Politics in Australia: Ideologies, Media, and National Security

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of Australian politics, examining the legacies of the Abbott and Turnball governments, including their policies and achievements. It delves into the ideological differences between the Liberal and Labor parties, exploring their stances on economic policies, social issues, and governmental roles. The essay also addresses the impact of media on Australian politics, providing examples of media influence and the role of government control. Furthermore, it investigates the rise of movements like One Nation and Reclaim Australia, analyzing the factors contributing to their emergence and the public's concerns. The importance of national security and individual rights is also discussed, considering the balance between these two critical aspects in the context of contemporary challenges and governmental responses. The essay concludes by summarizing the key findings and highlighting the evolving dynamics of Australian politics.

Running head: POLITICS
Australian Politics
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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The topic discusses the importance of the Australian politics under a new regime of Malcom
Turnball. The topic elaborates on the rule of the preceding session of the Government and how it
has turned out which affected the future regime of the government. Te topic further critically
elaborates the importance of the national security and the reign of Donald Trump over the
politics of Australia.
Assessment of the legacy of the Abbott Government.
Tony Abbott’s policy from 2013-2015 is being judged on the basis of his work for
Australia. However, in this topic it is important to discuss How far the Abbott Government was
successful in exhibiting a successful quality of leadership to the country Australia. Therefore, the
terms would has to be convenient enough to explain and judge the legacy of the Government
with evidences and the topic would further elaborate on the Abbott’s government’s legacy
(Curtin 2016).
It is true to justify that Australia has shifted away from a type of UK influenced culture to
a more liberal culture. The government of Tony Government was considered to be the least
productive while passing the legislation since the year 1972. Mr. Abbott in his reign focused on
certain points and they are Senate reforms, defunding the human rights commission and giving
protection to the employees. However, the government was unpopular in most of the times
(Curtin 2016).
There are crisis prevailing in the 21st century, and inside Australia, which is a democratic
country. Abbott’s reign emphasized on the nature of rhetoric which is emergency and crisis
based. Abbott has proved himself to be an incompetent leader (Street 2015). Abbott
Government’s lack of coherence in the policies made the leader in capable of understanding the

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issues of the complex policies. In front of the media, Abbott has given the public messages about
the reforms of health care and they made it the main point (Street 2015). However, he himself
was not sure about what the health legislation is needed to be passed. He was also not sure about
Australia’s important public broadcaster and Abbott was completely hoodwinked on the issues of
climate change at the summit of G20 held last year in Australia. Abbott was also not going at
maintaining public relations as he has never thought of waging discussions with the other top
ministers belonging to the conservative coalition (Street 2015).
Therefore, in many such aspects, Abbott failed to emphasize on the tactics of discussing
important policies and interpreting them accordingly. His rhetoric based ideas had also turned
out to be a failure in most of the times. Therefore, the government with his policy building
efforts, maintaining public relations failed (Street 2015).
Achievements of Turnball Government.
Malcolm Turnball has become the 29th Australian’s Prime Minister in the year 2015 by
defeating the Abbott Government. Over here it is important to discuss the main achievements of
the Turnbal government and what are the major fields where the Prime Minister worked to bring
improvements in the administration of Australia (Dowding 2017).
According to the modern Trait theory, the individuals who are known as leaders have the
adjustment of intelligence, openness to the experiences and the self-efficacy. In this context as
well, Malcolm Turnball proved his self-efficacy in most of the times.
Turnball’s top 3 achievements include where he increased the female candidates in the
cabinet ministers from three to five where a woman leader name Marise Payne is now considered
as the first minister in the field of defense (Dowding 2017). Malcolm Turnball also changed the

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previous Government’s policy towards the funding of research for the CSIRO. Another most
important achievement is that he was successful in restoring the position of the government,
where he repositioned for being competitive at the polls. However, he also began the tax
conversation or raising the rate of Good and Service Tax in the lieu of cut in the income tax.
Turnball is working on the improvements of the administration of Australia, trying to
reverse the policy of the previous government and implementing properly to bring out the best of
the Turnball administration by introducing new facilities for Australia (Wanna et al 2013).
Ideological differences of the political parties of Australia
The two major political parties of Australia are the Liberal party and The Labor Party is
enumerated here. Over here it would focus on the main differences between the two major
political parties. Along with their ideological differences, it is also important to discuss, the
major differences that could be achieved in the field of their implementation of politics and
practices (Fielding et al 2012).
The Liberal Party believes in the idea of Conservatism and on the other hand, Labor party
believes in the ideology of Democratic Socialism (Fielding et al 2012; Cross and Katz 2013).
The Liberal Party believes in the idea of Minimal involvement of the government in the
economy and on the other hand Labor party believes in the minimum wages, enhancement in the
tax system for the higher earners of income.
The liberal party’s believe in the theory of Conservatism and also their belief in the idea
of Minimal intervention of the Government lead to the independent market policy structure,
rolling back to the Adam Smith’s model economics or Laissez- fair (Fielding et al 2012). The
Liberal party on the other hand believes in the ideology of Democratic Socialism which justifies

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the political demography along with the means of production in terms of social ownership, they
believe in the increasing of the system of the tax for the rich people. The Liberal party relies on
building a small governmental structure with the lower taxes and contributes to the less money
for the other health services. Tony Abbott being the Prime Minister of the Liberal party imposed
such ideas regarding the health schemes in Australia. The government also failed to achieve
minimum consensus from the ordinary people (Fielding et al 2012). However, on the other
hand, the labor party believes in the taxes at higher rate to give funds to a bigger public sector
and their main idea is to provide the important levels of the health and also incorporates the
education and important services to everyone. Liberal party looks for the interest of the wealthy
class people and on the other hand, Labor party looks for the interest of everyone in the society.
Bill Shorten is the opposition leader of the labor party (Fielding et al 2012; Cross and Katz
2013).
Therefore to conclude, both the parties follow their political ideologies implement them
in their field of practice. Right now Liberal party is in power in Australia and therefore, the
changes, improvements are quite inevitable in the field of politics and the differences exist
between the powers out of their ideological perceptions.
One Nation and Reclaim Australia.
There has been a rally name One Nation Reclaim Australia which is making the
Australians to raise their concerns for what are the troubles that they are facing. There are certain
factors which are contributed to the rise of such concerns (Wear 2014). However, such a shift has
to be noted down and the factors working behind such as shift.

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Australian people are disappointed about the treatment that they are receiving from the
present administration (Wear 2014). The farmers are not treated with the equal justice, where the
foreign investors are not included in paying their share of tax due to the implementation of the
Double Taxation system. The Australians are now eating the contaminated food where the
Australians are infected with Hepatitis A and where more than 20 Australians were affected.
With the coming of the Turnball administration, the GST would also rise; this would lead to the
higher payment of tax and also in return would affect the ordinary people of Australia.
Australians who are looking for their home have to suffer because of higher values of the houses.
Along with this, the migration also increased which also lead to the cultural problems in
Australia (Wear 2014).
This shift happened due to the above mentioned reasons where the people were tired
putting their demands forward and not being listened carefully. According to the media, it is
fascism as it is following the policy of suppressing the opposition and inculcating the aggressive
nationalism and also inculcating the policy of racism as they do not want to embrace the people
of the other culture (Wear 2014; Briton 2016). However, the rally claims to be democratic as it is
looking forward to support the interest of the people of the Country.
Therefore to conclude it could be stated that the for the sake of democracy, such rally has
to be established to put forward the problems of the people and it is felt necessary because the
freedom of expression and speech are under the threats (Briton 2016)
Power of Media in Australia.
The media in Australia influence the politics of the nation and also being controlled by
the party politics of the country through the implementation of the Authoritarian Theory. In this

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regard it is important to look out for the roles played by the Australian media with the
illustrations of the examples which are would be present here (McCallum and Waller 2013).
Media of Australia is little bit government controlled and also supports the bigger
companies, which is also following the ideology of conservatism. Government plays an
important role while influencing the media. The Australian media is not much transparent as well
while it is being regulated from the point of view of politics. It has been pointed that the
traditional media of Australia are under a greater pressure at the same time (McCallum and
Waller 2013).
There are certain examples which can be stated that media plays powerful roles such as
the During One Nation Rally, the media instead of putting forward as concerns they tagged the
rally as a fascism on the soil of Australia. The media also deny to face the questions raised by the
public. The media such as News Limited, always try to get away with the closing down of the
questions in order to avoid the scandals (McCallum and Waller 2013).
Therefore to conclude it could be stated that the media plays a powerful role in the
country Australia and it is backed by the rules and regulations of the Government and playing an
important role in managing the political environment of the country (Chadwick 2017).
Importance of National Security and Individual rights
The theory of Realism in the words of Machiavelli describes that for the sake of National
security, even if it is considered to reduce the rights of the human. Importance of the national
security and the individual rights are needed to be balanced. Over here it is important to discuss
about how the Government of Australia (Etzioni 2015).

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The principle that the government must follow is that the international human rights must
be balanced with the national security (Etzioni 2015). In the liberal democracy, it is important to
limit the rights of the individual in order to protect the national security to responds of the public
emergency situations. However, the right to life, and also the right to free from torture for some
criminal offences cannot be suspended.
In the liberal democracy, after the terrorist attacks took place in the year 2001,
September, there are 40 new laws are created which would investigate on the activities of the
population and movements of the people. If the people go against these laws, they were
considered “soft on terror” (Etzioni 2015). Therefore it is important to keep in mind that under
the new regime, and with the increase of the international issues, the rights of the individuals are
being be taken constricted and for the sake of security, such measures can be taken into
consideration (Buergenthal 2017).
Therefore to conclude it could be stated that the individual rights are being lowered down
due for the sake of the National security. However, it is necessary for the government to take
actions to prevent terrorism and that has to be balanced properly with the individual rights.
Impact of the election of Donald Trump
According to Clarke (2017), the election of Donald Trump in America is going to leave a
powerful impact on the other countries such as Australia as well. In this regard, it is important to
discuss how the election is impacting the ongoing politics of Australia
Donald Trump belonging from the Republican Party follows the idea of conservatism and
it is being reflected on his ingoing politics (Clarke 2017). Australia might get impacted out of the
Movement based on reclaim Australia and the Trump’s coming might encourage this movement.

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Australia can be included into another war in the Middle East out of the Trump’s forces based on
indiscrimination. The importance of the white workers can influence the Australian government
to adopt the same policy in the country (McNair 2017).
Therefore it could be concluded that Donald Trump’s election might leave a severe
impact on the Australian politics and it is up to the government of Australia to follow the politics
by maintaining the consensus.
Therefore to conclude it could be stated that the politics of Australia is being influenced
by the new regime of the government. The elections and the rise of conservative attitude in
United States are leaving a greater impact on the politics of Australia. Therefore, the functions of
the state and the country relations might also get affected out of this transformation.

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