In the economic sphere, boom conditions prevailed until the late 1880s. The Australian gold rush of the 1850s brought much less wealth to New South Wales than to Victoria, where the goldfields were considerably larger. But after causing some dislocation, the rush did add to the well-being of the colony and helped it recover from a depression experienced in the early 1840s. After 1860 capital poured in from England, and the pastoral industry was placed on a new footing. The squatters were largely untroubled by the attempts to dispossess them of their land. They began to build permanent homes and effect other improvements on their properties, reducing the need for shepherds and herdsmen by enclosing their land with the new wire fencing. The wool and cattle industries continued to expand, as did wheat farming, which, like pastoralism, was given a boost by the introduction of railway systems after the 1850s. Meat exports became possible in the 1880s after refrigerated transport was invented. All this benefited the large grazier, but the selectors also made their presence felt. The Robertson Land Acts, once wrongly regarded as a failure, did succeed in areas suitable for dairying or intensive cultivation and helped promote these branches of rural industry. Elsewhere, however, selectors often failed or were reduced to poverty. This economic climate helped provide the conditions in which outlaws known as bushrangers could thrive. Outlawry had been present from the earliest days, but it was in the 1860s and ’70s that these figures came to the fore. Their resistance to authority and to the unpopular squatters helped make them folk heroes.

Even more marked than the expansion of rural industry was urban growth. Country towns increased in number and size, although those that were bypassed by the railway suffered decline. Sydney, which as always was well placed to tap the wealth of both the interior and the Pacific, expanded to an unprecedented extent. The gold rushes had given Melbourne a great boost, but Sydney remained a centre of importance. With the coming of the railway and later of the tram, new suburbs were established in the outer districts. Previously workers had been obliged to live close to employment, but, once they were able to break this nexus, the urban sprawl that had been so much a feature of city development in New South Wales gained pace. It was checked only a little by acts such as the creation of the Royal National Park south of Sydney in 1879.

In the opening years of the last decade of the 19th century, most of Australia experienced a severe economic depression. Financial institutions collapsed, savings were lost, and unemployment was widespread. Industrial disputes, more serious than ever before, broke out, the most noteworthy being the Great Maritime Strike of May to November 1890. The unions involved in the strike were defeated, and this setback contributed to the decision in 1891 to establish a Labor Party. Its presence forced other political groups to organize themselves along party lines and ended the faction system in Parliament, already undermined by the split between free-traders and protectionists. In New South Wales the latter years of the decade and the beginning of the 20th century were also marked by a prolonged drought.

The 1890s saw a rise in national feeling, resulting in part from the fact that the population was by now mainly locally born. Art, literature, and journalism reflected this impulse, which also played a part in the federation movement. The movement had received a stimulus in 1889 when Sir Henry Parkes, one of the outstanding political leaders in New South Wales, delivered his Tenterfield oration, a speech calling for federation of the Australian colonies. More than a decade of hard bargaining was necessary before agreement on the form the national government was to take was achieved. In two constitutional referenda held in 1898 and 1899, New South Wales favoured the eventual outcome, although opinion was divided in the community.