The aspiration for an anarchist federation in Australia is as old as the anarchist movement in Australia itself. Upon its formation in 1886, the Melbourne Anarchist Club announced its intention to “promote the formation of voluntary institutions similar to the Melbourne Anarchist Club throughout Victoria and the neighbouring colonies, and, with their consent, to eventually unite with them forming the Australasian Association of Anarchists.”1 David Andare, one of MAC’s founders, wrote enthusiastically of this prospect to the American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, who received his correspondence with equal excitement. As early as 1888, however, divisions would appear within this young movement, with many moving away from the individualist anarchism espoused by Andare and Tucker in favour of the anarchist communism of Peter Kropotkin and Emma Goldman.2