Australian Political System

Running head: AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM
Australian Political System
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1AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM
State or governmental affairs, better known as politics has always been one of the key
subject of debate. It is a general opinion of almost all that the society that has a faulty
political system is bound to failure. According to Dinar et al. (2015), politics is related to the
phenomenon of cooperation and conflict. However, the Australian political system is a very
interesting version of democracy and the reason behind it would be described in this paper
further. This paper is going to elaborate on the structure and dynamics of the Australian
political system and would apply various theoretical models to the analysis of the political
behaviour in Australia. It would further evaluate the different perspective on the issues and
problems.
Structure and dynamics of the Australian political system- Australia is a federation of
six states which have their own governments, constitutions, laws and parliaments. The
political system of Australia has taken its elements from political systems of Great Britain
and from the United States. Liberal democracy of the country has been built around the
constitutional monarchy and British Westminster system along within various features from
the United States’ Federal structure (Keane 2018). The politics of Australia conducts and
operates its government as the two party system that has compulsory voting and at the same
time, the constitutional monarchy of Australia recognised Queen Elizabeth II as the head or
chief of the state (Fraenkel 2016). She is a formal, ceremonial and symbolic position holder
and possess the administrative power for governing the country. Queen Elizabeth II is also
the queen of United Kingdom and many other nations that used to be the parts of the earlier
British Empire. However, it is also to note that role of her as the queen of Australia and that
of the queen of United States are both different. The government of United Kingdom plays no
part in the role of the queen as that is played in the queen of Australia. Australia is one of the
countries that has introduced the printed secret ballet system for the voting procedure in the
year 1855 when the local elections in the Victorian colony took place by means of this

2AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM
system. The Australian government is constructed on the basis of democratic liberal tradition.
The Australians with the democracy have the right to elect the members of the federal
parliament of the nation that is a bicameral body which assimilates the elements such as the
federalist senate and fused executive.
The Australian political hierarchy is composed of three different levels and they are
executive level, legislative level and judicial level. The executive level is the highest most
level in the Australian political hierarchy, which is headed by the monarch. The monarch is
politically represented as the Governor General of Australia (Dowding and Martin 2017). His
major responsibilities include- issuing writs to bestow elections and honour, providing a royal
assent to the legislation and appointing ministers, judges and ambassadors. The monarch of
the system also plays the role of commander of the armed and defence forces of Australia and
is also the president of the federal executive council. After him, the main power lies with the
Australia’s prime minister. He heads the cabinet and the government as the highest level
government minister. He is also considered as one of the strongest political figure of the
nation. The prime minister of the country achieves his position through getting elected as the
leader of the part in Australian government.
Secondly, the legislative level of the Australian political hierarchy deals with the
development and creation of flaws. Australia’s legislative branch is the parliament that is also
considered to be the commonwealth or federal parliament (Cabrera 2018). The legislative
branch of the country has been impacted by two individual systems and they are Westminster
system and the federalism system. The three key elements of the parliament are the Monarch,
House of Representatives and Senate. The House of Representatives is a group of 15
members who are elected in democratic manner (by the people of the country) for a term of 3
consecutive years. Such kind of voting an instant run off system is generally used for
preferential voting and it is also to note that this kind of voting system has been derived from