• Bill Hicks thought being sent to Australia from Britain wasn't much of a punishment.
  "Let me get this straight: You keep the shitty weather and shitty food, while we get the Great Barrier Reef and lobsters the size of canoes? ...I'mJack the Ripper."

• Given an oblique reference inThe Headhunt. The first Starfleet vessel to respond to the break-in at Facility 4028,a Federation supermax prison, is the USSBrisbane. Brisbane was one of the Australian prison colonies.

• The Little Convict was a 1979 Australian film about a young boy named Toby Nelson transported to Australia, and what happened to him and his fellow convicts.

• Barry McKenzie Holds His Own: While locked up in prison, Barry meets the ghost of his many times great uncle ArthurMcKenzie who reveals to Barry an escape tunnel he dug while awaiting transportation to Australia. Ultimately, Arthur decided not to use the tunnel and instead go to Australia.
• In a rare American occurrence, a scene inDjango Unchained has Stephen summarily sentence Django to servitude in an Australian (or at least Australian-run) mining company, where he'll be worked literally to death and then buried in a mass grave,for the crime of shooting upCalvin Candie's plantation. Fortunately for Django, these particular Australians are more gullible than Stephen had anticipated, and he deals with them before returning to the plantation to pick up where he had left off during hisRoaring Rampage of Revenge.
• InFury at Smuggler's Bay, merchant and receiver François Lejeune and several of the local fishermen turned smugglers are sentenced to transportation to aPenal Colony. Although the colony is not specified, the timeframe means that it is most likely Australia. They are rescued by Christopher and the Captain before the sentence can be carried out.
• InThe Nightingale (2019) the protagonist is a young Irishwoman convicted for a petty theft and deported to Tasmania.
• In Scrooge (1951), Scrooge's boss Mr. Jorkin is found to have embezzled over £3,000 from their company, an offence for which the punishment was exile to Australia. As he's now spent all of said money, he mocks the rest of the executive board:
  Mr. Jorkin: And what would you gain to prosecute me? All you would get out of it is about eleven pounds-odd. And to pack me off to Botany Bay would be poor compensation for the panic that would arise among the shareholders.

To make the whole thing go away, the board agreed to let Scrooge and Marley buy out Jorkin's debts —and control of the company.

• Stranded starts off with theRobinson family,who are English in this version, being exiled to Australia. You see, the father refuses to pledge allegiance toGeorge III duringThe Napoleonic Wars,which obviously means that he's a Bonapartist. Of course, the family never actually makes it to Australia due to the storm that shipwrecks them on a tropical island.
• Van Diemen's Land takes place in 1822 in Tasmania and is loosely based on a true story. A group of transported convicts, suffering brutal treatment at the Sarah Island penal settlement on Van Diemen's Land escape into the wilderness in hopes of reaching the settlements to the east.
• Zu neuen Ufern (a.k.a.To New Shores andTo a Distant Shore) is a 1937 German film about a singer in Victorian London who takes the blame for her aristocratic lover's forging of cheques and who is sentenced to be transported to Australia. It is largely a propaganda piece designed to attack the British aristocracy.

• A British tourist is visiting Australia. "Do you have a criminal record?" asks the man at customs. The tourist replies, "I didn’t think you'd need one to get into Australia anymore." (Before you ask, yes, telling this joke to an actual Australian customs officer will reward you not with laughter, butwith a groan, a sigh, an eye-roll, or an impatient deadpan stare. Or some combination of the four.)

• Alien Clay: The Mandate ships "dissidents" out on cheap "fragmentation barges," good only for one trip, to land on an extrasolar labor camp and work there until they die. Twenty percent of the prisoners die before they even start working. As Arton notes, that's about as expected, historically speaking, for the sorts of empires that did these things.
• The fifth book in theAubrey-Maturin series, "Desolation Island", centers around Jack being given command of the old warshipHMS Leopard, which has been converted to a prison ship to deliver convicts to Australia. Exceedingly poor weather, a disease outbreak among the prisoners, and a vengeful Dutch man-o-war stalking them through the South Atlantic make it one of the duo's most trying adventures up to that point.
• InAnne McCaffrey'sCatteni series, the planet used as a relocation camp is named "Botany" by its population, which includes many Australians.
• TheDinotopia novelWindchaser starts with the wreck of a prison ship heading to Australia. One main character was a prisoner from the ship and one was the son of the ship's doctor.
• For The Term Of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke (originally serialized between 1870 and 1872) is a classic Australian novel on the subject. The story follows the fortunes of Rufus Dawes, a young man transported for a murder that he did not commit. The book clearly conveys the harsh and inhumane treatment meted out to the convicts, some of whom were transported for relatively minor crimes, and graphically describes the conditions the convicts experienced.
• Great Expectations: Compeyson argued that his escape was due to being terrorized by Magwitch. Consequently, his punishment was light, whereas Magwitch was put in irons, retried, and deported to New South Wales for life. Magwitch had a number of jobs in Australia, including that of a sheep farmer and stock breeder, and became rich.
• The Innkeeper Chronicles: After Maud's first husband Melizard failed in hiscoup attempt, they and their daughter Helen were sent to Karhari, a planet that the Holy Anocracy maintains as a dumping ground for the disgraced. It's a desolate wasteland whereMight Makes Right, and only a few specially licensed traders are allowed to come and go. If you are sent to Karhari, youstay on Karhari. Honorable vampires are appalled that House Ervan would send a child there.
• Kydd: InCommand, Kydd captains a transport ship full of convicts toAustralia during thePeace of Amiens.
• This seems to be a common stock fate for characters in the novels ofCharles Dickens; in fact, it almost happens to Kit inThe Old Curiosity Shop thanks to the machinations of Mr. Quilp, but Dick Swiveller manages to prove his innocence in the nick of time.
• This is the Artful Dodger's final fate inOliver Twist.
• Other Covenants: The title characters of "These Rebellious Hussies" are convicts in a women's prison in the British colony of Tasmania.
• This practice was referenced during aBat Deduction by Vizzini inThe Princess Bride and its film adaptation, who mentions that Australia is entirely populated by criminals.
• In "Riding the Rays", a nonfiction piece byDouglas Adams collected inThe Salmon of Doubt, Douglas's wife tells him that according to her guidebook Brisbane was a penal colony for people who'd committed crimesafter being transported, and Douglas looks out over the Great Barrier Reef and realises why Australians are always smiling at British people as though the Brits have missed the joke.
• Sherlock Holmes
  • "The Adventure of theGloria Scott" has this happened to an embezzler. However, he and his fellow convicts rebel and seize control of the ship before they reach Australia.
  • In "The Adventure of the Priory School", this is what (unofficially) happens toJames Wilder, theVillain of the Week, forscheming to steal his legitimate brother's inheritance.
• In theTemeraire series,Laurence andTemeraire get booted to Australia at the end of the fifth book. Not bad, considering that they started that book under death and breeding-ground sentences respectively for treason. They get recalled back into service at the start of the seventh book when a crisis arises that only they can deal with, but by then they've ironically become reluctant to leave, having found a peaceful, pastoral life there.
• This is to beAsh Cohen's fate in Rose Lerner'sRomance NovelTrue Pretenses, but he's rescued at the last minute and ends up asThe Atoner back home in England instead.
• InThe Water-Babies, it's mentioned that one of the chimney-sweep Tom's parents is dead and the other is in an Australian penal colony. Tom has no memory of either of them.

• Against the Wind: Set during Australia's colonial era over the period 1798–1812, the series follows the life of Mary Mulvane, a daughter of an Irish school master. At 18, she is transported to New South Wales for a term of seven years after attempting to take back her family's milk cow which had been seized by the British "in lieu of tithes" to the local proctor. She endures the trial of a convict sea journey to New South Wales and years of service as a convict before her emancipation and life as a free citizen.
• Ask Rhod Gilbert: Deconstructed when Greg informs the panel that his quiz showAll Australians Are Convicts has been banned for being racist.
• The whole premise of the seriesBanished.
• Bligh was an AustralianSitcom about William Bligh's time as colonial governor as New South Wales. It naturally featured a number of characters who had been sentenced to transportation to Australia.
• Die on Your Feet: Discussed. O.J. complains that when doing gigs in the UK, British audiences treat Australian comics like convicts. Bob says it's not that bad, as you don't have to buy a plane ticket home, you could just steal a loaf of bread and get sent back to Australia.
• SinceEscape of the Artful Dodger is a sequel toOliver Twist set in Australia, both the Artful Dodger and Fagin are transported to the show's setting this way.
• Great Expections: The Untold Story was 1987 telemovie which follows the adventures of Abel Magwitch (fromGreat Expectations), the escaped convict who forced the young Pip to hide and steal for him in the first part of the story. Then it settles to Magwitch's wanderings through Europe and his journey to Australia where it shows the means he used to become a wealthy gentleman and the reasons he decided to become Pip's benefactor.
• Inspector Morse:
  • In the episode "The Wench Is Dead, Part 2", Morse is forced to go on sick leave and busies himself by reinvestigating a murder case from Oxford during the 1860s, which he suspects resulted in three wrongful convictions. The men were sentenced to hang, but one found religion in prison and became a model inmate. For this his sentence was commuted at the last minute to transportation (presumably to Australia given the time period).
  • In another episode, Morse has to travel to Australia regarding a case involving a British criminal in witness protection who was given another identity in Australia. Naturally the local police are not impressed, and make sarcastic comment about how the British were supposed to have stopped dumping their convicts on them.
• Sharpe: Richard Sharpe is twice threatened with being sent to command penal battalions in Australia during the series for getting in the way of various powerful interests. First inSharpe's Regiment and again inSharpe's Justice.
• Sherlock & Daughter: Moriarty's son Daniel became a pickpocket as a boy. When he was caught, the courts had him sent to Australia, with him being forced intoIndentured Servitude on a sheep farm. He later took the name Michael Wiley before returning to England as an adult. Holmes and Amelia both find this horrifying, with her comparing it to the indigenous forced laborers who were made to work on the missions in California (she's herself partly indigenous). Holmes grimly replies that it's extraordinarily cruel and inhumane, and naturally such policiesare incredibly popular with the British public.
• In theStar Trek: The Original Series episode "Space Seed", Khan Noonien Singh's ship was the SSBotany Bay, specifically as an allusion to this.
• Top Gear (UK): Referenced. The Top Gear Australia hosts get a "taxi" courtesy ofClarkson to pick them up from the airport. It's a jail bus.
  Jeremy: I just thought it would be nice to come back into the country the way their ancestors left.
  Richard: There is a pleasing... circularity to this. Thoughtful,very thoughtful.
  Steve Pizzati:(getting out the bus)That gag was not funny in 1938!
• Victoria: Early in the series, when Queen Victoria hears some rabblerousers are to be hanged, drawn and quartered, she's quick to order their sentences commuted to transportation.
• OnThe Young Ones, one bit scene featured two convicts on a ship bound for Australia. While one was irate about his sentence, the other was rather pleased to go where his son and daughter-in-law had been sent years earlier.
• You're Skitting Me has a recurring sketch featuring two prisonersin stocks discussing their transportation and what they thought of their new life in Australia.

• In the song"10,000 Miles Away", the singer's sweetheart has been transported "with a government band around each hand and another one around her leg" and he is stating his intention to go join her.
• Several folk songs are about being sent to Australia, such as "The Black Velvet Band".
• "Botany Bay" is all about this trope. Final verse:
  Now all my young Dookies and Dutchesses
  Take warning from what I've to say
  Mind all is your own as you toucheses
  Or you'll find us in Botany Bay
• The '70s Irish song "The Fields of Athenry" is about a young man being sent to Australia for some combination of stealing food during the Potato Famine and rebelling against the British occupation (the song mentions both and it's unclear which was the primary factor; it's likely the speaker is aComposite Character).
• "Jim Jones At Botany Bay," famously sung by Daisy Domergue inThe Hateful Eight, is the story of a young man sent to Australia for poaching who intends to escape and wreak bloody vengeance on his captors.
• "Kitty" byThe Pogues.
  Hushmo mhuirnín, the police are watching
  And you know that I must go,a stór
  So good night and God guard you forever
  And write to me won't you, goodbye
• The traditional folk song "Maggie May" has the chorus refer to her eventual fate:
  Oh, Maggie, Maggie May, they've taken you away
  They've sent you to Van Diemen's cruel shore.
• The second song onU2'sRattle and Hum,"Van Diemen's Land" (after the original Dutch name for Tasmania), is about the Irish freedom fighters who were transported. It's specifically dedicated to the poet John Boyle O'Reilly, who was deported to Western Australia in 1868 for rebel activities as a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
• Gets a mention inJohn Denver's "Sing Australia":
  Some of you came as prisoners
  Two centuries ago.
• There's another song called "Van Diemen's Land", this one about a poacher whose entire gang gets transported. As a folk song, it has numerous variants: in theSteeleye Span version the singer isa female poacher; in some other versions there is a female poacher (or possibly a prostitute) who isn't the singer. In all versions the female character gains her freedom through marriage.

• Bleak Expectations: Part of the reason seriesBig Bad Mr. Benevolent's childhood was so lonely was because his first step-father would occasionally take part when Benevolent and his friends played Cops & Robbers, and got a littletoo into it, sending who he caught to Australia.

• The playOur Countrys Good is about a bunch of people sentenced to Australia.
• InSweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, this happened to Benjamin Barker, the man who would become Sweeney, who was transported for life fifteen years ago because the corrupt Judge Turpin wanted his wife Lucy for himself.

• One possible bad ending inCurses! has the player character transported to Australia for trespassing on his ancestor's property while traveling in time.

• Human Kind Of: Discussed and subverted in the episode "Aliens Anonymous."Judy is urged to attend a support group for Earth-dwelling extraterrestrials, only to realize that absolutely all of them hate the planet and wouldn't be there if they had any other choice. Horrified, she asks if Earth is a prison planet. When told it isn't, she then asks if it's this trope, but is promptly corrected and told that it's more like Nebraska; so unremarkable that it's the best place to hide out and avoidactual imprisonment.

• Referenced inThe Simpsons. During "Bart Versus Australia", Marge and Lisa visit a statue of a convict while Homer and Bart are in court. Marge reads the inscription on the statue noting its past as a penal colony and tells Lisa to watch her purse just as a group of locals are about to rob them. Further adding to the gag, the statue is of an ancestor of Springfield's own resident criminal Snake.

• During the late 18th century and the first half of the 19th, this was very muchTruth in Television. Interestingly, it was considered the merciful option, since it was available as an alternative to hanging (not that hanging was being used mercifully, asAll Crimes Are Equal notes), with it being possible for a death sentence to be commuted by the Crown to transportation.
  • In 1824 the New South Wales penal colony instituted its own version of the trope by sending convicts to Norfolk Island. Those who had been "double convicted", having been transported to New South Wales and then committedanother major crime were sent there. The island had already been abandoned once after 26 years settlement. The second attempt lasted 32 years, until in 1856 it was abandoned and descendants ofThe Bounty mutineers took over the island, subsequently becoming integrated with the New South Wales colony, and Australia upon Federation.
• The iconic Australian bushrangerNed Kelly was the son of an Irish convict, John "Red" Kelly, who was transported for the theft of two pigs.
• Before this, convicts were transported to the American colonies. Unfortunately, thoseimpertinent colonials rebelled against the British Crown, necessitating the search for another dumping ground. And we do mean a search; there was literally nowhere else in the empire deemed suitable for "transportation".^note Canada was out of the question for reasons both practical (it couldn't really support much of a prison colony) and political (what land hadn't been promised to the incipient Québécois had been promised to Loyalist refugees from the former Thirteen Colonies). A similar dynamic prevailed in the Cape Colony, except without the Loyalists and replacing the incipient Québécois with the incipient Afrikaners. (Also, the indigenous Africans had the same exposure to Old World diseases as the Europeans, so the arrival of Europeans in South Africa didn't cause a mass depopulation event the way it did in the Americas and—later—Australia). And the rest of the empire was not subject to settler colonialism—except perhaps Ireland, depending on your definition of the term, but that was no good because (1) Ireland was nearby and the idea of "transportation" was to send the convicts far away, (2) Various"plantation" schemes had already been tried before with mixed-to-poor results, and (3) a large number of the convicts werefrom Ireland. Hence the need to found a totally new colony. The rest is history.
• Before eventhat, tens of thousands of imprisoned Irish (some of whom were kidnapped) were sent to Barbados by the British, which was called getting "barbadosed."
• In a case of both Awesome and Heartwarming, two sheep-stealers, James and Leonard Cheatham, were subjected to this, but eventuallybought back their freedom, managed to marry fellow convict women and thensettle the land in Australia,becoming wool merchants themselves. Centuries later,their descendant,Wendy Robinson QC, would become noted as a Crown Prosecutor in New South Wales. A segment of their story was one of the closing items ofa historical documentary on Lancaster Castle, where they were arraigned in.

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