The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister is the chair of the Cabinet of Australia and thus the head of the federal executive government. Under the principles of responsible government, the prime minister is both responsible to and a member of the Commonwealth Parliament. The current prime minister is Anthony Albanese of the Australian Labor Party, who assumed the office on 23 May 2022.
The AustralianHouse of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are set down in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia.
The Parliament of Australia is the legislative body of the federal level of government of Australia. It consists of three elements: the monarch, the Senate and the House of Representatives. It combines elements from the UK Parliament and the US Congress.
The Cabinet of Australia, also known as the Federal Cabinet, is the chief decision-making body of the Australian government. The cabinet is nominated by the prime minister of Australia and is composed of senior government ministers who administer the executive departments and ministries of the federal government.
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or the Federal Government, is the national executive government of the Commonwealth of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive government consists of the prime minister and other ministers that currently have the support of a majority of members of the House of Representatives and in some contexts also includes the departments and other executive bodies that ministers oversee. The current executive government consists of Anthony Albanese and other Australian Labor Party ministers, in place since the 2022 federal election.
The first part of the 1967 Australian referendum to change the Constitution was the Parliament question, which related to the relative number of members in each house of the Australian Parliament − the so-called "nexus". The 1967 Australian referendum called by the Holt government on 27 May 1967 consisted of two parts, with the second question relating to Aboriginal Australians.
The Australian referendum of 12 December 1906 approved an amendment to the Australian constitution related to the terms of office of federal senators. Technically it was a vote on the Constitution Alteration Bill 1906, which after being approved in the referendum received the royal assent on 3 April 1907. The amendment moved the date of the beginning of the term of members of the Senate from 1 January to 1 July so that elections to the federal House of Representatives and the Senate could occur simultaneously.
Government in Australia is elected by universal suffrage and Australian women participate in all levels of the government of the nation. In 1902, the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia became the first nation on earth to enact equal suffrage, enabling women to both vote and stand for election alongside men Women have been represented in Australian state parliaments since 1921, and in the Federal Parliament since 1943. The first female leader of an Australian State or Territory was elected in 1989, and the first female Prime Minister took office in 2010. In 2019 for the first time, a majority of members of the Australian Senate were women. At the time of its foundation in 1901, and again from 1952 to 2022, Australia has had a female monarch as ceremonial Head of State, while the first female Governor of an Australian State was appointed in 1991, and the first female Governor-General of Australia took office in 2008.
The politics of Australia operates under the written Australian Constitution, which sets out Australia as a constitutional monarchy, governed via a parliamentary democracy in the Westminster tradition. Australia is also a federation, where power is divided between the federal government and the states and territories. The monarch, currently King Charles III, is the head of state and is represented locally by the Governor-General of Australia, while the head of government is the Prime Minister of Australia, currently Anthony Albanese.
In Australia, a redistribution is the process of redrawing the boundaries of electoral divisions for the House of Representatives arising from changes in population and changes in the number of representatives. There is no redistribution for the Senate as each State constitutes a division, though with multiple members. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), an independent statutory authority, oversees the apportionment and redistribution process for federal divisions, taking into account a number of factors. Politicians, political parties and the public may make submissions to the AEC on proposed new boundaries, but any interference with their deliberations is considered a serious offence.
The 1977 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 10 December 1977. All 124 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 64 seats in the Senate were up for election.
The 1972 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 2 December 1972. All 125 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, as well as a single Senate seat in Queensland. The incumbent Liberal–Country coalition government, led by Prime Minister William McMahon, was defeated by the opposition Labor Party led by Gough Whitlam. Labor's victory ended 23 years of successive Coalition governments that began in 1949 and started the three-year Whitlam Labor Government.
Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories is a position within the Australian federal government.
Leslie Royston Johnson AM was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and held ministerial office in the Whitlam government, serving as Minister for Housing (1972–1973), Works (1973), Housing and Construction (1973–1975), and Aboriginal Affairs (1975). He represented the Division of Hughes in New South Wales from 1955 to 1966 and from 1969 to 1983. He later served as High Commissioner to New Zealand from 1984 to 1985, cutting short his term due to his daughter's ill health.
This is a list of members of the Australian Senate from 1975 to 1978. The 13 December 1975 election was a double dissolution of both houses, with all 127 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 64 seats in the Senate up for election. Malcolm Fraser had been commissioned as prime minister following the dismissal of Gough Whitlam's Labor government by Governor-General Sir John Kerr, on 11 November 1975. The same day, Fraser advised the calling of the election, in accordance with Kerr's stipulated conditions. Thus the Liberal Party of Australia, led by Fraser, with Coalition partner the National Country Party, led by Doug Anthony, went to the election as a caretaker government. The election resulted in the Coalition securing government with a 30-seat swing away from Labor in the House of Representatives.
This is a list of members of the Australian Senate from 1974 to 1975. The 18 May 1974 election was a double dissolution of both Houses, with all 127 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 60 seats in the Senate up for election. The incumbent Labor Party led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam defeated the opposition Liberal Party led by Billy Snedden and their Coalition partner the Country Party led by Doug Anthony.
This is a list of members of the Australian Senate from 1914 to 1917. The 5 September 1914 election was a double dissolution called by Prime Minister of Australia Joseph Cook in an attempt to gain control of the Senate. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 36 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Commonwealth Liberal Party was defeated by the opposition Australian Labor Party led by Andrew Fisher, who announced with the outbreak of World War I during the campaign that under a Labor government, Australia would "stand beside the mother country to help and defend her to the last man and the last shilling."
Suffrage in Australia is the voting rights in the Commonwealth of Australia, its six component states and territories, and local governments. The colonies of Australia began to grant universal male suffrage from 1856, with women's suffrage following between the 1890s and 1900s. Some jurisdictions introduced racial restrictions on voting from 1885. Such restrictions had been eradicated by the 1960s. Today, the right to vote at all levels of government is held by citizens of Australia over the age of 18 years.
Section 13 of the Constitution of Australia provides for three aspects of the terms of members of the Australian Senate: the timing of elections, the commencement date of their terms and for the Senate to allocate long (six-year) and short (three-year) terms following a double dissolution of the Parliament of Australia. While members of the House of Representatives and territory senators have a maximum three-year term, state senators have a fixed six-year term, subject only to the parliament being dissolved by a double dissolution.
The Parliamentary Library of Australia is a significant research and information service that supports the Parliament of Australia. Established in 1901, the library is an integral part of the Department of Parliamentary Services and provides independent, impartial and comprehensive information to members of Parliament, namely members of the Senate and House of Representatives, their staff and the broader parliamentary community.