vote.
What's next?
The 170th anniversary will take place tomorrow and Ballarat locals are watching to see if it is again misappropriated by far-right groups.
On December 3 last year, white supremacists marched through Ballarat displaying Nazi symbols.
The "unplanned demonstration" coincided with the 169th anniversary of the Eureka Rebellion, and is one of the more recent examples of the historic uprising, and its iconic Southern Cross flag, being co-opted by the far-right.
The Eureka flag has also become a symbol of the labour movement in Australia. (ABC Ballarat: Christopher Testa)
While left-wing groups value the rebellion as representing the ongoing struggle for workers' rights, it has also found favour with groups on the other side of the political spectrum, keen to show their anti-establishment values as being in the same spirit as the goldminers' fight against Victoria's colonial government.
If they return for this year's commemorations, experts say the far-right groups will be continuing their misunderstanding — or deliberate ignoring — of what actually happened in Ballarat in 1854.
What was the Eureka Stockade?
December 3, 1854 was a defining moment in Australian history, with some considering it the birth of the nation's democracy.
After years of protests over the heavy-handed policing of gold-mining licences, and a lack of political representation, miners fought a bloody battle against government soldiers at a flimsy makeshift fort, which came to be known as Eureka Stockade.
The outmatched miners were quickly defeated — with at least 22 miners and five soldiers killed — but the battle drew attention to their grievances, swaying public opinion in their favour.
Eventually the miners won the rights they had been fighting for, and some of the rebellion's leaders were even elected to Victorian parliament after being cleared of high treason by a jury.
Respecting the original intentions
Unions Ballarat's outgoing secretary Brett Edgington said it made him angry to see the Eureka Rebellion and its Southern Cross flag used "against its original purpose".
"The first time the flag was hoisted in Ballarat on November 29, 1854 … Raffaello Carboni, an Italian who helped create the flag, gets up in front of all the miners, and he very importantly says, 'I call upon all diggers, irrespective of colour, religion or creed, to salute the Southern Cross as a refuge for all the oppressed from all nations on earth'," Mr Edgington said.
"We have to go back to those initial intentions of the creators.
"Anybody these days who is using this flag for white supremacy or racism, or to put down any group, is not respecting the original intention of the people who created it."
Mr Edgington said The Ballarat Trades Hall first carried the flag in 1942 on a Labor Day march, at a time when many Australians had forgotten its history.
He said the flag was sometimes confused for the flag of the Lambing Flat Riots, a series of anti-Chinese attacks on New South Wales' goldfields a few years after the battle at the Eureka Stockade.
The Roll Up Banner was flown at the Lambing Flat riots, where Chinese goldminers were attacked. (Supplied: International Conservation Services)
Anthony Camm, the manager of the Eureka Centre which hosts the actual original Eureka flag, said many parts of the rebellion story remained unknown or contested, including exactly where in Ballarat the stockade was.
But he said the museum was dedicated to clearly articulating the facts that were known — including of the rebellion leaders who were eventually tried for treason.
"What we do know about Eureka is that among the 13 men that were tried for treason, two were of black African descent and one was Jewish — certainly not the forebears that a white nationalist group would align themselves to," Mr Camm said.
Mr Camm wants to help people find their own meaning in the true rebellion story. (ABC Ballarat: Alexander Darling)
"We try to share the story of Eureka and clarify some of that misinformation.
"When Eureka's story was written initially it was told as a story of Irish nationalists against British colonial forces, but people from many different nationalities were fighting for their rights and liberties, bringing with them the struggles from their own countries of origin."
Discrimination still took place on the goldfields even after the miners' successes, with Chinese gold miners protesting a tax they had to pay upon arriving in Victoria, aimed at stopping them from coming.
Eureka tower, Australia's third tallest building, is named after and had its design inspired by the Eureka Stockade. (Flickr: George Bayliss)
Why it still matters
Ceremonies and talks are taking place across Ballarat this month to mark the 170th anniversary.
But Mr Camm said the lasting impact of Eureka was under-appreciated across the rest of Australia.
Following the rebellion some of the miners' demands were met, including their right to vote.
"In Victoria, we had really early male suffrage [voting] — one of the first examples in the world," he said.
"That came directly out of Eureka and the several years of protests leading up."
Mr Edgington agreed, saying it shaped Victoria and Australia's democratic system and constitution, as well as its union movement.
"We have school groups through the hall, and I always tell them that the whole concept of a weekend, the whole concept of being off on Sunday — playing football and netball or sleeping in — would not have been possible without the conditions of Eureka and the eight-hour movement," he said.
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