Australia has existed as a free continent for at least 35 million years, it has been inhabited for some 70 thousand years, and it had governance with a governor since 15 years after the Boston tea party [0][1].
Which Australia are you thinking of?
Quite disturbed these days by the state of governance in this country, on so many levels.
- William Kermode, Tasmanian maritime merchant (1836) [3]
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest on December 16, 1773, by the Sons of Liberty in Boston in colonial Massachusetts.
The first settlement, at Sydney, consisted of about 850 convicts and their Marine guards and officers, led by Governor Arthur Phillip. They arrived at Botany Bay in the "First Fleet" of 9 transport ships accompanied by 2 small warships, in January, 1788.
Assuming you're acting in good faith, I agree that your original comment was extremely generic, and the point of this person's reply was simply to say "this comment could have been uttered at any point in history". Countries and government are always in flux and crtiscisms of a generic nature are almost always applicable. I don't think the comment was so cryptic as to require my explanation, but I hope it's helpful.
I think more specifically, they were going for "any point since the advent of modern democracy."
And obviously before that, but the assumption of who government was responsible to underwent a massive paradigm shift. "Gee, Charlemagne doesn't seem to have the interests of us serfs in mind" wouldn't have been a very interesting conversation back in the day.
The assumption of who government was responsible to underwent a massive paradigm shift with the issue of the Magna Carta in June 1215.
The case could be made that there was a long slow steady devolution of power in the UK system of Government since 1215 until the present, that was branched, modified and frozen by the US Constitution which has remained in a kind of "little King for four years" stasis since while other countries have continued to evolve government, democracy, elections and representation.
