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That's because we are, and always have been, a free settlement...unlike those other states which are, and always will be, penal settlements.

WRONG in regard to WA. Western Australia was founded as a free settlement. In the Goldrushes of the 1850's it did ask for the UK to send convicts to provide replacement labour for that lost to the goldrushes but it was despite the convicts that were sent, not a "penal settlement" as such. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Australia . See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convic...tern_Australia

"In April 1848, Charles Fitzgerald, Governor of Western Australia, petitioned Britain to send convicts to his state because of labor shortages. Britain rejected sending fixed term convicts, but offered to send first offenders in the final years of their terms. Most convicts in Western Australia spent very little time in prison. Those who were stationed at Fremantle were housed in the Convict Establishment, the colony's convict prison, and misbehaviour was punished by stints there. The majority, however, were stationed in other parts of the colony. Although there was no convict assignment in Western Australia, there was a great demand for public infrastructure throughout the colony, so that many convicts were stationed in remote areas. Initially, most offenders were set to work creating infrastructure for the convict system, including the construction of the Convict Establishment itself.

We were also unlike nearly other states not part of the old NSW and was for a time both independent from the UK and the rest of Australia . And don't start me on the myth of Captain Cook being the first European or even the first Englishman to discover Australia, as it was was discovered must earlier on the west coast by both Europeans (e.g. Dirk Hartog) and Englishmen (William Dampier).