Politics of Australia

The Politics of Australia take place within the framework of a parliamentary democracy, with electoral procedures appropriate to a two-party system. Australia is governed as a federation and as a constitutional monarchy, with an adversarial legislature based upon the Westminster system. Australians elect parliamentarians to the Parliament of Australia, a bicameral body which is a hybrid of the parliamentary mechanisms carried over from the United Kingdom with the uniquely federalist element of the Australian Senate. Australia operates a system of compulsory voting.

Legislative branch

The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia consists of two chambers:

The Australian House of Representatives has 150 members, each elected for a three-year term of office to represent a single-seat constituency. Voting within these constituencies takes place using a system of alternative voting known as full preferential voting.

The Australian Senate has 76 members. The six states return twelve members each, elected through the single transferable voting (STV) system. In addition, the two territorial constituencies, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), return two representatives each, through STV. Electors choose the state senators for a six-year term, with half of the seats renewed every three years. The territory senators serve for a term that is determined by the life of the House of Representatives.

Elections

At a national level, elections are held at least once every three years.^[1] The Prime Minister can advise the Governor-General to call an election for the House of Representatives at any time, but Senate elections can only be held within certain periods prescribed in the Australian Constitution. The most recent Australian federal election took place in August 2010.

In 1948, the voting system for the Senate underwent a significant change. Prior to this, Senate elections had been conducted using a bloc voting system, where a disproportionate number of seats went to the party that had achieved the highest vote in that state. This most often resulted in landslide victories for one political party or another following relatively small changes in the popular vote, as well as periodically resulting in a Senate with a large majority of opposition senators. The introduction of the single transferable voting system, resulted in the numbers of senators from each party more closely reflecting the numbers of votes that the party had received, and therefore a more balanced Senate. For most of the last thirty years a balance of power has existed, whereby neither government nor opposition has had overall control of the Senate (the exception being between 2005-2008, when the Liberal/National parties controlled the upper house). This limitation to its power, has required governments to frequently seek the support of minor parties or independents in order to secure their legislative agenda.

The ease with which minor parties can secure representation in the Senate compared to the House of Representatives has meant that these parties have often focused their efforts on securing representation in the upper house. This is true also at state level (only the two territories and Queensland are unicameral). Minor parties have only rarely been able to win seats in the House of Representatives. The Greens, for example, won a House seat at the 2002 Cunningham by-election, but lost it again in the 2004 general election. Adam Bandt won the Greens' first seat at a general election in August, 2010. Minor parties do, however, affect lower house politics through their recommendations to voters (on their distributed how-to-vote cards) suggesting which of the main parties they ought to favour, a strategy regarded as decisive in the outcome of some elections, such as the 1990 federal election.^[2] This focus on the upper house, though, has molded the platforms and politics of minor parties, when an upper house brokering role is seen as the best opportunity to affect legislative outcomes. The demands placed on parties by this role can cause internal tensions within them and exert external pressure upon them – as demonstrated, for example, by internal splits that contributed to the political decline of the Australian Democrats.

Because legislation must pass successfully through both houses in order to become law, it is possible for disagreements between the House of Representatives and the Senate to hold up the progress of government bills indefinitely. Such deadlocks are resolved under section 57 of the Constitution, under a procedure called a double dissolution election. Such elections are rare, not because the conditions for holding them are seldom met, but because they can pose a significant political risk to any government that chooses to call one. Of the six double dissolution elections that have been held since federation, half have resulted in the fall of a government. Only once, in 1974, has the full procedure for resolving a deadlock been followed, with a joint sitting of the two houses being held to deliberate upon the bills that had originally led to the deadlock.

Executive branch

Reflecting the influence of the Westminster tradition of government in the United Kingdom, Crown ministers in the Australian government are drawn from among the elected members of parliament.^[3] The government is formed by the party or parties that have the confidence of the majority of members of the House of Representatives. In practice, this means that the party, or coalition of parties, that holds a majority of the seats in that chamber can successfully form a government. By convention, the Prime Minister is always a member of the House of Representatives. On the only occasion that a Senator was made Prime Minister, in 1968, Prime Minister John Gorton quickly resigned and contested a seat in the House of Representatives.

All ministers are expected individually to defend collective government decisions. Individual ministers who cannot undertake the public defence of government actions are generally expected to resign. Such resignations are rare; and the rarity also of public disclosure of splits within cabinet reflects the seriousness with which internal party loyalty is regarded in Australian politics.

Political parties and Australian politics

The role of parties in Australian politics

Organised, national political parties have dominated Australia's political landscape since federation. Politics in Australia since 1900 saw the rapid and early rise of a party representing organized, non-revolutionary workers, the Australian Labor Party. Those political interests not involved in a socialist agenda coalesced into two main parties: a centre-right party with a base in business and the middle classes that has been predominantly socially conservative, now the Liberal Party of Australia; and a rural or agrarian conservative party, now the National Party of Australia. While there are a small number of other political parties that have achieved parliamentary representation, these main three dominate organized politics everywhere in Australia and only on rare occasions have any other parties or independent members of parliament played any role at all in the formation or maintenance of governments.

Whether Australia's political system should be characterized as a two-party system is open to debate. Of Australia's three main parties, the Liberal Party and the National Party are in a long-standing coalition at national level. However, they are not always in coalition at state level and when they are, the Liberal Party is not always the senior partner. In Queensland, the two parties have joined to form the Liberal National Party (LNP). However, as the National Party only ever considers a coalition or similar arrangement with the Liberal Party,^[4] the Australian parliament behaves as though it was a two-party system when it comes to a choice of government, even though voters in some constituencies may have a choice between three candidates each with a realistic chance of being elected to office.

Despite the pervasive role of political parties in Australian politics, they are "almost totally extra-legal and extra-constitutional".^[5] In contrast to some other countries, such as the United States, Australian political parties are relatively unregulated. There is, however, a system of party registration through the Australian Electoral Commission and its state and territory equivalents, including a requirement to report some aspects of party activities, principally the receipt of major donations.

Political parties in Australia 2010

Major parties

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) is a social democratic party founded by the Australian labour movement and it broadly represents the urban working class, although it increasingly has a base of sympathetic middle class support as well. As of November 2010, the Australian Labor Party has formed a minority government with the support of four cross-benchers.

The Liberal Party of Australia is a party of the centre-right which broadly represents business, the suburban middle classes and many rural people. Its junior coalition partner at national level is the National Party of Australia, formerly the Country Party and widely known as "The Nationals"; a conservative party which represents rural interests. These two parties are collectively known as the Liberal/National coalition.

The counterpart of the National Party in the Northern Territory is the Country Liberal Party.

Minor parties

Minor parties in Australian politics include a green party, the Australian Greens, a social progressive party and a social conservative party, the Family First Party. Formerly significant parties in a list of political parties in Australia would include the nationalist One Nation party and the social liberal Australian Democrats.

History of Australia's political parties

Despite the presence of three main political parties, Australian politics operates as though it was a two-party system. Internal party discipline has historically been tight, unlike the situation in other countries such as the United States. Australia's political system has not always been a two-party system, however, nor has it always been as internally stable as in recent decades.

Statistics

Further information: List of Prime Ministers of Australia.

Below is a table showing the cumulative total of days in federal office for each Australian political party.

Australian national politics 2010

Due to the falling popularity of Labor leader Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister, the party replaced him in 2010 with the former deputy leader Julia Gillard. The Australian Labor Party had come to power in November 2007, ending John Howard's 11 years in office as Prime Minister and head of a Liberal/National coalition government. Soon after Julia Gillard's appointment as Prime Minister, she called an election. As a result of this election, Labor lost its majority in the House of Representatives, although neither Labor nor the Coalition had enough members to call a government. By means of a deal which the Labor party was able to strike with three of the four independent members and the single Green Party member in the House, Labor was able to claim a slim working majority and form a new government.

Administrative divisions

Regional government

Regional elections in the six Australian states and two territories are held at least once every four years, although Queensland holds them every three years. In New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, election dates are fixed by legislation. However, the other state premiers and the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory have the same discretion in calling elections as the Prime Minister at national level.

Local government

Local government within each state is delegated to Local Government Areas but they have little power compared with the overseeing state government.

See also

• List of Australian ministers
• Politics of Australia and Canada compared
• Canberra Press Gallery
• Political donations in Australia
• Political families of Australia
• Environmental movement in Australia

Notes

Further reading

• Robert Corcoran and Jackie Dickenson (2010), A Dictionary of Australian Politics, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW
• Department of the Senate, 'Electing Australia’s Senators', Senate Briefs No. 1, 2006, retrieved July 2007
• Rodney Smith (2001), Australian Political Culture, Longman, Frenchs Forest NSW

External links

• Australianpolitics.com News, reference articles, and many other resources, maintained by teacher Malcolm Farnsworth
• Australian Government and Politics Database maintained by Campbell Sharman of University of Western Australia