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Politics in Australia


Politics in Australia

Australia has a federal system of government, with eight state and territory governments and a national government. Each of these governments has an elected parliament, with the leader of each government being the leader of the largest party represented in the lower house. The national parliament is based on the British Westminster system, with some elements having similar characteristics to the American congressional system. At the federal level it consists of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Each Member of the House of Representatives represents an electoral division. The political party (or coalition of parties) which has the most Members in the House of Representatives becomes the governing party and forms the national government. Ministers are drawn from both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Prime Minister Julia Gillard, is the current leader of the national government and her political party the Australian Labor party holds a majority in the House of Representatives. The Queen remains the notional head of state, and her representative in Australia - the Governor-General - has a ceremonial and conventionally politically powerless role. A referendum to change Australia's status to a republic was defeated in 1999. To avoid confusion, note that traditionally Australian Liberals are centre-right party while Australian Labor is centre-left.

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Australia Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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