In Australia, we don't vote to get the best party in, we vote to keep the worst party out 😂

I guess 16.1M doesn't include non-voting people (e.g. children, residents who aren't citizens, etc)

Australian government follows much of the British system, but its houses of parliament (Congress) uses some American terms. It has a separate judiciary (High Court of Australia), legislature (the parliament) and executive branches. However, the legislature and executive are not as separated as in the USA. All political heads of government portfolios (like defence, treasury, etc.) have to be elected members of the parliament, and are held accountable for the performance of their portfolios. This is called 'responsible government'. They can easily lose their portfolio if they stuff up. If they are found to be corrupt they probably won't remain in parliament. And that can all happen quite fast. This system means there is only one locus of power, not constant bickering between two loci of power, such as often between The House (legislature) and the President (Head of the Executive) in the USA. The Prime Minister is the head of the majority party in the House of Representatives (and is elected by that party). If they lose the confidence of their party, they will usually be voted out by their party, and a new person (another government minister) takes over from them. While there is a Governor-General in charge of the executive, it is mainly ceremonial. Real executive power lies with the Prime Minister and their cabinet of Ministers in charge of various portfolios. Each state operates in a similar way with their state parliaments, except that the equivalent of a Prime Minister is called the Premier of that state. Likewise each state has a Governor, but real power resides with the Premier and their state cabinet ministers. The lower House (House of Representatives), consists of people who have been voted in by their local electorate (every 3 years). Like the British and US systems, there is a Speaker who presides over sittings of the Parliament. The Senate is a similar concept as in the USA. Under the constitution it represents the states who federated to form Australia, and is required to be about half the size (in numbers of politicians) of the House of Representatives. At present each of the 6 states are represented by 12 senators, with the two main territories having 2 senators each. As in the USA it is a 'house of review' and is based on the US model from the Great (or Connecticut) Compromise, so that individual citizens and the states are both represented.. Australia uses a preferential voting system - that is, you do not vote for just one person, but list the order of preference for who you would like to vote for from how ever many candidates there are in the electorate. (So, if I want to vote first for a member of a minority party I can do so by putting a 1 against their name on the ballot, but knowing they probably won't win I can also put a 2 against the person from the major party who I prefer over the other candidates, and so on). This means there is often a richer mix of political views in Australian parliaments, as opposed to usually just two big parties as in the USA. Senators are elected for 6 years, and a half-senate election is held at the same time as the election of a new House of Reps. In the senate, preferential voting often results in many minor parties also being elected, with them sometimes holding the balance of power. It also often adds a lot of nuance, colour and amusing behaviour to debate. Unlike in the USA, a change to the Constitution requires a referendum of all voters (borrowed from Swiss practice). They don't happen very often and most don't get passed. Unusually, the Australian Constitution does not have a Bill of Rights (the founding fathers regarded it as unnecessary because of the strongly established rights under British and Australian common law). However, it incorporates or implies some rights, such as freedom of political communication, religion, and recompense on just terms for anything the federal government takes from any citizen. The Governor-General (federal) or Governor (state) is technically the 'head of state' (like a President), signs acts of parliament into law, is commander in chief, has a mostly ceremonial role, but has some 'reserve powers' to resolve some issues. They are usually selected on the basis of being a person who is not political, and has already spent most of their life giving real service to the community in some well recognised field. They are usually likeable, diplomatic and well respected. Technically they represent the King of Australia, Charles III, but they operate independently.

Ryan, the other thing that is different in Aus is that voting is compulsory and if you don't vote you may get fined. When you vote, you can get a 'ticket' with a dozen candidates for the lower house and almost as many upper house wannabe's. Having a compulsory vote means that we avoid some of the issues you have in the US where different groups get excluded or a small minority of people develop all the say in the country.

The single most important thing to know about how Australia works is that because everyone *has* to vote, it forces the government to make sure everyone *can* vote. Postal ballots, absentee ballots, lots of polling places, even mobile officials to collect votes from people in hospitals. That means you actually get the opinion of the entire voting population.

Some of our 25 million population are children. There are 16 million adults

The PM isn't even mentioned in the Constitution and he has no formal power beyond that of any MP, which is why we don't vote for him (except as for any other MP). His power comes from the fact that he's the most senior MP from the majority party, so by party rules he has authority over that majority; but this isn't legally enforced in any way. The party can overthrow him without needing a popular vote, which has happened a few times recently; it's legal but very unpopular.

Both Liberal & Labor are much closer to the middle than either of the USA parties

One of the reasons I feel that neither party in Australia does any wild changes in laws and are willing to negotiate with each other more so than American parties. stems from the fact we have mandatory voting. Most of the population are always going to be more aligned with the center, center left and center right. Any party that tried to lean wildly left or wildly right would never get the votes to get into power. But in the USA, since you don't have to vote, people who want to vote would heavily lean either to the left or the right already.

Good video, Ryan. The reason this sort of thing appears on the ABC, the national channel, is because voting is compulsory and so the government has the task of educating the voters.

Ryan, Mate, I have some homework for you. You have by now read all the well written comments on compulsory voting. Good. It works really well. The next vid for you to chase is the Australian Preferential Vote Counting System. It means that every single vote is counted through stages and so never becomes tossed out in a two horse race. Be prepared. It will take some understanding.

As an Australian I’d love to know how our government works 👀 😂

Technically, the Crown isn't a person. It's an institution of which the Monarch is the head of. The monarch may die but the Crown remains and a new monarch will take their place.

We have a whole tv show here in Australia called ‘Planet America’ that covers American political news and events. There is so much drama in the USA it’s kind of entertaining but yet informative.

On 11 November 1975, after a series of dramatic events including a 1974 double dissolution and a budgetary supply crisis, the Gough Whitlam-led federal Labor government became the first (and only) government in Australian history to be dismissed by the Governor-General.

Oh Ryan, you are correct. We elect a party and the leader of that party then becomes PM. Here's where it gets (and has gotten) messy. If that party is unhappy with their leader, they can challenge the leader of the party. This is called a leadership spill and if the party member challenging the leader wins, they then become leader and they become PM. Back in the early 2010's I think it was we had eight leadership challenges in eight years, four of which were successful, and we suddenly had a new PM.

The Crown in Australia is the sovereign entity of Australia embodied by the King of Australia which is actually a separate throne from Britain but just happens to be occupied by the same person as the British throne .... for now.

Technically, we don't even vote for the party. Each electorate has a member that represents that area in parliament. We then elect a member for that area. Those members then belong to a party, but they don't have to. Many electorates are represented by independent members, and members can switch parties or go independent at will. The prime minister is also not a position chartered for in the constitution. We don't actually need a prime minister or even parties at all. The parties decide on who will be their leaders, but there is nothing to say they actually need one.

Some other important things, that I also think the USA could benefit having an equivalent of; (1) One of the wonders of the Australia’s democracy is the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) it is a key (and great) part of the bureaucracy and not subject to elections itself. It administers the electoral roles for the entire nation “AEC maintains an impartial and independent electoral system for eligible voters through active electoral roll management, efficient delivery of polling services and targeted education and public awareness programs” so by enrolling to vote your are enrolled for federal 8:19 , state, and local districts. Plus it does a great job to ensure that everyone has access to voting (2) compulsory voting, this helps encourage the AEC to keep up the standards of voting access and also means there is more moderate voting (as the extreme ends will also vote but middle may not (3) preferential voting; so the voter votes for all the candidates in their personal preferred order; so the voters vote need not ever be wasted should the choose number one an unlikely candidate, candidates with similar policy do not cannibalise each others vote and reduce each others chances, once the candidates with the lowest votes are eliminated those eliminated votes are then redistributed to the voters 2nd preferences and so on until there is a clear winner . Preferential voting would be gold for the USA presidential elections, multiple people could be endorsed by the each major party (each person made need x numbers of signatures to get on the ballot etc) and you could avoid the republican debates that they have now and the people could vote 1,2,3 etc for their preferred candidates in there preferred order, including independent candidates, without ever wasting their vote

The boundaries on each electorate are shifted to ensure that the population is as close as possible to the same number in each electorate

When you get a chance watch anything with Paul Keating in it. He was Prime Minister for a while, but his handling of people is hilarious.

You crack me up. The reason the population count didn’t add up is you weren’t taking into account those who can’t vote ie kids, aged, informed and mentally unwell. The GG does represent the crown ie King Charlie and does indeed hold a lot of power.

Hey Ryan the temperature in Adelaide South Australia is 40 deg today, bloody 🔥

Australia votes for a specific person of a particular party in their electorate - the total number of people from a specific party elected, if they have a majority will "form government" - then that party has an internal vote/discussion on who will be the Prime Minister (normally decided before the election) I will not even try to explain the Senate/Upper House preferential voting as most Australians don't even know how this works 🤣🤣

It’s not really 110,000 people per seat, it’s 110,000 voters. PS, about the powers of the Crown in Australia. It’s not really anything to do with Britain or the royal family, most of whom have no position in the Australia. It’s just that Australia’s head of state is whoever happens to be the monarch of the UK. Just that one Royal, and they basically have the same function as in the UK except because they live ten thousand miles away someone in Australia is always appointed to do it for them, and they have the title of Governor General (sometimes shortened to “GG”). They have few real powers but what they do have can be pretty full on and therefore rarely used. Look for videos on what Aussies just call “The Dismissal”, which was that time in 1975 when the Governor General sacked the Prime Minister and the whole government.

The lower/upper house naming convention is left over from Britain's parliament where the 2 houses are on different floors of the same building. The British lower house is literally down stairs from the upper house.

We also have a system called "preferential voting". In each seat and senate ballot you vote from 1 down to the number of options (eg 7). If your first choice doesnt get up it goes to your second choice and so on. The party that ends up winning the most seats is the one thats most preferenced, not the most voted for. This system makes the main parties push hard for the centre to get the most from their respective wings (right/left). Also means voting 3rd party isnt wasted entirely.

Google the Westminster system.

Hi Ryan, that’s the Federal Government in a nutshell. Every State & Territory have their own Govt., & Parliament too. Don’t did too deep you’ll give yourself an unnecessary headache LOL. Best wishes from Adelaide; South Australia🇦🇺💐

The Governor General/GG is a representative of the Crown (yes the British one) in what is usually a ceremonial role, however they tend to have a legalistic background and can be relied upon to advise government from time to time. The role is selected by the Government of the day, and usually is an apolitical role, with incoming governments choosing to keep existing GGs until they may choose to retire. Infamously in 1975, Parliament was at a deadlock and the GG dismissed Parliament and called for new elections in which the dismissed government was resoundly defeated. It still has ripples to this day and a GG has never acted in such a way since then.

The governor-general can technically reject laws they disagree with since they are operating as the Crown’s representative (yes, British royal family). But in practice, if the Prime Minister has signed off of the law as Head of Government, the GG will as well. It’s part requirement, Head of State and Head of Government both need to sign off on laws, but at the same time, these days, it’s more a formality as the Crown does not interfere in Australian Government decisions. The President in the US is both Head of State and Head of Government, while it’s two different roles held by two different people over here.

Ryan I think all people in so called democracies are tired of the corruption and lack of accountability. That's where I think Australia and America share a common bond.

The Governor General represents the King of Australia who lives in London and is also king of some other countries. Can't reject laws - GG must follow the advice of his ministers. * Except in a constitutional crisis when (allegedly) the GG can commission/decommission PMs.

If I was to compare the Australian and American system for equivalents in status, The President = The monarch of England, The Leader of the House = The Prime Minister. In terms of actual "power," the PM has slightly more power than the President (as the house may be from the other party) in directing national policy, as they lead that "branch of government" but they both are the national representatives on the international stage. The king (or Governor-General) is generally a rubber stamp; by tradition, they don't interfere in the laws of their dominions, but they do have power of veto. Their biggest power is the appointment and dismissal of members of parliament.

She’s over complicated it. We elect local members in electorates (seats) The party or coalition (a deal between two parties) with the most seats forms Government. The leader of the majority party becomes Prime Minister. Our head of state is the Kings representative in Australia (the Governor-General) who signs off on federal legislation like a president would but the position is mostly ceremonial and doesn’t have influence like a President.

Thanks for the video, on the off chance you're still wondering (and see this comment) here's some clarification on the questions you mentioned. The Governer General still has some power in theory but they don't really exert it and will just sign off on bills if they make it through the senate. Australia didn't break away from Britain with a war like the US did, but moved away in stages, so some of the infrastructure of British rule is still here. Most Australians don't really care though because we know the Governer General (and Governers, who are the state government equivalent) don't actually have any influence in the practical sense. We took the term "lower house" from the British, where it dates back a long time and used to be a class thing. They have the House of Lords whose members, as you can guess from the name, came from the upper class, and the House of Commons, whose members very much did not, so "lower house" made sense. Also yes, our Liberal Party is our right wing. That's more of a historical accident. The only other major right wing party, the Nationals, formed a coalition with the Liberals so that these days they're really the same party. There are parties further to the right than both, but in Australia's political climate they don't get much in the way of votes. The only other major party is Labor, which was closely associated with work unions and so tended to skew left wing. One trap you didn't fall into is thinking that our Prime Minister is the equivalent of the US President. If you want a closer political analogy our Prime Minister is closer to the US Majority Leader (if I'm understanding what the Majority Leader is correctly). Also although the video mentioned that our Senate pretty much always has some independents and minor parties, it didn't mention the important fact that our election system is specifically designed to make that more likely to happen. Votes for the House of Representatives are counted as described in the video, so a party that gets a good number of votes in total but doesn't get 1st place in any electorate doesn't get anything. In the Senate though all that matters is the totals for each state. Each state has 12 senators (territories get 2), though there's usually only 6 or them up for re-election at once, in which case all a senator has to do is get one sixth of the votes in the state. There's additional complications due to the fact that we do preferential voting, so if my number 1 preference doesn't have the votes to be elected my vote might still help my number 2 (or lower) preference get in, but that's the essence of the system that ensures the Senate pretty much always has a few independents and minor parties in it. These days the House of Representatives is almost always just Labor and the Coalition. Though there was a moment a few years ago when a special election was called for my electorate and the Greens candidate got voted in much to the surprise of everyone, including the Greens.

As the states existed before the Commonwealth was established in 1901, our founding fathers looked to both the UK (Westminister) and US (Federalism) systems and mashed the two systems together. This has led to what I have often heard referred to as the Washminister System. The eIectorates are all roughly the same size for the lower house; however; each State, regardless of size, gets 12 Senators; giving the smaller states equal power to the larger ones In the Senate. If I remember rightly, the two territories, Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, get 3 senators. In Australia the electorates are not determined by the States as in the US but by the Australian Electoral Commission; a Federal body.

We also have some rather amusing Political parties such as: The Pirate party, The deadly serious party. Australian sex Party, the Hemp Party, No Parking meters party and my personal favorite The Coke in the Bubblerrs Party (Bubblers are wather fountains you drink from at school but instead of just one water fountain there are usually abut 4 or five in a line and the water empties into a troff)

One of the benefits of compulsary voting is it provides a fairly accurate barometer of how Australians feel about issues, parties and politicians. e.g: If you are a genuine swinging voter and live in a blue ribbon Liberal seat, or rusted on Labor seat, your vote may not change that seat from that party, but your sentiment will be picked up in the swing to or away from the incumbent. If you didn't have to vote you might not bother to knowing the seat is safe for the incumbent. Each vote really does count for something in our system.

To answer a few things: 1 - The 110,000 people per electorate are voting age adults. 2 - We have more than 2 parties, but really we don't. It's basically a 2 party system. 3 - The Governor General is technically the King's representative. It's essentially a ceremonial post but technically the GG can reject laws and sack a Government - although the GG is appointed by the Government.... 4 - Best way to think about it is House of Reps (Lower House) = Congress, Senate = Senate, GG = President (but unelected and ceremonial).

G'day Mate! Our Senate was also originally there to safeguard "states rights." Because every state has the same number of Senators regardless of population more populous states like NSW & Victoria who have the most seats in the lower house cannot skew legislation to favour those states and disadvantage the less populous states. Yes as stated it is also a house of review and you were correct in the assumption that any changes made to bills in the Senate do have to then return to the Lower house and pass there again... Cheers!

10:25 That’s where the blackmail comes in. I threaten to block your bill unless you do something for me that you really don’t want to do.

In America the head of state is POTUS. In Australia the head of state is the current Monarch of Australia, the king/Queen of Australia. (England). The Governor General is the monarchs representative in Australia. He is primarily just a figure head and is nominated to the monarch by the government of the day. Inevitably the monarch just accepts this.

If you want to find out what kind of power the Royal Family has over politics in Australia you should look up the story of Gough Whitlam. Outrageous story.

Hey Ryan, If you're interested in learning about our Avian wildlife there is a great video about some called "Australia's Most Common Birds" from The Backyard Naturalist. Has some good explanations & clips of the birds as well as their calls which some you might recognize.

The video gives a pretty good overview of how parliament works, but to clarify a few things - Australia is a constitutional monarchy, so Charles is also our king as well as the UK's king. The Governor General is the monarch's constitutional representative, but the role is almost entirely symbolic (almost) - the Governor General has certain powers under the constitution, but "convention" dictates that those powers are exercised on the advice of the Prime Minister of the day - Australia's parliamentary system is broadly based on England's Westminster system, so there's a fair bit of overlap in the main features of how things work. - The Prime Minister is a member of the House of Representatives rather than being a completely separate role. The PM must be a member of the House of Reps, but the rest of the executive can be from either the House of Reps or the Senate. It is a bit odd in terms of the traditional separation of powers, but for the most part it seems to work out alright

The King of England, Charley, is the official head of Oz because we are a constitutional monarchy. But because he lives in England all the time and only occasionally visits he appoints a Governor General to live in Canberra and do all the boring stuff like opening bridges and signing bills into law. That's why the leader of the majority in the lower house becomes prime minister and is the real head honcho.

Look up "The Dismissal" to see how much power the Governor General can have

Hi Ryan, I think a lot of the mechanics of the political system are fairly similar between Australia and the USA. We have a House of Representatives and a Senate, just like in the US. At elections, which occur roughly every 3 years (the Prime Minister can call an election early, so we don't vote on the same day of the year - I think yours are the first Tuesday of November, which happens to be Melbourne Cup Day, ours are on a Saturday that can be any part of the year), electors vote for a person to represent them in Parliament (these can be members of the major parties, Labor, Liberal, Nationals or members of lesser parties or independents, who do not represent a party) and a party for the Senate. Half senate elections occur at the same time as the House of Reps elections. Voting is compulsory. The reason that 151 x 110,000 doesn't equal 25 million is that not everyone in the country is eligible to vote (minors and non-Australian citizens, for example). The seats don't have to have exactly the same number of people but have to be roughly right. Therefore the geographical area vary wildly (tiny in inner city seats, massive in remote areas). Occasionally, when the populations in seats get out of kilter over time, the electoral commission has to adjust the boundaries to make things fair. The Prime Minister still has to be elected by the locals in the seat he/she represents. Occasionally, the incumbent Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition is kicked out of his seat although this is pretty rare, since they tend to represent "blue ribbon" seats that have a strong majority in favour of the party they belong to. The Governor-General represents the King (of Britain) in Australia. The word I think you were looking for was ceremonial and yes, most of the time the role is ceremonial. However, the Governor General does have the power to dissolve Parliament. I has only happened once, in 1975, when the Governor General, Sir John Kerr, essentially sacked the Labor Government of Gough Whitlam. The issue was mainly due to the fact that the opposition (Liberal-Country coalition) had control of the Senate and blocked supply so that Parliament essentially became powerless. Parliament was dissolved and fresh elections were held resulting in the (Liberal-Country coalition) coalition forming government. There is a brief animated video that explains this "constitutional crisis" pretty well: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/sK-De6uByNvYqJ8.html

Yes! The Governor General is the Kings representative in Australia. We are still ruled by Britain in a sense, but usually laws are "Rubberstamped" into law. There has been controversy though. The Elected Australia Prime Minister was sacked by the Governer General and an interim government put in place in the 70's. This government was run by the opposition party of the time. We also had a recent controversy where the PM at the time, Scott Morrison, was secretly placed in ministerial positions by himself and signed off by the Governor General David Hurley. This allowed him to Veto various bills which had been signed off by the actual ministers some of whom had no Idea that the Prime minister was in fact ALSO a minister of their portfolio. You are going down a deep Rabbit hole buddy. Enjoy.

Australia is a Commonwealth realm, meaning our head of state is King Charles. The governor general represents the crown in Australia. There are reserve powers that the crown can use if they require. They can refuse royal assent to laws (but never have) and can sack the government (which has happened once). Otherwise the role of governor general is ceremonial.

The people in the Prime Minister's electorate directly elect him -- as member of their electorate. The Prime Minister is the leader of the party or coalition of parties who gets the most electoral seats. Members do not have to belong to a party (or may belong to a minor party) so there may be lots of negotiations on legislation if the main party does not have an outright lead.

The Australian government is more of an idiocracy sometimes lol

There’s a really good KZfaq video about our preferential voting system. How Australian voting works by a channel called That’s Pretty Cool.

If you are confused on that last part about the Governor-General, basically, he is the representative of the British Crown. King Charlies is actually the Head of State in Australia since they are part of the Commonwealth. With that power as to agree or disagree with the bill, the Governor-General does have the power to remove the Prime Minster from power, and so far it's only happened once in 1975 with the Whitlam Labor Party.

Since Australia is a constitutional monarchy. The Governor General is the representative of the Crown ( Currently King Charles III ) in Australia. the British Monarch however is really only just a ceremonial figure head and doesn't actually do anything. King Charles III is Head of State of Australia But the Head of Government who is the Prime Minister os where the actual power lies. It's different to the US where the Head of State and Head of Government is the same person, the President.

We have a bunch of Parties. Over 100. We have 2 Major Parties. So we still only get 2 choices as Prime minister, and we vote for the Party, not the Prime Minster as they can change leaders of their Party which can change who the Prime Minister is. Happened to Kevin Rudd just over a decade ago because his popularity was too low in their opinion. So they did a coup and he was removed as leader. And Julia Gillard was then the Prime Minister. A few years later they did another Coup and she was removed and Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister again. Also in Australia there used to be 3 Major Parties. The Liberal Party. The National Party. And The Labour Party. The Liberal Party and The National Party would always lose to The Labour Party (Our Party the represents the Left). So they join forces on a National level to create the LnP (Liberal National Party), a bunch of right wing cavemen that are for the rich and the rich only. They are literally what we refer to as reverse Robin Hoods. They take from the Poor and give to the Rich, kind of like American Capitalism. They do not understand what the word Liberal means. They see themselves as Important and the people as a Problem. They think that Liberal means Liberating the Rich from the Poor as if the Poor are a problem for them. Hopefully that helps with your knowledge.

It's pretty much the same as the USA. Congressional Districts = Electorates, Congress = Parliament, House of Reps = House of Reps, Senate = Senate. Your Head of State (The President) is elected and has political power, ours (the GG) is appointed by The Crown (Queen or King), and has no actual powers (it's basically ceremonial). If we were a republic we'd get a Head of State another way, but exactly how that would work is a matter for debate. That's the theory anyway.

which led to the hysterical situation a few years ago when when had 5 prime ministers in 5 years because the parties kept dumping their leaders lol.

Yes, the Crown is the current Monarch of UK, a few other countries and Australia. The GG has no real day to day power, except in a Parliamentary crisis. Our Constitution was born out of an Act of the British Parliament, which had previously 'owned' and governed separate colonies. The first one of said colonies was set up as a penal colony to send England's prisoners to, after the USA passed a law that stopped Britain from sending them to the US. Obviously they had nor really really owned the colonies as those colonies were on land that was previously taken care of by the Indigenous peoples who have lived in some parts of this country for about 70,000 years.

Additional novelty fact about our parliament, can you see the grass on top of the parliament building? the building is literally built that way for the purpose of letting citizens "walk all over" our politicians as they work below our feet, so as to remind them of their place, serving us

Something that a lot of people struggle to understand is our Constitutional Monarchy. The King (or Queen) is the King or Queen of the UK, but is also King or Queen of Australia. The King or Queen of England has a lot more power in Britain, than the same Monarch does in Australia, and his or her role is defined in the Australian Constitution. The part that people often struggle to understand is that while the Monarch theoretically has the power, that power can only be exercised by the Governor General, and the Governor General is appointed by the Australian Government. Only the Governor General can sign bills into law, but he or she cannot create any laws. Only the Australian Parliament can do that. However the Governor General has immense power, mostly in theory, but also in practice. According to the Constitution, after an election, it is the Governor General who annoints the Prime Minister and the Ministers of the Government. However, he or she cannot nominate the people he or she confirms. However, the Constitution also allows the Governor General to remove a government in the event of a Parliamentary impass. In that case the Governor General is required to appoint a caretaker government, and call elections within 21 days. This happenned in 1975, when the Whitlam Government was removed after it failed to pass the funding of government (called 'passing supply') and elections were held three weeks later. For obvious reasons, supporters of the losing party think it was a great injustice, while supporters of the other side see it as merely the Constitution working as intended, and that the people ultimately decided the result. Australia based the Constitution on the same ideals enshrined in the American Constitution, but with the ability to witness the weaknesses of the American Constitution in practice. Just like the US it is based on a three tier system, most fundamentally, Local, State, and Federal. Within Federal there are the three tiers of the legislature (parliament), executive (Governor General), and Judiciary, much like the USA. However, the American Founding Fathers had envisaged checks and balances between Legislature, executive, and Judiciary, but right from the beginning, the executive (Presidency) started accruing more and more power to itself, making it far more powerful than the Founding Fathers had assumed. Australia learned from that failure of the American Constition, and severely limited the power of the executive. He or she has great power, and can, in a very limited set of circumstances, remove a government, and can call elections, but has no power to run a government. In theory the Crown (Monarch via the Governor General) is the head of all military forces, and is the one military personnel swear allegience to, but the Monarch via the Governor General has no power to send those forces to war. Only the government can do that. However, if one day we had a renegade Prime Minister who wanted to use the military to take control, the Governor General has the power to order the military to not obey that Prime Minister. It is a system with stronger checks and balances in place than the American Constitution, but has many similarities. The Judiciary can strike down laws, just like in the US, and the biggest difference is in the limitations on the executive office, and the legal fiction of a Monarch who is head of State, but not present, and a Governor General who is present, practically operating as Head of State, but isn't Head of State.

We have a preferential voting system where voters list who they want in a numbered system from 1 to however many candidates there are. That way I can put my number 1 vote to my most preferred candidate without worrying that my vote will be null and void if they don't get enough first preference votes. I know that my 2nd preference and, if need be, my 3rd preference might get in. In one recent election a candidate got 42% of first preferences. This meant that 58% of voters did not want that candidate. The other candidates were split among the 58%. With preferences one of the other candidates got in as the 58% were basically against the philosophy of the candidate with 42%. Preferential voting is a very fair system and leads to a more cohesive result. At present the major two parties are pushing behind the scenes to get rid of the preferential voting system. The reason for this is that in a non-preferential system major parties do better. After all if you only have one vote you are not going to give it to your most favoured candidate if don't think they will get over 50% of the initial vote. You won't take the chance. You'll give it to the major party that you prefer over the other major party that don't want in. Recently in Australia there has been an increase in the number of independents (no party) that have won seats due to dissatisfaction with the major parties. We also have some strong minor parties that haven't won government but have contributed to the forming of our nation. Another interesting fact is that each endorsed political party is given funding providing their candidate gets over 4% of the first preferential votes. An amount is then distributed depending on how many first preferential votes they actually got. This is another reason why the two big parties want to get rid of preferential voting. The minor parties would soon fall by the wayside.

Senator Jacqui Lambie was the outspoken Independent from Tasmania, she and her main Queensland counterpart try to keep the government honest - no contravercial subject or action is allowed to go unchallenged! Yes, our Head of State, is the Crown, currently King Charles! The Governor General, keeps our traditional ties to the UK, performs regular diplomatic duties, has to sign off on changes to laws, and he also has the power to dismiss a really incompetent government! 🤔

The reason that the population is different from the number of people in electorates is.. It's talking about voters have to be over 18 to vote. Its also compulsory.

Re: Governor General - They have never ever vetoed a bill. However they have requested some changes to the bill. However pretty much you are right, they are just for show.

Governor General represents "The Crown" , which is now King Charles III in England, Australia is still part of the Commonwealth and not a republic, and that is a whole different discussion

yep, he represents the King as the final power in australia. mostly its a ceremonial role, excpet for once when the GG had to step in and fire the prime minister. that was in 1975 when gough whitlam was removed by him as the prime minister.

The major progressive party is the Labor Party. Two conservative parties - the ironically named Liberal Party (they used to be in the 1940s or 50s) and the National Party )(with a strong rural base) are in a permanent coalition. The Greens have a permanent presence as a minor party. There are always some independents and members of smaller parties, and I'm glad of their presence. As they did in Ancient Rome, the major conservative members sit on the right hand side of the chamber, and the main progressive party on the left, with the others at the top of the arch of seats, known as the Cross Bench. That's where left and right wing originate from.

The one thing I think is as important as compulsory voting, in fact even MORE, if we want to call ourselves democratic, is that we have an independent organisation that "runs" elections. The Australian ElectoralCommission is entirely independent of politicical parties. It is the #AEC that establishes, sets and maintains electoral boundaries, NOT political parties, as in the USA, (and it is nothing like the electoral College ... my time in Texas in the 60s ramped up my appreciation for our system. :)

Ryan, I will Americanize it for you, lower house is the house of Reps, same as US, the PM is the leader of the House, he chooses the ministers and rhe policies and agenda he is chosen by vote from his or hers fellow elected Party members, the Prime minister is part of the Executive as well as an elected parliamentarian. He appoints other members of parliament...usually of his own party as Ministers for certain departments Treasury, defence ,health. Now in the US this is the Presidents role, with his cabinets Secretaries, but the Australian Head of State which is on two levels really does not generally use their reserve powers, there is a VETO , but I don't think it has been used in the last 122 years. We also have a senate the house of review, also known as the stats house 12 senators per state and two each for the two major territories. Senators can also be ministers, but a Senator cannot be Prime Minister unless after being elected by his fellow party members he is elected to the House of Reps., this has only happened once.. The head of state is largely ceremonial ,but has reserve powers and the head of state the Governor General acts for the British Monarch.

fun fact last election to the suprise of everyone a lot of independant representatives got voted in by their various local constituents. causing some pretty major upsets for the major parties.

Our Governor General is appointed by now the King of England, advised by our Prime Minister. 🇦🇺

Ryan, I live in Highton, a suburb of the city of Geelong, in the State of Victoria, in the Commonwealth of Australia. Where I live is in the Commonwealth seat of Coria which has approx. 115K registered voters. When a Commonwealth election is called, each of these voters are required to vote. Any, naturalised Australian can stand for election. Now the tricky part, those candidates can form alliances with other candidates, this is because we have preferential voting. The major parties and independents hand out voting cards number 1 to ..... and we are required to put 1 to .... on the ballot paper OR the one number that is designated to your Political Party. As I said anyone can stand, but your chances of election are slim unless you belong to a Political Party. Most Australians vote for a Political Party except if they have a popular person from another party standing in their seat. If you want more, let me know.

New Zealander here - I had no idea our neighbours worked like this and now I wish we had the same thing. We have no upper house and in 1984 a bunch of idealogues in the Labour government bought in an extreme form of neoliberalism and crashed our economy. That's a very very simplistic version but to this day we are a poorer country than Australia and every time there is an economic downturn our best young people head over there to make their fortune. In return Australia send us some of their worst gang members. I know you think I am making this up - all I can say is, I dearly wish you were right!

In Australia we only elect a party member for each electorate, the party that wins the most electorates becomes the governing party. The leader of the governing party becomes the prime minister, the opposition is the second largest winning party and there leader becomes the opposition leader

Dam it! I was getting into that. Fun fact our recent GG Sir Peter Cosgrove served in Vietnam with my dad and during my time in the Army got to have a beer or 2 at the officers Mess. Top bloke for sure

Ryan, the Governor is the British King's representative in Australia. He serves a fixed term and is appointed to the post. As the British Parliament passes all legislation it is ratified by the King. The same happens in Australia. Unless You research Gough Whitlam.

From the Saskatchewan government website on Royal protocol comes this directive: “Since the members of the Royal Family visit Canada in their capacity as family of The King of Canada, it is not accurate to refer to the "King of England" or the "British Royal Family." Canada is a constitutional monarchy in its own right, separate from the United Kingdom, and The King is the Canadian Head of State, represented federally by the Governor General and provincially by the Lieutenant Governors.” The same holds true as regards the King of Australia, the Australian Monarchy and the Australian Royal Family.

As an Australian I find the major flaw with this system being that we vote for the party sure, but we have no choice with the who leads the party. So if we have leadership spill we get a new face in office, someone who the public barely knows and may not want leading the nation. This happened between 2010 and 2018 and saw our country go through FIVE different pm's. Bit of a joke.

One other big difference from the USA is the Aust Electoral Commission (AEC). An independent government body charged with setting and maintaining electoral boundaries and running and counting all elections, state and federal. They also deal with dirty tricks in campaigns and challenges to the results.

No Governor-General has ever refused to sign off on a Law. They have sent it back with suggest changes. But never said no

The prime minister can change if they are perceived as not doing well … their party selects a new prime minister. The party voted in is the constant until the next election not necessary the head of that party. Often it is the same person but not always.

The Governor-General is a prominent Australian chosen by the Government and "recommended" to the King of Australia for appointment. The same King is also King of Canada, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea...oh, yes, and Britain where he usually lives. The present King spent some time at school in Australia as a boy. The Governor-general can't veto legislation, unlike the US President. He just signs it into law.

The governor-general (along with each state governor) represents the British monarch who, currently is King Charles III. Australia is one of a number of members of the British Commonwealth headed by the King. This is not merely a ceremonial arrangement; in 1975, the Australian labour government was sacked by the Governor General in the name of the Queen. This eventually led to a federal election with the opposition running the country in the interim but with limited powers.

Our Head of State is the monarch of England, at present King Charles. His representative in Australia is called the Governor General. We have 3 levels of government, Local (Councils/Shires), State ( Victoria, Tasmania etc) and Federal (The Whole Country).

Happy Arvo Ryan The Prime Minister is the equivalent to the Speaker in US Congress, except they have most of the powers of the US President as well. To this outsider, the US Electoral College sounds downright un-democratic, but I don't know a whole lot.

In Australia, the Liberals are called so because, when first founded, one of their core things was the "liberalization" of the tax system (ie. tax breaks for the rich, enough said). They are ((very) conservative, and probably closest to your Republican Party - at least before the Republicans completely lost their s##t in recent times. The Nationals used to be called 'the Country Party" and traditionally represent the large farmers and land owners. Also conservative, pretty much merged with the Liberals in all but name these days. Whoever is head of the Country Party at the time often gets to be the Deputy Prime Minister. The Governor-General is selected by Parliament (and OK'd by the Crown) to serve a specific term, one time only. G-G candidates are usually highly regarded people with a well-established background in positions of great responsibility - judges, military officers, senior public servants, academics, etc.. They do not make laws, their role is largely ceremonial, but they do have very specific powers under the Constitution, such as being the one empowered to call elections (at the PM's request).

**SEND RYAN BATTERIES** 🤣

As a first order approximation an American can imagine if there was no election for president. Instead if the Speaker of the House of Representatives was automatically the president as well. There are other differences, some of which lead to Australia having multiple parties, but if you renamed congressional district to "electorate" or "seat", and "Member of the HR", to "Member of Parliament" or "MP", then most things would begin to make sense. We also elect twelve senators per state split over two terms, rather than six split over three; and, we use a preferential voting system. Still, once you get past the "the executive is drawn from the legislature" part of it, the two systems are not dissimilar.

G'day Ryan. Our parliament uses the Westminster system from the UK as does Canada and New Zealand, once a law is passed it must receive assencion from the Queen or King by being signed of by the Governor General ( the Queen's representative)

Voting for a party instead of an individual helps ensure policy is negotiated to represent the most amount of people instead of the whims of a single person, and ensures personal accountability of the leader because they need to be elected by the various factions within the party. One of the downsides is that when there are two strong factions and a leader is struggling to engage with the public, one faction leader will investigate a leadership spill where the party votes to retain current leader or elect a new leader. These votes will usually see lots of deals made to get their candidate across the line. Deals such as promising certain portfolios to certain Members, promises to support and prioritise specific legislation that might benefit regional areas and their representatives. A lot of Australians, whole voting for a party, do so because they prefer a specific leader over the other competing leader, and get upset when there's a change in leadership despite knowingly voting in a party and therefore giving the party the authority to choose the leaders on their behalf.

In many ways ,we use the term "the crown" in a similar way that the US uses the term "the people". Technically it does refer to the monarch, but more practically it refers to a legal construct

Let me give you a bit more detailed run-down. The Australian Constitution denotes equal representation by State in an Upper House / Senate. Every 3 years each State and Territory’s populations simultaneously vote for half of their respective Senators. Those Senators serve for 6-year terms. Currently, each State gets 12 Senators and each Territory gets 2, for a total of 76 Senators. The Australian Constitution also denotes equal representation by population in a Lower House / House of Representatives. Every 3 years each Electorate simultaneously votes for a Local Member / Member of Parliament (MP). Those MPs serve for 3-year terms. The Constitution expects twice the number of MPs as Senators (currently 151); thus, Electorates are redrawn if necessary to have the approximate population required, within state boundaries. e.g., Australia has 17.7M registered voters / [2 * 76 senators] = 116,000 expected per Electorate. New South Wales has approx. 5.5M enrolled voters, thus it gets 47 Electorates of approx. 117,000 each. Note: Each adult Australian citizen is legally required to be enrolled to vote (there is a small fine if you don’t). The AEC draws non-partisan Electoral maps. Draft Bills are brought by MPs to the Lower House to vote on, and only by majority move to the Upper House. If rejected, the Upper House can make amendments to the Bill, but must get the Lower House to agree to those amendments. Once both Houses pass the same Bill it is then a Proposed Law, which will be presented to the Governor General of Australia, who will give that Law the Monarch’s assent, thus making it an Act and legally enforceable (or ignore it for 2 years and then it becomes law). Note: The Governor General is a legal stand-in for the Monarch of the U.K., who is by right of the Commonwealth, the holder of the Crown of Australia (separate legal entity to the U.K. Crown). The Australian Constitution does not denote anything about political parties or a Prime Minister. However, as each MP usually belongs to a political party and if that party holds the majority of seats in the Lower House, they effectively hold control of the governmental powers. Thus, that political party promotes their members to the Governor General to be appointed as any number of Ministerial roles, e.g., Minister for Health. One such role promoted by convention is their self-elected leader as the representative leader of the country, namely the Prime Minister (PM). Note: As PM is not enshrined in the constitution and is only used by convention a new government may just choose not to have one, or to replace one mid-term as has happened. However, most political parties will pre-determine who they want as their PM to be and promote them to drive votes nationally.

Make no mistake, We still have only 2 choices.

She didn’t explain that well. We select our local, regional politicians. Plus we select which party we want for state leadership, plus we vote for our PM. Each party chooses a candidate for leader prior to election, and we choose which party we vote for, depending on who the leader is and how good the current party is. Once elected The PM then selects from the people we have chosen, the individuals he wants as his team. However in order of public preference, ministers get placed in parliament seats. So the PM isn’t choosing who make up the senate, we are. He only nominates his team members. Parliament can choose to remove people who we have selected if they’re in trouble. Lately some who have been bought by the big red and were allowing the big red to control our democracy, have been pushed out, voted out and a couple are actually being prosecuted. It’s confusing, but it works. We essentially get all of the say in the running of our nation. Politicians still do that whole thing where they make promises they don’t keep though, so that’s the one flaw.

She actually missed a step here... a new law has to be scrutinised by the High Court of Australia to check it's legality against our constitution. If the new law is found by the High Court to be Unconstitutional it will be rejected. The Crown has almost no power and the signing off on laws is very much a formality.

We have lots of parties here… Labor, Liberal, Nationals, Greens, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation… even independents.

In Australia, the marriage act , is a federal act, that was done to standadise the law's, meaning that no matter where you live in Australia you are bound by the same law's around marriage

Temperatures up to 117° F with wind, thunder, dry lightning and tomorrow the 9th of December they are expecting a month's rain in a day, that's 4 inches so flooding is expected.