Support Of Federalism In Australia

Australia is run by a democratic system at all 3 levels of government (Federal, State and Local). Democracy means in Greek "rule by the governed". A democrary has key fundermentals that sustains that type of leadership.

First of all, there are some similarities between the Australian government and the American government. They both have a congress, although they call it parliament in the Australian government. Both have a federal government; this means that they have state and federal governments. They have senators that represents the states. They have a house that is elected by the people. In both countries, legislation has to be passed through both houses. They both have a court that interprets the constitution and handles final appeals (Supreme Court in U.S. and High Court in Australia). Also, they both have written constitutions that describes the powers of government. However, they both have differences.

Australia has been federated for 114 years, yet we still don’t have our own head of state. Yes, we have a head of state in the form of a Governor General, but this person does not represent the views of the Australian people, but rather serves as the representative of the Queen. A Queen that will never be a true Australian.

Essay: Federation of Australia By Tristan Scheirs

Defence
A very important reason why Australia decided to become a nation (having a federal government) was because of an inadequate defence force. Each of the six colonies in Australia had their own military force. But when it came to patrolling the extensive Australian coastline, they had to rely on the British navy to fulfil that task. Due to there being a number of countries such as Germany, France, and Russia who had colonised parts of the Pacific, there was a growing fear that one of them could have attacked Australia. There was a report released by British Major - General Sir J Bevan Edwards in 1889, states the individual colonies of Australia did not have enough soldiers,

In this essay, it will be seen that the expansion of the external affairs power since Federation reflects Australia’s growing independence from a Dominion of the United Kingdom and its transition into nationhood.

Now I shall talk about how the Australian Constitution. It’s common knowledge to know that a constitution is pretty much the law of the land and a foundation of the laws that rule there. Constitutions are very important for countries to have. Helen Irving explains in The Oxford Companion of Australian Politics that, “Its Preamble records the agreement of the six Australian colonies to federate in 1901 and to remain together as ‘one indissoluble federal Commonwealth’.” The Australian Constitution was written as a bill when the colonies met in 1890. The constitution has a full draft by the end of 1891 but colonial parliaments failed to pass it (Irving).

To introduce, Australia was country solely owned and run by Britian until 1901, the year of Australian federation, from 6 separate self-governing colonies to one, on the 26th day of January 1901. ’While Federation was not perfect, it was a system (of both laws and beliefs) that enabled Australia to flourish.’ The question itself represents the states coming together as one uniting nation. The laws, the beliefs, the privileges and the embellishment of the phrase gives you a sense of welcoming into the history of Australian federation.

Where there are problems, they are often with the way the Australian federal system operates, rather than with federalism itself. Rather than criticising our federal system, we should be working to make better use of its advantages
in order to improve our prosperity. In particular, the reform of the allocation of powers and responsibilities between the Commonwealth and the States, and reform of fiscal federalism, are desperately needed. (Twomey and Withers, 2007)

The Australian government system has been originally created in 1901 through the Constitution. With the fundamentals carved in the Constitution, the Australian System is often referred to as a ‘Washminster System’ as it is a hybrid of the Washington (US) and Westminster (UK) system of government. With the fusion of North America and the United Kingdom’s government systems, the phenomenon of the bicameral system was implemented in the Australian system. Bicameralism’s origins are from England and it was later established in the United States. Hence, the onset of the Australian system’s structures was anglocentric by reflecting the foundations and concepts of England. However, the concept of bicameralism is known to have existed since medieval times and has since been in the chronical of the Western political progress for centuries. Bicameralism is an important system in the Australian government. It refers to a government which consists of two chambers, or houses. Alike North America, the houses are known as the House of Representatives (the lower house) and the Senate (the upper house). On the other hand, in the United Kingdom, the chambers are known as the ‘House of Commons’ (the lower house) and the ‘House of Lords’ (the upper house). In 1789, North America altered their constitution in order to ratify how the American citizens were represented. Through bicameralism, the House of Representative would represent the people equally by population, whereas the Senate would

Federation Essay “How did the Federation positively affected Australia?” Australia became an independent nation on the 1st of January, 1901. This occurred as the British Parliament passed legislation stating that the six colonies of Australia could govern and become the Commonwealth of Australia. The six colonies were New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia who were all separate colonies until the legislation was passed.

On January 1st 1901, the commonwealth of Australia was born when the six separate states united under a single federal constitution. Sir Henry Parkes first voiced the need for a united defense of the Australian continent in his Tenterfield oration in 1889. Prior to his speech, the proposal was considered unpopular as each colony had their own characteristics and traditions independant from the rest of Australia. However with issues such as transportation and communication growing, many people understood that a federation be more beneficial towards these matters. With the threatening approach with other countries growing, politicians and high ranked defense officers ,now recognized as the most important figures in Australian history, realised

At the present time, evidence of how the role of the constitution applies to the governance of Australia, can be illustrated by the current considerations due in the High Court in determining citizenship eligibility of parliamentarians. This ruling, dependent upon the High Courts’ interpretation of the constitution, will determine the legality of some parliamentarians to be members of parliament. Example3: Over site

     Australia’s form of government has been described as a constitutional monarchy, in which the queen of England is the nominal head of state. In the federal government, power rests with the elected political party that holds the majority in the House of Representatives. The leader is the prime minister. The Senate consists of 76 members who are elected every six years. The House of Representatives has 147 members and they face elections every three years. Any laws that involve changes to the Constitution must be decided by a referendum in which the country’s citizens are called to vote on whether or not they want such changes to take place.

Australia’s government design was taken from the British Westminster system after those who originally colonized Australia. A functional, western style democracy, there are a number of minor political parties operating in Australia but the country’s federal politics is an essential 2-party system at present, much like the United States (Our Country, 2015).

Federalism is a system of government in which powers are divided between a central (national) government and regional (state) governments. (pg. 4)The relationship between the state and federal governments is very complex. There are certain things that state governments can do that the federal government cannot do, and there are things that the federal government can do that the state governments cannot do. In the midst of it all, the complex situations between the state governments and the federal government can cause many conflicts throughout the country and it can make it difficult for some citizens to keep up with the constantly changing politics.