Australian Law & Government

Government

The Commonwealth of Australia is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government. Queen Elizabeth II is the Queen of Australia, a role that is distinct from her position as monarch of the other Commonwealth Realms. The Queen is represented by the Governor-General at Federal level and by the Governors at State level. Although the Constitution gives extensive executive powers to the Governor-General, these are normally exercised only on the advice of the Prime Minister. The most notable exercise of the Governor-General's reserve powers outside the Prime Minister's direction was the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in the constitutional crisis of 1975.

There are three branches of government.  The first is the legislature, known as the Commonwealth Parliament, which is comprised of the Queen, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.  The Queen is represented by the Governor-General, whose powers are limited to assenting to laws.  The second branch is the executive or the Federal Executive Council (the Governor-General as advised by the Executive Councillors).  In practice, the councillors are the Prime Minister and Ministers of State. The third branch is the judiciary or the High Court of Australia and other federal courts. The State courts became formally independent from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council when the Australia Act was passed in 1986.

Politics

Organized, national political parties have dominated Australia's political environment and parliament since federation. Politics since 1900 can be characterised by the rapid and early rise of a party representing organized, non-revolutionary workers - the Australian Labor Party - and the coalescing of non-Labor political interests into two parties: a centre-right party that has been predominantly socially conservative and with a base in business and the middle class (now the Liberal Party of Australia); and a rural or agrarian conservative party (now the National Party of Australia) (see following sections for more detail). While there is a small number of other political parties that have achieved parliamentary representation, these three parties dominate organised politics in all Australian jurisdictions, and only on rare (and generally short-lived) occasions have any other parties or independents played a role in the formation or maintenance of governments.

The Liberal/National coalition came to power in the March 1996 election, ending 13 years of Labor government and making John Howard Prime Minister. He was subsequently re-elected in October 1998, November 2001 and October 2004. The coalition now holds a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives. Until 2004, lacking a majority in the Senate, the Liberal/National coalition relied on negotiations with the smaller parties and independents to secure the passage of legislation. However, this changed as a result of the 2004 election, which resulted in the coalition securing a working majority in the Senate from July 2005.

Law

The law of Australia consists of the Australian common law (which is based on the English common law), federal laws enacted by the Parliament of Australia, and laws enacted by the Parliaments of the Australian states and territories. The most important law of Australia is the Constitution of Australia, which describes Australia's system of constitutional monarchy, and forms the basis for the government of Australia.

All of the States and territories of Australia that are self-governing are separate jurisdictions, and have their own system of courts and parliaments. The systems of laws in each State are influential on each other, but not binding. Laws passed by the Parliament of Australia apply to the whole of Australia.

Unlike the United States Supreme Court, the High Court of Australia, which was established in 1903, has a general appellate jurisdiction over the State Supreme Courts. This ensures there is a single uniform Australian common law.  The Australian common law is also influenced, but to a lesser degree, by decisions of common law of countries including Canada, New Zealand and the United States.