AUSTRALIA |
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The Commonwealth of Australia is the sixth-largest
country in the world (geographically), the only one to occupy an entire
continent, and the largest in the region of Australasia. Australia
includes the island of Tasmania, which is an Australian State. Its
neighbouring countries include New Zealand to the southeast; and
Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and East Timor to its north. The name
'Australia' comes from the Latin phrase terra australis incognita ("unknown
southern land", see Terra Australis). |
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Government
The Commonwealth of Australia is a constitutional monarchy: the Queen of
Australia is considered to be the head of state, although that term is found
nowhere in the Constitution or the law. The Queen is represented by the
Governor-General. Under the Australian Constitution the role of the monarch
is almost entirely ceremonial. Although the constitution gives significant
executive power to the Governor-General, these powers are rarely used and
are usually delegated to the Cabinet, whose members are chosen by the
governing party or by the Prime Minister alone, from amongst the current
members of the parliament.
Government is undertaken by three inter-connected arms of government:
Legislature - Commonwealth Parliament
Executive - the Executive Council (Governor-General, Prime Minister and
senior Cabinet Ministers) and Ministers and their Departments
Judiciary - High Court of Australia and subsidiary Federal courts.
The Separation of Powers is the principle whereby the three arms of
government undertake their activities separate from the others:
the Legislature makes the laws, and supervises the activities of the other
two arms with a view to changing the laws when appropriate;
the Executive enacts the laws;
the Judiciary interprets the laws, using as a basis the laws as enacted and
explanatory statements made in the Legislature during the enactment;
the other arms cannot influence the Judiciary.
The legal basis for the nation changed with the passage of the Australia Act
1986, and associated legislation in the parliament of the United Kingdom.
Until the passage of this Act, Australian cases could be referred to the
highest courts of the UK and even to the Privy Council for final appeal.
With this act of parliament, Australian law was made unequivocally the law
in the nation, and the High Court of Australia was confirmed as the single
highest court of appeal. The theoretical possibility of the British
Parliament enacting laws to override the Australian Constitution was also
removed.
Politics
Australia has a bicameral federal Parliament, comprising a Senate (or upper
house) with 76 Senators, and a House of Representatives (or lower house)
with 150 Members. Members of the lower house are elected on a population
basis from single-member constituencies, known technically as 'divisions'
but more commonly, as 'electorates' or 'seats'. The more populous the state,
the more members it will have in the House of Representatives. There is a
minimum of 5 members for each state. In the Senate, each state regardless of
population is represented by twelve Senators, and each mainland territory by
two. Elections for both chambers are held every three years, usually with
only one half of the Senate being eligible for re-election, as the Senators
have overlapping terms of six years each. The government is formed in the
lower house, and the leader of the majority party in the House of
Representatives is the Prime Minister. On only one short-lived occasion has
a Senator become Prime Minister.
An exception to the constitutional conventions occurred on 11 November 1975,
when Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed the Prime Minister, Gough
Whitlam. This remains the single most controversial event in Australian
political history.
States and Territories
Australia is divided into six states and several territories. The states are
New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western
Australia. The two major territories are the Northern Territory (NT) and the
Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The ACT also incorporates a separate
area within New South Wales known as Jervis Bay Territory which serves as a
naval base and sea port for the national capital.
Australia also has several inhabitated external territories (Norfolk Island,
Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands) and several largely uninhabited
external territories: Coral Sea Islands Territory, Heard Island and McDonald
Islands and the Australian Antarctic Territory.
The Australian Capital Territory was created at the chosen site of the
capital city Canberra. Canberra was founded as a compromise between the two
largest cities, Melbourne and Sydney. The name 'Canberra' is derived from
the indigenous Ngunnawal language, which is loosely translated into English
as "meeting place".
Flora and fauna
Although most of the continent is desert or semi-arid, Australia
nevertheless includes a diverse range of habitats, from alpine heaths to
tropical rainforests. Because of the great age of the continent, its very
variable weather patterns, and its long-term geographic isolation, much of
Australia's biota is unique.
Demographics
Most of the Australian population descends from 19th and 20th century
immigrants, most from Great Britain and Ireland to begin with, but from
other sources in later years. Although Australia was founded as a penal
colony, the transportation of British convicts to Australian colonies was
gradually phased out between 1840 and 1868. During the "gold rush" of the
late 19th century, the convicts and their descendants were rapidly
overshadowed by hundreds of thousands of free settlers from many different
countries: for example, in the 1850s about two per cent of the combined
populations of Britain and Ireland emigrated to New South Wales and
Victoria.
By the late 20th century many inhabitants were of Greek, Italian or Asian
descent. The indigenous population, the Australian Aborigines and Torres
Strait Islanders, make up 2.2% of the population, according to the 2001
Census. In common with many other developed countries, Australia is
currently experiencing a demographic shift towards an older population, with
more people retiring and fewer people of working age.
Similarly, a large number of Australian citizens (850,000 as of 2004) live
outside of their home country. This number (almost 5%) represents a higher
per capita percentage of overseas residents than many other countries
including the United States. This phenomenon was, until recently, given
little attention by the Australian government and media, but the term
Australian Diaspora has now joined the Australian vocabulary.
Because of the aging population, Australia maintains one of the most active
immigration programs in the world, absorbing tens of thousands of immigrants
from all over the world every year. Most permanent resident visas are
granted on the basis of professional skills or family associations.
New Zealanders are granted Special Category Visas on arrival in Australia,
which allow them to remain in Australia to live or work indefinitely.
However, New Zealand citizens are excluded from government subsidised
tertiary education or other advantages granted to Australian citizens and
permanent residents. Until 2001, New Zealanders were entitled to
unemployment benefits in Australia on arrival in the country, but now they
may only claim these after two years, as is the norm for permanent residents
of other nationalities.
English is the main official and spoken language in Australia, although some
of the surviving Aboriginal communities maintain their native languages, and
a considerable number of first and sometimes second-generation migrants are
bilingual.
Although the nation is broadly secular and few are church-goers, three-quarters
of Australians are nominally Christian, mostly Catholic or Anglican. A
diverse range of other religions are practised.
Media
Australia has a highly concentrated ownership of media companies. Newspapers
are dominated by two companies, News Corporation and John Fairfax Holdings.
News Corporation publishes the only daily national newspaper, The Australian,
as well as a daily newspaper in every capital city except Perth. Its
holdings include The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), Herald Sun (Melbourne), The
Courier-Mail (Brisbane) and The Advertiser (Adelaide). News Corporation was
founded in Adelaide and its first newspaper was The News which was later
merged with The Advertiser. John Fairfax Holdings owns The Sydney Morning
Herald, The Age (Melbourne) and The Canberra Times as well as the most
prominent financial newspaper, The Australian Financial Review.
Australia has three major commercial television networks, the Nine Network,
Seven Network and the Ten Network. It also has two government broadcasters,
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC and colloquially Channel 2) and
the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).
According to Reporters Without Borders in 2003, Australia is in 50th
position on a list of countries ranked by Press Freedom; well behind New
Zealand (17th) and United Kingdom (27th). |
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