Nigel, I totally agree about being wary of relying on wikipedia, but it's useful for refreshing my memory on the Oz history I was taught about 45 years ago.

This wikipedia article on
Van Diemen's Land states that Abel Tasman "discovered" it (i.e. the first recorded European contact with the island) in 1642. Captain Cook "discovered" NSW in 1770, and the First Fleet arrived in 1788 with a large number of convicts on board. From that time, NSW was set up as a penal colony, but the first article states:

'From the 1830s to the 1853 abolition of penal transportation (known simply as "transportation"), Van Diemen's Land was the primary penal colony in Australia. Following the suspension of transportation to New South Wales, all transported convicts were sent to Van Diemen's Land. In total, some 75,000 convicts were transported to Van Diemen's Land, or about 40% of all convicts sent to Australia."

But, if you look at the info I posted above about Frank the Poet, he was initially transported to Sydney in 1832 and was later sent to a number of penal settlements and finally to Van Diemen's Land for being very naughty. His sentence was commuted and he was made a free man some time later, and that's how he came to die in NSW.

So, I'm thinking that:
1. the place names for the penal settlements mentioned in songs and poems were likely to be specific and not generic,
2. If the song was written (or modified either consciously or in the folk tradition) around the 1830's or after, then Van Diemen's Land was specific for the place the convicts would have been transported to *at that time*.

I'm thinking as I write, so I am writing but I may be wrong (pun intended). :-)

Helen