Customs and Values

Wisdom
Australian quotes
Drinking
Shouts and rounds
Egalitarianism
The fear of inferiority
Facts
Odd facts of Australia
Etiquette
Important social rules
Tall-poppy syndrome
The misunderstood icon
Traditions
A time to be sombre and to not
Underdog
Siding with the loser

Humour
Mogrels, wogs, and larrikins
Inventions
Thinking different
Poetry
Defying stoicism
Australian Painting
Landscape and Identity
Australian Politics
Dealing with extremists
Australian Craft
Emotion in the hands
Australian Cuisine
Creativity in the kitchen
Australian Wine
The art of science
Australian Movies
Once were popular

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To many people, Australia is a boring place where nothing much happens. Unlike the middle-east, there are no suicide bombings or endless cycles of violence. Unlike Britain and France, there aren't ethnic riots that go on for weeks. Unlike the US, there aren't cults committing suicide on mass, or having a shoot out with the law. In some regards, the peaceful nature of Australia is surprising. In 2006, migrants constituted 22.8 per cent of the Australian population, and many of these migrants came from cultures defined by their violence and dislike of other cultures. To have a society with such a diverse range of people, but so little conflict, can be attributed to the Australian political system.  

The Australia political system was design to stop mass movements and so allow England to maintain minority rule over Australia. In the 19th century, there were three armed rebellions aimed at over throwing British rule, and the culture of the day was hostile to the mother country. British leaning politicians knew they had to get Australians seeking change with votes instead of guns, but they also had to design the system in a way that wouldn't see them lose control. The system they came up with gave people the opportunity to express their grievances, but it also made it very difficult for extremists to ever gain the reins of power, or for a mass movement to maintain solidarity.

House of Representatives

Every Australian is in an electorate that has at least 21,343 people. Each person in the electorate votes for an individual to represent them in the House of Representatives. These members are usually aligned with a major party. The party (or coalition) that gets the most members elected will govern.

The party elects its leader and the leader decides on senior positions in government. It is not possible for Australians to vote for who will be prime minister. They can only vote for a person in their electorate, who in turn will vote on who will be the prime minister.

The House of Representatives forms the bills that the Senate and the governor general subsequently deem suitable or unsuitable to pass into law.

As well as creating bills, the House of Representatives has question time. This gives members the opportunity to question the opposing party, or waffle on about whatever they want to talk about. In theory, question time is meant to be about debate, but in truth it is more about vilification and implementing political strategy. If a party doesn't want to answer a question, it simply ignores it, or just insults the other party with phrases like:

"Honourable Members opposite squeal like stuck pigs."  (Paul Keating)

It is in the House of Representatives where each party comes up with wedge policies to divide their opponent, or tosses the general public a bone to distract them as they pass an unpopular bill.

Voting styles

Compulsory voting is one of Australia's anti-extremist measures. In America, voluntary voting means that the extremists are great assets to a political campaign. It is the extremists that get out to vote, and convince others to vote as well. To keep the extremists happy, the American political parties must pander to their interests, and this can result in a polarised society. In Australia; however, the extremists are not really important at all. The political party that they have chosen can simply take them for granted and ignore them. The party can then devote its resources on the swinging voters that will decide the election. As a consequence, it is the moderates from the middle-ground that need to be kept happy. On the whole, these moderates are the most likely voters to be apathetic, and not the kind that will join a movement seeking to overthrow a government or hang its ministers. Furthermore, if voting was not compulsory, they probably wouldn't vote.

In addition to ensuring the moderates have a voice, compulsory voting forces every potential voter to reflect upon their values at least once every three years. Even if they lodge an informal or donkey vote, at least they have decided that wasting their vote is consistent with what they believe in, and such a reflection is a good thing.

Compulsive voting is just one of the many electoral innovations that Australia gave the world. Another notable innovation is the secret ballot. World-wide, the secret ballot is sometimes referred to as the "Australian ballot" or "kangaroo voting". The secret ballot allows people to resist peer pressure and register their true feelings. This was quite important around the time of federation. As patriotic sentiments of the day were quite hostile to mother England, politicians quite rightly feared that mobs using patriotic fervour could pressure to individuals to fall in line, and vote out politicians loyal to Britain.

For the House of Representatives, preferential voting is another innovation that keeps extremists out of parliament. The system forces voters to rank candidates in order of preference. When the ballots are collectively tallied, it is the candidate that is the least hated, rather than most liked, that represents the people. It also allows voters to risk voting for an unlikely candidate in the knowledge that their two-party-preferred choice will count if the unlikely candidate failed to gain enough support. In 1998, preferential voting kept Pauline Hanson out of parliament. Hanson won 36% of the primary vote, which was 10% more than her nearest rival, yet still lost the seat.

Admittedly, public ignorance about preferential voting leads to the system being exploited by major parties for political reasons. On election day, the parties hand out how-to-vote cards, which advise people how they should fill in their voting forms. (Most voters are unaware that how-to-vote cards are just recommendations, and that they can be ignored.) The major parties almost always advise that the other major party be put last, even if a different party is more ideologically opposed. In 2010, this led to the Australian Greens winning the seat of Melbourne. The Liberal Party advised voters to preference the Greens before Labor. Once the Liberals were eliminated, their preferences went to the Greens, which pushed the Greens ahead of Labor. In other words, due to preferential voting, one of the least popular candidates, and most disliked, won the seat. Although the Liberals knew that the Greens policies were far more opposed that those of Labor, they believed that the emergence of the Greens could be a form of wedge politics.

Even though preferential voting can help the smaller parties, it was initially designed to allow two likeminded parties to compete with each other, without risk of both parties losing out from doing so. In other words, it was designed to preserve a two-party system.

The Senate

Even though compulsory voting, the secret ballot, and preferential voting help keep the extremists out of the House of Representatives, the extreme fringe still has a chance to influence the direction of Australia via the Senate. In the Senate election, gaining a proportion of the vote leads to a form of representation. If elected, a minor party can exert influence if it sides with the major opposition party to block the passage of the governing party's legislation. Historically, few major parties have had a majority in both houses, thus the senate has been able to deny the passage of legislation that is not deemed to be in the interests of those who support the opposition, and the minor parties. For this reason, the senate forces the government to create legislation that is relatively satisfactory for all Australians, not just 50 per cent of them.

In a final blow to extremism, only half of the senators are elected each election. Furthermore, if they lose their seat, there is a lag between the election and when they leave office. This lag prevents an extreme political group from secretly orchestrating a terror attack against Australia, riding the emotion of outrage to an election victory, and then quickly implementing legislative policies that consolidate its power. (As the Nazi Party did in Germany.) The lag ensures that there is a cooling off period that allows politicians to take stock of exactly what happened, police to investigate, and decisions to be made free of short-term community hysteria. The lag also prevents a newly elected party being too different from the previous party. Whatever change occurs, it is a gradual one.

The Head of State

The Australian system of government was designed to preserve British rule. Reflecting this aim, the British monarch is the Australian Head of State and the governor general is her representative. After the House of Representatives has passed a bill, it goes to the Senate. If the Senate also passes the bill, it goes to the governor general for final approval.

Even though the governor general is the most powerful position in the Australian political system, that power has rarely been used - at least publicly. Governor generals just sign every bill they are asked to sign. The main reason for their compliance is that governor generals are appointed by the Monarch on the recommendation of the prime minister. Understandably, prime ministers usually don't recommend anyone that may want to use their power.

Prior to the 1930s, the position of governor general was always filled by an Englishman. Since the 1930s, the position has been filled by an Australian. Once in the position, the governor general has gone around giving speeches that few people have paid attention to.

The one exception was Sir John Kerr who sacked the Whitlam government in 1975. After the opposition used its majority in the Senate to block supply, the Whitlam government was unable to function but refused to call fresh elections. With both political parties using their power to a point of stalemate, the governor general had to do something. After sacking Whitlam, he installed the opposition as the caretaker government and called fresh elections. The Australian people were then able to decide on their government. The Whitlam government lost 91 of the 127 House of Representatives seats.

In 1999, Australia's politicians gave the people the choice of changing the constitution to replace the Monarch with an Australian president appointed by parliament. 80 per cent of Australians supported the move to a republic, but wanted a directly-elected president. Politicians were against a direct-election model on the grounds it would lead to a "populist" president. Presumably, the politicians feared that a president would advocate "populist" polices such as tax cuts and pay for them by cutting government pork barreling. The referendum recieved a no vote.

Separation of powers

In theory, power is dispersed in Australia so that no one person or body can ever have complete control. One power is the legislative, which is Parliamentary power to make law. The second is the Executive, which refers to the different Ministers of the Crown's power to execute and administer law. The third is Judicial power, which refers to a court's power to interpret and enforce laws.

For many years after Federation, judicial power resided with the privy council of London, and its power to interpret and enforce Australian laws positioned it at the apex of the Australian legal system. The apex of Judicial power has now been transferred to the High Court of Australia, with the justices being appointed by the Australian parliament.

As federal parliament has the power to make and administer laws, as well as choose the justices that interpret them, Australia doesn't have a true seperation of powers. Furthemore, because the federal government selects the governor general, it has managed to gain control of a system designed to preserve British rule in Australia. The result is quite a weak democracy, yet one that is incorrectly perceived to be a strong democracy. Fortunately, Australians seem to have a cultural trait that gets bored with a party if it has been in power for 10 years or more. The frequent change of governing parties has a way of preventing excess corruption by federal politicians.

Halting the revolution

The policies countering extremism help explain a bemused comment by Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin about the Australian political system. After visiting Australia and seeing that the workers were very much in control, Lenin was surprised that the free market still reined. According to Lenin:

"What sort or peculiar capitalist country is this in which the workers' representatives predominate in the upper house....and yet the capitalist system is in no danger?"

Simply, the Australian political system doesn't allow a government to come to power and then go on a massive purge of dissidents, critics or anyone else that threatens its power. Instead, the system gives voters the means to express their grievances, but denies individual politicians the means to exploit those grievances for their own personal gain.

On the negative side, a government can be as corrupt as sin, and even if it loses an election, the new government can't purge all the corrupt members in the ex-ministry or bureaucracy.

Bill of Rights

A Bill of Rights is conspicious by its absense in Australia. In fact, Australia is one of the few developed democracries to lack one. This absence can be attributed to the diverse nature of Australian society at the turn of the century. It was a society that still had people, and offspring of people, who had been sent to Australia in penal servitude. It was a society that had people of English descent loyal to mother England and people of Irish descent seeking rebellion. It was a society in which a large segment of the population was sympathetic to the executed bushranger Ned Kelly, and another segment of the population was sympathetic to the police force that hung him. It had coloured races, and those who wanted to rid Australia of coloured races. It had populist leaders that held favour with the uneducated classes, and unpopular leaders that held favour with the educated classes. It had people who wanted a socialist revolution, and people living in fear of a socialist revolution. A Bill of Rights would have had no chance of success because the society would never have been able to agree upon what rights were important. The only thing that the diverse interests could agree upon was that it would be a disaster for Australia if any one of the other extreme interests gained the reins of power, and ruled over all others.

System of Government

1) The Federal Government controls national issues such as foreign affairs, immigration, defence, post, social security, census, statistics, coinage, and banking.

2) State Governments are responsible for schools, police, gaols, hospitals, and most community services.

3) There are approximately 900 Local Governments. They control local administration issues such as local transport, garbage collection, town planning and utilities.

*Even though the constitution stipulates that health and education are state issues, the federal government has been able to use its control of the tax system to gain some power over health and education. By controlling money, it is able to pressure the states or fund private institutions in competition to state institutions.

Parties

"By the 1960s liberals were considered anti-capitalist and capitalists were considered fascists. This was a complete reversal of the original meaning of liberalism. Whereas 19th-century liberals made the individual sovereign over his own life and the state his protector, 20th-century liberals restored the pre-Enlightenment order: the individual's interests subordinated to society's interests, as judged by those in power, which meant the regulation of commerce and the redistribution of wealth, from those who produced it to those who didn't...And now a reunion of liberalism with its abducted child, capitalism, may be coming to pass. In the US they drifted apart, but here in Australia mother and child kept in touch" John Dawson

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party was established in the hardships of the 1890s with the aim of providing a fair go for workers. It used the American spelling of Labor to associate itself with the progressive United States rather than conservative England.

The Labor Party's union and progressive history best explains its culture today. As a party of the unions, it has always seen the value of group solidarity and has tried to achieve it with patriotic symbolism. It was the Labor Party that introduced the first Australian governor general, removed God Save the Queen as the national anthem and argued that Australia should become a republic. To protect its union interests under the guise of patriotism, the Labor Party also promoted the white Australia policy (immigration restriction act), against the wishes of England that was demanding a racially-neutral migration policy. As more non-white migrants started joining unions, the Labor Party changed from being an anti-non-white party to a party that promoted racial inclusion.

Although solidarity and patriotism has been a Labor strength, it has also proven to be fertile ground for corruption and repression. Admittedly, there is thought to be relatively little corruption at a federal level, where media scrutiny is highest, but at a state and local government level, Labor has suffered a great deal of corruption scandals.

The Liberal Party

The Liberal Party was established in 1944 by Robert Menzies; the then leader of the United Australia Party. The Liberal Party generally supports an ideology of individual determination. Consequently, it has often deconstructed the collective power structures that encourage people to identify with racial, sexual, union or nationalistic groups. It was the Liberal Party that gave the commonwealth vote to Aborigines, had the first Senate member of Aboriginal descent, had the first House of Representative member of Aboriginal descent, the first Asian migrant to be part of Parliament, the first female MP, offered the first ministerial positions for women, dismantled most of the white Australia policy and had the youngest ever member elected. It also allows its members to cross the floor and vote with the opposition when they feel strongly about an issue. The Labor Party does not allow the same break from group solidarity.

Broadly speaking, Liberal ideology is consistent with capitalist ideology. For this reason, business usually supports the Liberals. In 2010, the Liberals federal leader Tony Abbott said:

"As a liberal, I support lower taxes, smaller government and greater freedom."

The Liberal Party has rarely shown any interest in Australian patriotism. Former PM John Howard was perhaps an exception; however, he opposed Australia becoming a republic. In recent years, Church groups have infiltrated the Liberal Party with the aim of making it more socially conservative.

The Nationals

Originally known as the Country Party, the National Party was founded in 1913 to represent rural Australia. When Australia was a rural-dominated society, the Nationals had governed. As Australia became a urban-based society, the Nationals became a fringe political party with no hope of governing in its own right.

The Coalition

The Coalition is a partnership between the city-backed Liberal Party and the country-backed Nationals. For the Liberals, the partnership offers a greater chance of gaining enough seats to take government. For the Nationals, a partnership with the Liberals gives themselves the chance to take ministerial roles in a government.

Because it is a perpetual union, neither party needs to worry about attacking the other and can instead focus their attacks on Labor. The cost to both parties is that the Coalition has to operate in a way that sometimes alienates their respective supporters. As individual entities, the only real commonality that the Nationals and the Liberals share is a dislike of unions. To keep the coalition together, the Liberals have had to become more conservative and the Nationals have had to compromise some of the bush's interests for those of the city.

The Australian Greens

The Australian Greens were formally launched in 1992. Initially, they were meant to be a party concerned for the environment, but environmental issues soon took a back seat to a social agenda involving independence for Tibet, gay rights, visas for refugees, anti-immigration on sustainability grounds, attacks on America and boycotts of Israel.

Differences from New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand have had different kinds of social disputes over the last two centuries. As a result, their political systems have been designed to address those disputes. In Australia, voting is compulsory. In New Zealand, it is not. Australia uses preferential voting in which candidates are ranked in order of preference. New Zealand does not. Australia uses a first-past-the-post system that gives the seat to the candidate that gets the most votes, or preferences. This results in two major parties dominating.  New Zealand uses a proportional voting system. This results in some major parties, but also representation from nationalist groups, business lobbies, left-wing environmentalists and parties aligned with specific races. Australia has a senate. New Zealand does not. Australia does not have seats reserved for any racial group. New Zealand has special seats reserved for Maori.

The major parties of Australia are the Australian Labor Party, which uses American spelling, and the Liberal Party of Australia. The major parties of New Zealand are the New Zealand Labour Party, which uses British spelling, and the New Zealand National Party.

The Queen of England is the head of state of both countries.

Differences from India

The Australian political system makes an interesting contrast with India, which has also been shaped by previous British rule, but has undergone a great deal of change since gaining independence from Britain. Whereas the Australian constitution has hardly changed since 1901, the Indian constitution has been one of the most amended national documents in the world with more than 80 alterations. Much of the change has resulted from disputes between parliament and the Supreme Court.

Another point of difference is in the prevalence of corruption. At a federal level, Australian politicians have shown a desire to control the media in ways that are borderline corrupt, but on the whole, most corruption scandals have been limited to local and state governments. India, on the other hand, has a long history of corruption at the federal level. This can be partly attributed to specific families and specific parties dominating. To deal with potential cronyism, some ruling parties have tried to keep changing the ministers around to make it less likely that entrenched relationships can be exploited. For example, Kamal Nath of the Indian National Congress, was recently moved from roads to urban development."

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. Perhaps the site it was located, and its urban design, represent the fear of a popular uprising held by Australia's fathers of federation. Officially, the site of Canberra was chosen because it was half way between Sydney and Melbourne. In truth, it is far closer to Sydney than Melbourne. Furthermore, it is disconnected from the major transportation links between Sydney and Melbourne.

Canberra might be in a backwater location for the same reason that Brasila, the capital of Brazil, was located in the middle of the jungle. Specifically, it is in the middle of nowhere that governments can feel comforted in the knowledge that their grand plans are not going to be corrupted by revolutionary ideals flooding in from ports, or traders.

As well as reducing the threat of rebellion by locating Canberra in the middle of nowhere, the threat of rebellion was reduced with Canberra's urban design. Canberra's planner, an American named Walter Burely Griffin, had seen America's White House burnt down by those seeking to overthrow the government. Perhaps he wanted to reduce the potential fuel load for any interest group wanting to do the same in Australia. Consequently, instead of building monuments that would look great in a bonfire, he may have designed understated constructions that would look quite tame in a bonfire. Furthermore, instead of building huge boulevards that would allow the military to quickly be located in different parts of the city, as was the case in Paris, he decentralised Canberra and left sheep farms between the buildings.  The planners might have known that a dispersed mob storming across sheep farms to burn one building after another would not be as emotive as a concentrated mob pulling down statues or burning down imperial palaces.

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Complaints about cultural comparisons

Argentina
Emotion & innovation

America
Group vs individual

China
Tradition & change

Canada
Cults of multiculturalism

England
Warden & Convicts

France
Failed revolutionaries

Germany
Thinkers and Drinkers

Ireland
Immigration and emmigration

Indonesia
Colonial masters

Japan
Samurai & Convicts

New Zealand
Convicts vs Do gooders

Papua New Guinea
Chiefs and Elites

South Africa
Kaffirs and Convicts

South Korea
The middle-powers