Martial Law in Colonial Australia
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Martial law was an exceptional emergency measure used when colonial authorities considered ordinary civil powers inadequate. In pre-Federation Australia it was invoked in very different circumstances: a food emergency on Norfolk Island, the Castle Hill convict rebellion, the overthrow of Governor Bligh, bushranging in Van Diemen’s Land, frontier violence at Bathurst and in Van Diemen’s Land, and the aftermath of the Eureka Stockade. Its use therefore does not, by itself, establish that the underlying event was a war. 
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Only two of the seven main episodes concerned Aboriginal frontier conflict: Bathurst in 1824 and Van Diemen’s Land from 1828, with the Tasmanian proclamation extended island-wide in 1830. 

With respect to the two martial-law episodes directed at Aboriginal people, Bathurst in 1824 and Van Diemen’s Land from 1828, the wording is especially revealing.
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At Bathurst, Governor Brisbane stated the purpose as “to restore Tranquillity” and authorised the use of arms beyond the ordinary rule of law “in Time of Peace”, while directing that cruelty was unlawful and that women and children were to be spared. The proclamation therefore framed martial law as an extraordinary response to violence within a condition still described as peace. 
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Van Diemen’s Land was the exceptional case in duration and intensity. Martial law remained in force for more than three years and was extended across the island in 1830. Yet even the 1830 proclamation directed that arms should not be used where Aboriginal people could be captured by other means. The existence of martial law demonstrates the seriousness of the emergency and the extent of colonial coercive power; it does not by itself answer the separate question of whether the opposing Aboriginal groups constituted an organised belligerent engaged in war.​