Difference between revisions of "Australia"

Revision as of 09:11, June 16, 2007

Australia
100px
Flag
Capital	Canberra
Government	Constitutional monarchy
Prime minister	John Howard
Area	2,967,877 sq miles/ 7,686,810 sq km

The Commonwealth of Australia is a country-continent with its west coast on the Indian Ocean, east coast on the Pacific Ocean facing New Zealand, southern coast on the Southern Ocean facing Antarctica, and northern coast bordering Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Australia is considered geographically as part of Oceania, but has been establishing its place politically and commercially in South East Asia.

Australia is the only country to occupy an entire continent^[1], the smallest of the planet's seven continents.^[2] It is 2,400 miles, (3,860 km) from east to west and 2,000 miles (3,220 km) from north to south. It covers an area of 2,967,877 sq miles (7,686,810 sq km). The Australian coastline is 22,812 miles long (36,735 kilometers). The mainland of Australia is about the same size as the mainland 48 states of the USA.

Australia has six states and two internal territories. The states are New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. The internal territories are the Northern Territory (responsible government since 1978) and the Australian Capital Territory (responsible government since 1988) which is the location of Australia's capital city, Canberra. External territories include Christmas Island and the Australian Antarctic Territory.

History

Pre European Contact

Australia was originally inhabited by people who are commonly known as Aborigines although they come from over 700 smaller nations each with their own tribal name and language. Over time, many of these nations and tribes lost their identity or were decimated by disease, poor nutrition, massacres by white settlers and the forced removal of children from their parents into white families or mission stations. Nevertheless, many Aboriginal languages and traditions have survived the more than 200 years of white settlement. Under recent legislation recognising native title, Aboriginal communities now have the right to claim back land dispossessed from them where they can prove that lasting cultural links still persist and where the native title has not been extinguished by freehold or leasehold title.

The original inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands and far northern Queensland are different and are known as Torres Strait Islanders. These people are more closely related to Melanesians than to Aborigines. The term usually used to include all indigenous Australians is "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders".

Post European Contact

European discovery of the mainland of Australia was by Dutch sailors heading to the spice isles of what is now Indonesia, in the 16th Century. Most of their descriptions of Australia are based on the exploration of the North West coast which is very rugged and inhospitable.

In 1770 the English navigator, Lieutenant James Cook, Captain of the Royal Navy bark, HMS Endeavour, discovered the east coast of Australia which is much more capable of maintaining life and settlers. In 1788 the First Fleet arrived at Sydney Cove, New South Wales - comprising officers, Marines, convicts and a very few free settlers. Later fleets brought more convicts who were dispersed also to Tasmania and other remote settlements. Over time, when freed, the former convicts settled areas beyond Sydney Harbour.

As the 18th century came to a close convicts were given land packages and more free settlers came to the land in the hope of setting up farms and businesses. A number of colonies started to be formed - the most populated being New South Wales (whose capital city is Sydney). These colonies later became the states.

The 1850s saw the discovery of gold and large number of people moved to Australia to find new wealth. Most of these people were British, although there were also many dispossessed by the "land clearings" in Scotland and the Irish potato famine, and there was a significant number of Chinese immigrants during this rush. "Americans were drawn to Australia to participate in various enterprises such as the gold fields" ^[3]

System of Government

Australia became a federated country on 1 January 1901 under the Constitution of Australia, and all former British colonies became states. The declaration of federation was made in Sydney. The parliament met in Melbourne, Victoria, until the infrastructure was built for the capital city, Canberra.

Australia has a parliamentary system of government based on the British system with a bicameral system: the House of Representatives and the Senate. Each state and territory also has its own parliament.

Australia is a democracy which has allowed men of European descent to vote since federation, with non-Aboriginal women gaining the vote in 1902 and Aboriginal men and women gaining suffrage in 1962. Voting is compulsory for all citizens who are 18 years old and over (with a few exceptions.)

Australia's Head of Government is the Prime Minister of Australia. The current Prime Minister is John Howard, the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. The Deputy Prime Minister is Mark Vaile, the leader of the National Party of Australia. The two parties are in coalition to form the Government.

The Head of State is Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of Australia (who is the same person, but a different title, as the Queen of Great Britain.) Under the Constitution, and in practice, the authority of the Head of State is vested in the Governor-General of Australia, currently the retired Major-General Philip Michael Jeffery, AC, CVO, MC, GCL, who assents to acts of parliament, is the Commander in Chief of the military forces, and appoints all Ministers of the Government; all these various powers are normally exercised on advice from the Prime Minister.

The Government of Australia is exercised, day-to-day, by the Ministers through their various Departments of State.

Australia has preferential voting, which is designed to ensure that the candidates with the most support get into office, rather than the candidate with the most primary votes. So if three candidates, A, B, and C, get 40%, 35%, and 25% of the votes respectively (so no candidate has more than 50% of the votes), then the second preference of the voters who voted for C are distributed to the remaining candidates. The result might be that A ends up with 45% of the votes, and B with 55%, indicating that 55% of the voters prefer candidate B over A.

One consequence of this voting system is that it encourages a multiplicity of parties and even independent candidates. There have been times when the balance of power has been held my minor parties or independent individuals.

There is no limit on the time a person can be a Member of Parliament (MP) (elected, notionally, for 3 years, but the timing of elections is decided by the Prime Minister) or a Senator (elected for two cycles of the House of representatives.) The Prime Minister is normally a member of the House of Representatives, and the tenure is not limited by statute. (John Gorton was a Senator when appointed leader of his party. He immediately resigned from the Senate and stood for election to the House of Representatives.)

The Federal 'opposition' political party, is the Australian Labor Party. Its leader is Kevin Rudd. The Labor Party is in government in all of the states and territories but remains in opposition at the Federal level. The next Australian Federal election is expected to be held late in 2007. The Labor Party is "social democratic" while the Liberals are "liberal conservatives"; however, some of the smaller parties are more socialist or more conservative than Labor and Liberal respectively.

Parliamentary political parties

• Australian Democrats
• Australian Greens
• Australian Labor Party
• Country Liberal Party
• Family First Party
• Liberal Party of Australia
• National Party of Australia

Despite the name, the Liberal Party, which has been in power in Australia since 1996, is conservative in political stance, a paradox established since the years that Sir Robert Menzies was Prime Minister. Menzies helped found the Liberal Party in 1944 and was the Prime Minister from 1939 until 1941 and then again from 1949 until 1966. ^[4]The liberal term refers to the party's predominantly free-market approach to economic management.

Prime Ministers of Australia

See also a list of Prime Ministers of Australia.

The Prime Minister of Australia is the most senior elected person in the country. The role is normally filled by the parliamentary leader of the party which forms the government.

Geography

Australia relies a great deal on industry, agriculture and tourism to foster its economy. It has a thriving film industry and very advanced technology. Most tourists visit places such as Sydney Harbour, Uluru (Ayers Rock) in Central Australia and the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland. Other favorite destinations are the wine making areas of South Australia and northern Victoria, the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, the natural wonders of Tasmania and the huge outback expanses of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Some cattle stations in Australia rival Texas in size and the distance between towns in some areas is enormous.

80% of Australia's population, of just over 20,000,000 people, live on the coast line. It is one of the world's most sparsely populated countries (2.7 people per square kilometre)^[5]. Water is scarce and some cities have some form of water restrictions in place.

Weather extremes are common in Australia with temperatures sometimes measured into the high 40s Celsius (45 degrees Celsius = 113 degrees Fahrenheit). The city of Darwin was destroyed by Cyclone Tracey in 1974 and bush fires often ravage the southern states - one of the worst occurring on Ash Wednesday in 1983 when over 2,000 homes were destroyed and over 70 people lost their lives in Victoria and South Australia.

Australia is noted for its unique biodiversity. Many animals are found only in Australia, the most well known examples are the group of marsupials (kangaroos, wombats, wallabies and koalas), and the only two monotremes, the platypus and the echidna. Examples of plants that are native to Australia are the banksia, yellow wattle and gum tree.

Studies indicate that Australia's unique wildlife is the result of Australia becoming an island, being cut off from the Asian land bridge between 40,000–250,000 years ago on the uniformitarian timescale.

Sport

Australia is often known as a sporting nation with success worldwide in swimming, tennis, rugby union, cricket, netball, basketball, and even speed ice skating. Australians are very keen horse racers with the Melbourne Cup ^[6] attracting up to 120,000 spectators at Flemington Race Course on the first Tuesday in November. There is a public holiday for the cup race in Melbourne, while the remainder of the country virtually pauses during the running of the cup race. This day also coincides (mostly) every second year with the American Congressional elections and every four years with the Presidential election.

Unique to Australia is a game known as Australian rules football or Aussie Rules, which is played on a cricket oval in winter. Australian rules football is the sport most attended in the states of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, and most attended overall in Australia; in 2006 2.5 million people had attended at least one Aussie Rules game in the preceding 12 months.[1] Australian Rules Football was written by persons educated at the Rugby School in England and Cambridge University before the organisation of uniform football codes. It is not as popular in the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland although premiership teams have both been based in these two states in the past decade.

The other national football code is rugby league football. Rugby league football is the most attended sport in New South Wales and Queensland with its premier club competition being the National Rugby League. The national rugby league football team has only lost one competition in the past 29 years, that being to New Zealand in 2005.

Religion

Australia is a secular nation, in that it has no established religion associated with the Government. Of Australia's population of around 21 million, approximately 1.5 million attend weekly religious services ^[7]. The Australian public school system is described as "free, secular and compulsory" with the secular meaning without favour to any particular religion - most primary schools, however, do offer some form on non-compulsory religious education according to the parents' wishes. The state systems of a number of states offer studies in religion at the senior level.

There is a large Catholic school system in Australia with most parishes having their own primary school and many hundreds of Catholic High Schools across the country. There are also a large number of independent schools founded by various religions or demominations of the Christian faith - some hold that religious background to be more important than others.

Comparing Australian and U.S. Economic and Health statistics

Whilst the Australian society is similar in many aspects to those of the U.S., a comparison of key economic (in $U.S.) and health indicators highlights some interesting fundamental differences:

GDP Per Capita

• U.S. $43,500.00
• Aus $32,900.00

Budget Defecit/Surplus

• U.S. $841.00 per capita defecit
• Aus $444.00 per capita surplus. Australia has had budget surpluses every year since 2001

Public Debt

• U.S. 64.7% of GDP
• Aus 14.1% of GDP

Military Expenditure

• U.S. 4.06% of GDP
• Aus 2.5 % of GDP

Life Expectancy at Birth

• U.S. 77.85 years (combined male and female)
• Aus 80.5 years (combined male and female)

Infant Mortality Rates

• U.S. 6.43 deaths/1,000 live births
• Aus 4.63 deaths/1,000 live births

HIV/AIDS Prevalence Rates

• U.S. 0.6% of population
• Aus 0.1% of population

Australians also enjoy a universal health scheme and significant subsidies on most prescription medications, both of which are likely to account for some of the significant differences between the life expectancy and infant mortality rates between the U.S. and Australia.

External links

• Australian Government portal
• Australian Parliament House (Reps & Senate) portal
• Governor-General of Australia

References

1. ↑ This refers just to the Australian mainland. Some authorities now include Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and various other Pacific Ocean islands in the continent of "Oceania". See WorldAtlas.com.
2. ↑ Some people count six, combining North and South America or Europe and Asia. See WorldAtlas.com.
3. ↑ Australian Dept of Immigration and Citizenship
4. ↑ History of the Liberal Party in Australia
5. ↑ ABS
6. ↑ Melbourne Cup
7. ↑ National Church Life Survey 2004