Overview of the Australian System

Seven key features

A list of key features is an oft-used approach to provide an overview of a nation’s system of government. While some have a list of ten or twenty features for Australia’s system of government, almost everyone’s list has the following seven:

  • British-style Cabinet or responsible government: The executive arm of government is formed from the party or coalition of parties with a majority in the lower house of the legislature (the House of Representatives in the Commonwealth Parliament). The executive is responsible to the Parliament, and the Parliament is responsible to the people in accord with the (largely unwritten) Westminster conventions of responsible government. Members of the executive government must also be members of the legislature. In this regard, there is not a clear separation of powers like that in the United States of America.
  • Representative government: All legislatures (parliaments) are elected through universal adult franchise with compulsory voter enrolment and compulsory voting. There are regular unavoidable elections, although a government can choose to go to the polls ahead of a required election date if they want. Political parties are recognised as representative vehicles for the peoples’ interests.
  • Constitutionalism: There is a written constitution that limits government and which is difficult to amend; however, the Australian Constitution does not include a formal Bill of Rights like the first ten amendments to the US Constitution.
  • Federalism: Australia has a federal system of government where powers are divided between the central government (known as the Commonwealth or Federal Government) and regional governments (known as state governments).
  • Bicameralism: With the exception of the Queensland Parliament (which abolished its upper house in 1922) and the two Territory Parliaments, all Australian Parliaments have two houses: an upper and lower house. There is a tradition of relatively powerful upper houses.
  • A strong bipolar party system: Although there are early signs that the two-party system is weakening and the role of independent representatives and minor parties is growing, Australia’s system of government is essentially a two-party system. Party discipline in the legislatures is almost absolute. Party line voting at elections is still the most common form of voting. The two key party groups in Australia’s bipolar party system are:
    • The largely permanent coalition of the Liberal and National Parties is centre-right in orientation and generally espouses the political philosophies of economic liberalism and social conservatism. For the purposes of political analysis, the parties in this largely permanent coalition can be treated as factions within one party.
    • The Australian Labor Party is centre-left in orientation and generally espouses the political philosophies of economic liberalism and social democracy.

    The difference between these two parties is more pronounced in terms of their approaches to social policy than their approaches to economic policy.

  • Independent judicial review: There is a strong emphasis on an independent judiciary. All judicial offices are filled by appointment; there are no elections for judges or state prosecutors. The actions of all governments are subject to constitutional interpretation by the High Court of Australia.

The “Washminster” hybrid

History provides another vehicle for describing the Australian system of government. Historically, the Australian system of government is a hybrid. When the Australian founding fathers wrote the Australian Constitution in the 1890s they combined elements of the British parliamentary model and the federal model of government from the United States of American into something uniquely Australian.

In 1980, Elaine Thompson used the phrase “the Washminster mutation” to remind us that while the British heritage (Westminster) is dominant, the influences of the American model (Washington) on our system of government are substantial and cannot be ignored. For example, the unresolved tensions in the Australian Constitution between the Westminster and Washington models provide much of the context for the dismissal of the then Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, in 1975.

Westminster

From the British tradition Australia’s founding fathers borrowed:

  • a constitutional monarch (who is a non political, non-executive head of State);
  • the Westminster model of representative parliamentary democracy and responsible Cabinet government; and
  • the English legal system.

Washington

From the US tradition they borrowed:

  • a federal system where powers are divided between the central (Commonwealth) and regional (state) governments;
  • an entrenched constitution which provides the fundamental law, limiting the sovereignty of Commonwealth and state parliaments;
  • a supreme court (known as The High Court of Australia), which rules on the validity and constitutionality of Commonwealth and state laws;
  • a Senate, or “States House”, as part of the legislature with equal representation from each state;
  • different parliamentary terms for both Houses of Parliament, and a rotating system of elections for Senators; and
  • relatively short terms for the House of Representatives of up to 3 years. (At the time the Australian Constitution was written there were two years terms for the House of Representatives in the United States and seven-year terms for the House of Commons in the United Kingdom).

Uniquely Australian

However, today the Australian system of government cannot be simply described as a mixture of British responsible government and American federalism. Over the more than 100 years since federation it has evolved into something uniquely Australian.

Australia has more “separation of powers” than Westminster but significantly less than Washington. (Australia has separated Federal vs. State powers; Judiciary vs. Legislature; Judiciary vs. Executive; but it has not separated the Legislature vs. Executive powers as they are fused by their common membership).

Compared with the United States (US) system of checks and balances, Australia tends to have the checks but there are few balances. The balances in the US include: Senate ratification of treaties negotiated by the President; the power to declare war belongs to the Congress, but the power to wage war is the President’s; and a President may be impeached by the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate with the Chief Justice presiding. (In contrast to the US, the United Kingdom has neither the checks nor the balances).

Australia has compulsory voter enrolment and voting for legislatures, with a variety of more complex voting systems than first-past-the-post voting; including, preferential or optional preferential voting systems in most lower houses; proportional representation in the Senate; and quota-preferential proportional representation [also known as the Hare-Clark system with Robson-rotation] for multi-member seats in Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.

Since the dismissal in 1975, it is understood that the doctrine of responsible government in Australia requires the government of the day to have the confidence of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the United Kingdom, the doctrine of responsible government only requires the government to have the confidence of the lower house.

Party discipline is almost absolute in Australian parliaments. With the very rare exception, members of parliament vote along party lines. While party discipline has never been strong in the United States, Australian party discipline is stronger than in Westminster. As a consequence, some have suggested that in Australia responsible party government has replaced the Westminster notion of responsible government. In framing policy, the Prime Minister and Ministers are more concerned with the views of their party than the House of Representatives.

Unlike Westminster or Washington, Australia has a very powerful upper house (the Senate), which has almost equal legislative powers to the House of Representatives. Since the 1949 Senate elections, when the system for Senate voting was changed, it is more common than not for the government to face a hostile party or parties in control of the Senate. Together with strong party discipline, this dynamic has had a substantial impact on the system of government in Australia.

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