Words Matter with Kel Richards: The origin of the word ‘Australia’

Broadcaster and wordsmith Kel Richards discusses the origin of the word “Australia” with Sky News host Peta Credlin. “Originally, there were two names. The left-hand part was called New Holland, because it was discovered by the Dutch in the 1600s, and the right-hand part was News South Wales,” he told Sky News host Peta Credlin. Mr Richards went on to explain that it was English explorer Matthew Flinders who suggested the name Australia after discovering the west and the east met in the middle. “The name that was written on the old maps was a Latin phrase Terra Australis Incognita, the Unknown South Land - he put those words together, and he coined the word Australia.” “Lachlan Macquarie, when he was governor, took it up and promoted it, and by the 1820s, that was it.”