Would like to know abit about Australian politics

Hello everyone,
I live in the UK and am writing an essay for university. Can you tell me about the Australian government and political system at the moment? What is the truth? what are your views? Is it good or is it bad? Was it better before?
Mark

 

I live in QLD and unfortunately my state does not have a senate. With the election of a "liberal" (right wing) government we are starting to realise what the term "dictatorship" is really about

 

Essay for university? What's the topic, the question? Is it about the political system according to law and protocol or is it about the political system as it is operating at present? And I assume you mean our federal (Commonwealth) system and not that of the states and territories?

 

I mean Tony Abbot's government in comparison to Julia Gillard's. It covers law and protocol but mainly the political system as it is operates at present.

 

Hmm. Thought he was right wing. Can you give me a few ideas of Tony Abbot's government compared to Julia Gillard's?

 

Quick overview. The political system is a mix of Westminster and the United States systems. I'll only reference the federal system.

The Commonwealth Parliament is bi-cameral. Unlike Westminster it has an elected upper house, called the Senate and modelled on the US Senate. Because we have a federal and not a national system of government the Senate was originally created so as to represent the rights of each State (and now Territory as well) in reviewing legislation. Sorry forgot to tell you the name of the lower house is the House of Representatives which is similar to the Commons. While MHRs (Members of the House of Representatives) are elected to represent a particular constituency, Senators are elected on a proportional voting system. In theory, as I mentioned, Senators are supposed to represent the interests of their State. That has fallen into desuetude, they now - apart from the independents and others on the cross benches - do as their party tells them.


The previous government - Australian Labor (be careful of the spelling, it uses the American version) Party - was from a party widely regarded as being social democratic in nature. It is similar to the British Labour Party but has a far less influential left wing than British Labour and is generally considered to be a mix of labourist and centrist in policies. The current government is a coalition of two conservative parties. The Liberal Party is the senior member of the coalition. The National Party is the junior member of the coalition. Neither of the conservative parties have been able to govern in their own right in Australia. They have been in coalition for many years. The coalition is widely regarded as representing the interests of big business. The Liberal Party is similar to the British Conservative Party. The LDP doesn't have an analogue in Australia. The National Party, the junior member in the coalition, represents primarily rural interests.


The Abbott government is right wing. If you can find some policies as opposed to slogans on their site - http://www.liberal.org.au/


For interest the ALP is here - http://www.alp.org.au/


At the moment the current government has been in power about a month or so. Parliament has not yet resumed and is due to sit very shortly. I'm trying to be objective but I have to make the observation that so far the Abbott government hasn't done much at all. It has shown itself to be wary of the compliant media here and seems to be intent on keeping information from the public. That may change when parliament sits, we'll see. We are aware of the prospective policies of the Abbott government though. One is to scrap the fibre to the home plan of the National Broadband Network and have it replaced with fibre to the node. That is contentious but I won't go on about it.


In summary, the Gillard Labor government had what might be called "progressive" policies (of course that depends on pov) while the Abbott government has professed conservative policies. But in many ways the Gillard govt was cautiously socially conservative, such as in its opposition to marriage equality in Australia where it refused to countenance changes to legislation to allow same-sex marriages. Because Australia is socially conservative it could be that the Gillard government adopted this position to avoid criticism in our very socially conservative system.


Anyway, hope that helps, if you have any more questions please ask.


If you need links just ask about topics and I'll do my best to get you some useful links.

 

I think it needs to be mentioned how lucky Australia has been in terms of the quality of economic leadership we have enjoyed over the last 30 years or so, from both sides of the political divide.

 

Possibly the pivotal point being the end of the ancien regime when Fraser got the boot and Hawke and Keating came in a shook the joint up. Everyone from that point - politically speaking - owed a debt to them - perhaps in the future Australian politics will be seen as footnotes to Hawke/Keating.

 

And I have to admit as much as I disliked John Howard's politics I could not fault him on his economics

 

Thanks for the info. So really it's the same kind of government as the we have in the UK. It comes across slightly different it's fundamentally the same.

 

Exactly .......................

 

Diuretic,
thanks for this quick and short summary, excellent and spot on....

 

Australia’s political system is controlled by two major corrupt and underhanded political parties with specific agendas, who refuse to give the voting constituents their democratic rights to make important choices for themselves through referendums.

Example: Three hundred Federal politicians have decided whether Australia should legalise “gay marriage” instead of calling for a national referendum that would allow every Australian the opportunity to vote on this important issue.

This issue of (gay marriage) doesn’t just effect three hundred politicians; it effects every Australian, and every Australian should have the democratic right to cast their vote relating to their preference on the subject.

We are living in 2013, and we should not be treated like mindless idiots by politicians who want to dictate every circumstance to us, without us having the opportunity to make our own decisions.

Unfortunately, the majority of the Australian mentality is similar to big babies in a pram being pushed around by politicians. They like the feeling of being in a safety-net, and being big babies with nappies on being protected by politicians.

 

I would take very little notice of what this sad man says, it is definitely not representative of most Australians

 

Not everyone wants to be pushed around like a mindless big-baby in a pram by politicians. Some of us want real political democracy by way of referendums, so we can have the opportunity to express our own opinions.

Unfortunately, what these mindless big-babies don’t understand, is that three hundred elected politicians don’t express the opinions of twenty million Australians. These three hundred politicians only express their own three hundred opinions, and the agendas that go with them.

The opinions of three hundred people should never be allowed to dictate the needs and requirements of twenty million people. When a situation occurs, that three hundred people dictate the needs of twenty million people, it demonstrates a dictatorship, not democracy.

 

See what I mean

 

Well Abbott's done a few things...

"Operation Sovereign Borders", promoted Angus Campbell and put him under control of the Immigration Minister.

"Irregular Maritime Arrivals" are now to be called "Illegal Maritime Arrivals".

He's reduced the projected foreign aid budget over 4 years by about $4 billion.

He's killed AusAID.

He's appointed a cabinet of 18 men and 1 woman.

He's set up a Commission of Audit headed by a lobbyist from the BCA.

Announced he's going to raise the debt ceiling by 66% to $500 b.

He's closed down the Climate Commission.

And there's been a minor MP entitlements scandal, nothing on the UK's though.

Australia isn't "socially conservative", Australian's in Western Sydney and Qld, aka marginal seats, are.

 

Australia isn't "socially conservative", Australian's in Western Sydney and Qld, aka marginal seats, are.

These are the clowns you are happy to see run the country without restraint!!

 

How many people actually voted for him? It's illegal not to vote in Australia isn't it? And yet am I right in thinking that the amount people who vote has nothing to do with who gets in?
I saw some of Julie Gillard's speeches on Youtube, I liked what she was saying. I know politics is politics and every government has to play the game to a point but it's interesting that people seem to have such an issue with policies which might benefit a country in a liberal way. By liberal I don't mean the Liberal party I mean the word 'liberal'. And everyone seems to go for the policies which are more conservative. It's the same in the UK. Do Australians see Tony Abbott as 'a man of the people'. Here people see David Cameron as a toff who went to Eton so he's tried to shape his message to sound a bit more liberal (the word liberal not the party) in what it offers.

 

Australia uses a Two Party preferred system. So direct voting trends then become translated after preferential voting is allocated.

Here is an article with some examples of how it works

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-party-preferred_vote

So when discussing who voted for who there are two figures to take into account. On a raw shootout between Labor and Liberal party. Labor earned 33.38% of the votes and the Liberals 32.02. With the flow of preferences and National Party votes the Liberals see their two party preferred come up to 53.45% and Labor languishing at 46.55.

The big thing to remember with two party preferred is once a candidate hits 50.01% of the vote, no preferences flow because the people voting that area have made a clear choice. Preferences are only a factor while no candidate has reached a majority.

Hope that helps - Ask if you have more questions

 

It is not a 'two party prefered system'. That is a term and a count/measurement used by election commentators on TV, it has nothing to do with our voting system. In Australia we have a 'preferential' voting system where voters vote for the candidate they most want to win, their first preference or primary vote, and then indicate in order their preference for other candidates if their first preference does not get 50% of primary votes from all voters in the electorate. So where no candidate gets 50% or more of the primary votes the second preferences get tallied up and added to the primary votes. This usually results in a winner but it can go to third preferences if there is still not a clear winner. This means that a candidate with very few primary votes can still win the election if most of the voters prefered them if their first choice didn't win outright.

 

A lot of people here do not like the two party preferred, I in a way am one of them. But with the system the way it is,it is in my opinion the fairest we have. The conservatives won't be objecting atm as you can see if it was which party actually got the most votes, we would have a Labor government because more people actually wanted Labor to win.

However, all those that voted Palmer and other right wingers gave their second preference to the Liberals. So what did we get.

Most people, if they didn't get their first preference, had their second preference counted, if they didn't get that,then their third etc. until someone in that electorate raised enough votes to be declared the winner.

More people, 38% wanted a Labor (liberal) government whilst only 32% wanted a Liberal (conservative) government.

Oh yes I do see the oxymoron in Liberal conservative government, we actually have two liberal conservative parties, one in government and one in opposition, the difference is the direction they take us.

The Liberals want us to go back, back to the good old days, some want a White Australia policy reintroduced,some want business to run Australia, some want most welfare removed, some want the abolishment of unions and the removal of employee rights. Moving backwards is safe, you have been there, you know what happens.

Labor want us to move forward, into a new world, into the unknown. Labor wants new ideas, new ways, a more sustainable future.

In my opinion,neither have the capabilities of being a great government, at the last election we had the choice of the rat we knew, and the rat we didn't know. Or the lesser of two evils (no two weevils jokes). Unfortunately, I feel we didn't do that.

 

So help me out what is different about your explanation and mine?

 

Agreed, Labor would never lose an election on a first past the post deal. However the majority of Labor voters are from the major cities, so we would place ourselves in the unfortunate situation that virtually anyone living outside 10 major population centers has no voice.

 

So how come we have a coalition government? Because more people wanted a Liberal/National government than a continuation of the Labor debacle.

Oh for a return to the great prosperity of the Howard years.

What, you mean that old Labor policy?

Business would probably do a better job than all the inept politicians and arrogant and self serving bureacrats we have got now.

You bet. Australia can't afford all the welfare parasites sucking on the public teat.

Nah, no one wants that. You have been sucked in by the union/labor anti Liberal propaganda machine to such an extent that you are now blindly repeating their banners and slogans.

AAAHH AHA AAHH! See above.

I would agree with that.