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The constitution of Australia may be described crudely as an amalgam of the constitutional forms of the United Kingdom and the United States. Like the United Kingdom, it is a monarchy, and the British monarch is the monarch of Australia. As in the United Kingdom, also, the governments of the Commonwealth of Australia and of the Australian states are chosen from the majority party in their parliaments. Like the United States, Australia is a federation, and the duties of the federal government and the division of powers between the Commonwealth and the states are laid down in a written constitution. The constitution can be altered only by a referendum that gains the consent of a majority of all the electors and a majority in at least four of the six states, as well as majorities in both federal houses. Disputes arising out of the constitution are decided by the High Court of Australia.

Although the monarch of Britain is also the monarch of Australia, the country is essentially independent. The functions of the present queen have been regarded as almost entirely formal and decorative and, except when she is in Australia, are exercised by a governor-general who resides in Canberra and by the state governors. Though formally the governor-general and the governors are appointed by the monarch, they are invariably recommended by the Australian governments, and in recent years there has been a growing tendency to choose Australians. By convention, the prime minister (the leader of the party or coalition of parties victorious in the general election) is the nation's chief executive.

The sensational constitutional crisis of 1975, when the elected Australian Labour Party (ALP) government was dismissed by the governor-general, called into question the conventional assumptions about the relationship between the elected government and the British crown's representative. The complicity of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and of the British secret service in this event has been widely alleged and bitterly resented. Ensuing debates included fiery proposals to define and limit the powers and duties of the governor-general and to reexamine alliances with the United States. An influential minority supports the view that Australia should sever all remaining ties with the United Kingdom and declare itself a republic, in which case the post of governor-general would be abolished. Increasing ethnic heterogeneity has been adding weight to that argument since the 1960s, and, although it is generally accepted that the process of change must be evolutionary, another coup similar to that of 1975 would introduce a note of urgency.

The constitution defines the form and duties of the federal government in some detail. The most important of these are defense, foreign policy, immigration, customs and excise, and the post office. Those powers not given to the federal government in the constitution (the “residual powers”) are left to the states: they are responsible for justice, education, health, and internal transport.

Australia is a true parliamentary democracy. Both the federal upper house (the Senate) and the lower house (the House of Representatives) are directly elected by universal adult suffrage, with a minimum voting age of 18. All state lower houses are similarly elected. Voting in both federal and state elections is compulsory (with the exception of elections to South Australia's Legislative Council).

Both preferential and proportional systems are current in Australia. The preferential approach (in which the voter numbers the candidates in order of preference on the ballot paper) allows minor parties an indirect influence on policy formation at the federal (House of Representatives) and state levels even where those parties do not win seats, since the votes of losing candidates may be reallocated in close contests. The other system in force is election by proportional representation, which ensures that parties divide the number of seats according to their shares of the vote. its most important application is in elections to the federal Senate and to Tasmania's Assembly.

Since federation, the political struggle in Australia has been between the ALP and a number of anti-Labor parties. For most of the years after 1949 the federal government was formed by a coalition between the Liberal Party of Australia, which broadly represented the concerns of private enterprise, and the National Party (formerly the Country Party), which represented the farmers, graziers, and other groups in the rural constituencies. The ALP developed into a typical Western social democratic party, retaining the support of the trade unions and normally preferring practical reforms to socialist theories. it has always had a left wing that espouses various brands of socialism. The Australian Democrats, formed in 1977, have drawn support away from the main parties. The deeply divided Communist Party of Australia gradually passed into oblivion in the late 1980s.

Local government

More than 800 local government authorities serve almost the whole of the settled area of Australia. Their main powers are derived from special legislation in each state that integrates them into the higher state administration. Federal initiatives in the 1970s upgraded the funding and therefore the capacities of this tier of government. its functions are often described as “the three Rs”—rates, roads, and rubbish—but in the densely settled suburbs the range extends from car parking, health and welfare, and recreation facilities to fire prevention, town planning, inspections and licensing, and the promotion of district attractions and amenities.

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