…”In many cases, pubs were the first structures built in newly colonised areas, especially on the goldfields, and new towns often grew up around them. Pubs typically served multiple functions, simultaneously serving as hostelry, post office, restaurant, meeting place and sometimes even general store. Pubs proliferated during the 19th century, especially during the gold rush that began in the 1850s.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_pub  

Until the late 1980s, pubs in Australia were forced by the liquor laws to provide accommodation. In the late 1800's hotels were opened as staging posts for Cobb and Co. this gave rise to the names of the Exchange and the Royal Mail hotels.  Hotels also catered for railway passengers, or for the workers who were laying rail line during the wave of railway building in the late 19th and early 20th century, hence the name Railway hotel . The Commercial hotels were so named because commercial travellers, or sales reps, needed accomodation as they journeyed around the country. Some Pubs were named after British nobility, e.g.the Royal, or after a local landmark e.g. the Courthouse.

…”Located on major transport routes, in new towns, at river crossings, major junctions, mining and railway towns, ports and seasides, pubs were often the first business in a new township and the last to close when a town was abandoned. They have provided venues for religious worship, theatrical entertainment, meetings small and large, public and private, balls, banquets, fetes and sporting events, and have been used as school classrooms, commercial rooms for travelling salesmen, electoral polling places and venues for inquests. As well as planned events by both publican and the community, pubs are renowned for unplanned interaction between regulars and strangers.”  Patricia Sumerling, ‘Pubs’, SA History Hub, History Trust of South Australia, http://sahistoryhub.com.au/subjects/pubs, accessed 13 November 2017.