Australia Political Profile
System of Government
The national Parliament is bicameral (with a House of Representatives and a Senate). The executive government consists of a Ministry drawn from both houses of parliament, including a Prime Minister from the House of Representatives. Members of the lower house are elected for a maximum three year term by preferential ballot from single member electorates. Senators are elected for a maximum six year term by proportional representation in state-wide ballots. Usually Australian governments have had a majority in the lower house, but in the Senate the balance of power is held by minor parties. The word "Commonwealth" is often used to describe the national government, so this term should not be confused with the British Commonwealth of Nations.
The Head of State is the Governor General. The Governor General is appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister by the Sovereign: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia. The powers of the Governor General are mainly limited to the approval and vetoing of legislation, appointment and dismissal of Ministers, proroging and dissolving the parliament. In each state there is also a Governor appointed by the Queen on advice of the respective state Premier.
The Constitution is a written document, commencing operation in 1901. Australia was formed when the citizens of six colonies in the British empire voted to combine as one nation. New Zealand was a party to the colonial negotiations, but did not eventually join. Amendments can only be made if approved by the Commonwealth parliament and if approved at a referendum by both an overall majority of votes and a majority of voters in a majority of states (thus voters in at least four out of six states must approve any change). Australia's constitution has only been amended 8 times out of 44 referenda (most referenda have been initiated by the left side of politics). This stable constitution has enabled Australia to become the sixth oldest continuously operating democracy in the world (behind the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the United States, Canada and New Zealand).
Australia is a Federal-state system with six State Governments and two Territory Governments. The States are Queensland (the state capital is Brisbane); New South Wales (Sydney); Victoria (Melbourne); Western Australia (Perth); South Australia (Adelaide); and Tasmania (Hobart). The Territory Governments cover the Northern Territory (Darwin) and the Australian Capital Territory (which includes the national capital city Canberra). The population of 19 million is mainly concentrated in the state capital cities and coastal areas, but the country also contains an extensive number of towns based around mining and agricultural industries.
Political History in Brief
National elections in Australia have been dominated by the centre-right parties for most of the last century, but the votes cast have often left the respective sides less than 5% apart. Prior to World War I, Australian politics were mainly a three party contest (between Labor, Protectionist and Free Trade). Since 1917, there has been a two way race between the left-wing Labor Party, versus the centre-right parties. Since 1944 the Liberal Party became the main centre-right party, usually forming government in coalition with the National Party (previously called the Country Party). Prior to World War II, the Liberal Party's predecessor's included the United Australia Party, the Nationalist Party, the Free Trade Party, and elements of an earlier Liberal Party.
The following parties have formed government since the commencement of a two way contest in Australian politics.
1917-1929 Nationalist Party
1929-1932 Labor Party
1932-1941 United Australia Party & Country Party Coalition
1941-1949 Labor Party
1949-1972 Liberal Party & Country Party Coalition
1972-1975 Labor Party
1975-1983 Liberal Party & Country Party Coalition
1983-1996 Labor Party
1996-present Liberal Party & National Party Coalition
Formation of the Liberal Party
The Liberal Party was founded by Sir Robert Menzies in 1944. He began his political career as an active member of the Young Nationalists organisation. In 1939 he became Prime Minister and stayed there for brief period of two years. Battle-scared, he returned later to lead the Liberal Party to victory in 1949 and remained as Prime Minister for a further 16 years, becoming the longest serving Prime Minister in Australian political history. From 1949-1966 Australia went from being an impoverished economy still burdened by food and petrol rationing measures left over from the war, to become among the wealthiest nations in the world in per capita terms.
The Liberal-Country Party government obtained support in the Senate for its legislative program from the Democratic Labor Party, a splinter group formed by Roman Catholics who had defected from the Labor Party because of concern at Communist influence in Labor ranks.
Menzies was the architect of the Colombo Plan which helped create infrastructure and economic development in number of South East Asian countries. He was also architect of the Australia-Japan Trade Agreement and the ANZUS Defence Treaty with the United States and New Zealand. He also made Australia an active participant in SEATO and the Five Powers Defence Pact.
The "Menzies Era" was a period when the growth of the state was generally kept in check unlike other parts of the industrialised world. Net government expenditure on goods and services rose from 12.6% of GDP in 1938-39 (when Menzies first resigned as Prime Minister) to 14.4% in 1948-49% when Labor was defeated. There was a sharp increase in government spending in 1951-52 when 21% was reached. But from 1953 to 1964 government spending stabilised around 18 to 19%.
Higher education underwent significant change during the Menzies years. In 1949 when the Liberal Party came to power, there were under 32,000 university students, but by 1966 this had risen to 88,230 students.
The Disasterous Whitlam Labor Government
The Liberal Party's long reign was interrupted in 1972 when Labor came to office for a brief three year period, led by Gough Whitlam. Labor withdrew Australian forces from Vietnam, opened relations with Communist China and attempted to expand the power of the national government over the states. Free university education combined with Communist influence led to the explosion of spoilt middle-class extremism university campuses. Rash overspending by the Labor government led the Senate to block budget legislation. Consequently Labor attempted to subvert the democratic system by seeking loans from foreign sources. The Senate impasse and the illegal loans scandal were resolved by the Governor General who dismissed the Labor Prime Minister and called an immediate election.
Growth of the Welfare State
The Liberal Party was returned to office in 1975, led by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. This government achieved the unique result of attaining a majority in both houses of parliament. This majority was held from 1975 to 1980. Initial budgetary discipline by the government was subsequently relaxed, and its achievements in many areas were undermined by its adoption of several leftist policy ventures (for example welfare spending was significantly expanded). In 1980, the balance of power in the Senate was taken by a minor party, the Australian Democrats. In 1983, the Fraser government lost office during a world rescession.
Elected in 1983, the Labor Party subsequently gained electoral advantage from an international economic recovery. Many Labor politicians were senior union officials, and the government frequently took policy directions from the peak union body - the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Prime Minister Bob Hawke had been head of the ACTU. Some positive economic reforms were made at this time including liberalisation of finance markets and commodity markets. However the labour market remained rigidly controlled by central government. Labor brokered its left-wing agenda through the Senate with support from the Democrats, a minor left-wing party which was moving increasingly leftwards. In 1991, the country entered rescession, and Labor changed leaders.
The new Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating adopted trendy "identity issues" in order to distract from economic concerns. He argued that Australia should cut its constitutional links to Britain, he introduced new "land rights" legislation for Aborigines, he emphasised the place of migrants in the community. It was widely assumed that Labor would lose the 1993 election due to an economic recession and high unemployment. But when the Liberal Party proposed a tax reform package in the 1993 election (proposing to move from a myriad of wholesale taxes to a single flat-rate sales tax), Labor ran a strong negative campaign against the new tax and narrowly retained government as a result.
By now Australian taxpayers had been burdened by several decades of a growing welfare state, where a combination of high taxes and easy welfare were killing the incentive to work. The main centre of discontent was among Labor's traditional blue-collar base where manual workers felt they were subsidising welfare cheats, big government, plus various elites including publicly-funded artists. The Liberal Party saw this constituency as an equivalent to the "Reagan Democrats".
The Howard Liberal Government
The Liberal Party significantly professionalised its campaign machine before the 1996 election. The Liberal Party campaigned with the slogan "For All Of Us". This slogan drew a contrast between the Liberal approach of treating all Australians the same, versus the Labor Party's sectional approach to making policy solely for selfish interest groups. In 1996, Liberal leader John Howard swept to victory in a major landslide result. The campaign focus was mainly kept on the policy failures of Labor. The most prominent Liberal Party policy promise was for a 50% privatisation of the major telecommunications utility, with some of the revenues being allocated to environmental rehabilitation.
The new government embarked on a number of significant reforms, cutting government spending and the bureaucracy, balancing the budget, introducing freedom of association and flexibility into the labour market, boosting defence spending, privatising significant state-owned enterprises, and simplifying land rights legislation which had held back mining. Political contraversies arose in mid-term, surrounding reform of land rights, the emergence of an anti-immigration party, and the debate over a republic.
While other countries in the Asia Pacific slumped into depression in the last years of the previous century, Australia powered ahead with growing GDP and employment.
Recent Political Events
In the October 1998 election, the Liberal-National government narrowly retained office despite resurrecting its unpopular 1993 proposal for a Goods and Services Tax, to replace the multitude of wholesale taxes and to cut personal income tax. During the current parliament, Labor is still seeking to making political capital out of the tax, by criticising every aspect of the tax's implementation.
Since its re-election, the Government has introduced further waves of reform including the Business Tax Package which will cut corporate tax and capital gains tax. Australia has also taken the leading role in restoring peace to East Timor, by commanding a peacekeeping force in the province after it voted not to remain within Indonesia. John Howard put the issue of whether Australia should become a republic to a convention of appointed experts and popularly elected delegates. This resulted in a referendum to change the constitution, which was defeated in November 1999.
Current Prime Minister John Howard
John Howard has been a veteran political figure, entering parliament in 1974, becoming Treasuer during the Fraser government and becoming leader of his party twice. In his youth he was an active member and leader within the Young Liberal Movement. Among his early political adventures, in 1964 he worked for the British Conservative Party in its 1964 election campaign.
John Howard has been a leader of the conservative forces within the Liberal Party and identifies as a monarchist and Thatcherite. After the defeat of the Fraser government he became the main person responsible for mounting and winning the intellectual argument against the left-wing thinking which had poisoned the Fraser government. John Howard refocussed the party from a lacsidasical attiitude towards the size of Government, back to its free-enterprise roots. He supported a conservative approach to social policy by reversing tax penalties and other policies which were eroding the family unit. He opposed giving taxpayer dollars to buy the favour of interest groups. For many years he has been personally attacked by the left-leaning press gallery in Canberra. Much to their annoyance, his political tenacity has seen him outlast their numerous premature predictions of his demise.
Numerous long-held objectives of the Prime Minister have been achieved.
* In 1977 as Treasurer he investigated the option of a broad-based consumption tax. A Goods-and-Services Tax passed the Senate in June 1999.
* In 1979 Howard proposed healthcare funded by the individual. In December 1999, the Senate passed legislation for tax rebates for those with private health insurance.
* In 1984 he first raised the sale of Telecom, the national telecommunications company. In 1997 his legislation to privatise the first parts of it passed the Senate.
* He mooted the involvement of charities in welfare in 1985. In 1998, the government employment department was opened up to competition in one of the largest competitive tenders in world history.
* Work-for-the-Dole was advocated in 1985, then introduced in the 1997 budget.
* In 1985 he promoted reform of industrial relations and wages. In 1996 he delivered on his promise for individual contracts and freedom of association.
Former Liberal Party Leaders
Robert Menzies 1944 – 1966 (Prime Minister 1949 -1966)
Harold Holt 1966 - 1967 (Prime Minister 1966 - 1967)
John Gorton 1968 - 1971 (Prime Minister 1968 - 1971)
William McMahon 1971 - 1972 (Prime Minister 1971 - 1972)
Bill Snedden 1972 - 1975 (Leader of the Opposition)
Malcolm Fraser 1975 - 1983 (Prime Minister 1975 - 1983)
Andrew Peacock 1983 - 1985 (Leader of the Opposition)
John Howard 1985 -1989 (Leader of the Opposition)
Andrew Peacock 1989 - 1990 (Leader of the Opposition)
John Hewson 1990 - 1994 (Leader of the Opposition)
Alexander Downer 1994 - 1995 (Leader of the Opposition)
John Howard 1995 - present (Prime Minister 1996 - present)
Electoral Successes:
Federal: Governed in coalition 1949-72, 1975-83 and 1996 - present.
New South Wales: Governed in coalition 1965-76 and 1988-95.
Victoria: Governed in own right 1945, 1948-50 and 1955-82.
Governed in coalition 1947 and 1992-99.
Queensland: Governed in coalition 1957-83, 1996-98.
South Australia: Governed as Liberal Country League 1933-65 and 1968-70.
Governed as Liberal Party 1979-82, 1993- present.
Western Australia: Governed in coalition 1947-53, 1959-71, 1978-83, and 1993- present.
Tasmania: Governed in coalition 1969-72;
Governed in own right 1982-89 and 1992-95. Then in coalition 1995-98.
Northern Territory: NT Country Liberal Party elected as majority party in 1974.
Governed continuously since self-government in 1978 to present.
Australian Capital Territory: (self-government 1989). Governed in coalition December 1989 - June 1991 and 1995 - present.
Further Information:
To find out more on Australian politics, click below to read about the following ...
* The Young Liberal Movement
* The 1999 Republic Referendum