1.
Parliament of Australia
–
It consists of three elements, the Queen of Australia, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Queen is represented by the Governor-General, through both Houses, however, there is a fused executive, drawn from the Westminster System. The upper house, the Senate, consists of 76 members, twelve for each state, Senators are elected using the single transferable vote proportional representation system and as a result, the chamber features a multitude of parties vying for power. The governing party or coalition rarely has a majority in the Senate and usually needs to negotiate with other parties and this tends to lead to the chamber being dominated by two major parties, the Liberal/National Coalition and the Labor Party. The government of the day must achieve the confidence of this House in order to gain and remain in power, although elections can be called early, each 3 years the full House of Representatives and half of the Senate is dissolved and goes up for reelection. The two Houses meet in separate chambers of Parliament House on Capital Hill in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, the Commonwealth of Australia came into being on 1 January 1901 with the federation of the six Australian colonies. The inaugural election took place on 29 and 30 March and the first Australian Parliament was opened on 9 May 1901 in Melbourne by Prince George, Duke of Cornwall and York, later King George V. The only building in Melbourne that was enough to accommodate the 14,000 guests was the western annexe of the Royal Exhibition Building. After the official opening, from 1901 to 1927, the Parliament met in Parliament House, Melbourne and it had always been intended that the national Parliament would sit in a new national capital. This was a compromise at Federation due to the rivalry between the two largest Australian cities, Sydney and Melbourne, which wished to become the new capital. The site of Canberra was selected for the location of the capital city in 1908. A competition was announced on 30 June 1914 to design Parliament House, however, due to the start of World War I the next month, the competition was cancelled. It was re-announced in August 1916, but again postponed indefinitely on 24 November 1916, in the meantime, John Smith Murdoch, the Commonwealths Chief Architect, worked on the design as part of his official duties. He had little enthusiasm for the project, as he felt it was a waste of money. Nevertheless, he designed the building by default, the construction of Old Parliament House, as it is called today, was commenced on 28 August 1923 and completed in early 1927. It was built by the Commonwealth Department of Works, using tradesmen, the final cost was about £600,000, which was more than three times the original estimate. It was designed to house the parliament for a maximum of 50 years until a permanent facility could be built, the building was opened on 9 May 1927 by the Duke and Duchess of York. The opening ceremonies were both splendid and incongruous, given the sparsely built nature of Canberra of the time and its small population, the building was extensively decorated with British Empire and Australian flags and bunting
2.
Perth
–
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth-most populous city in Australia, with a population of 2.06 million living in Greater Perth. The first areas settled were on the Swan River, with the central business district. Perth was founded by Captain James Stirling in 1829 as the centre of the Swan River Colony. It gained city status in 1856, and was promoted to the status of a Lord Mayorality in 1929. The city is named after Perth, Scotland, due to the influence of Sir George Murray, Member of Parliament for Perthshire and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The citys population increased substantially as a result of the Western Australian gold rushes in the late 19th century, largely as a result of emigration from the eastern colonies of Australia. During Australias involvement in World War II, Fremantle served as a base for operating in the Pacific Theatre. An influx of immigrants after the war, predominantly from Britain, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia, Aboriginal people have inhabited the Perth area for 38,000 years, as evidenced by archaeological remains at Upper Swan. The Noongar people occupied the southwest corner of Western Australia and lived as hunter-gatherers, the wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain were particularly important to them, both spiritually and as a source of food. The Noongar people know the area where Perth now stands as Boorloo, Boorloo formed part of Mooro, the tribal lands of Yellagongas group, one of several based around the Swan River and known collectively as the Whadjuk. The Whadjuk were part of a group of fourteen tribes that formed the south-west socio-linguistic block known as the Noongar. The judgment was overturned on appeal, the first documented sighting of the region was made by the Dutch Captain Willem de Vlamingh and his crew on 10 January 1697. The British colony would be officially designated Western Australia in 1832, Captain James Stirling, aboard Parmelia, said that Perth was as beautiful as anything of this kind I had ever witnessed. On 12 August that year, Helen Dance, wife of the captain of the ship, Sulphur. The only contemporary information on the source of the name comes from Fremantles diary entry for 12 August, Murray was born in Perth, Scotland, and was in 1829 Secretary of State for the Colonies and Member for Perthshire in the British House of Commons. The town was named after the Scottish Perth, in Murrays honour, the racial relations between the Noongar people and the Europeans were strained due to these happenings. Because of the amount of building in and around Boorloo
3.
Australia
–
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
4.
Australian Labor Party
–
The Australian Labor Party is a political party in Australia. The party has been in opposition at federal level since the 2013 election, Bill Shorten has been the partys federal parliamentary leader since 13 October 2013. The party is a party with branches in each state. Labor is in government in the states of Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, the party competes against the Liberal/National Coalition for political office at the federal and state levels. Labors current National Platform describes the party as a social democratic party, the party of opportunity and security for working people. The ALP was not founded as a party until after the first sitting of the Australian Parliament in 1901. Nevertheless, it is regarded as descended from labour parties founded in the various Australian colonies by the labour movement in Australia. Labor is thus the countrys oldest political party, colonial labour parties contested seats from 1891, and federal seats following Federation at the 1901 federal election. Labor was the first party in Australia to win a majority in either house of the Australian Parliament, internationally, the ALP is a member of the Progressive Alliance network of social-democratic parties, having previously been a member of the Socialist International. The Australian Labor Party has its origins in the Labour parties founded in the 1890s in the Australian colonies prior to federation, Labor tradition ascribes the founding of Queensland Labour to a meeting of striking pastoral workers under a ghost gum tree in Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891. The Balmain, New South Wales branch of the party claims to be the oldest in Australia, Labour as a parliamentary party dates from 1891 in New South Wales and South Australia,1893 in Queensland, and later in the other colonies. The first election contested by Labour candidates was the 1891 New South Wales election, the major parties were the Protectionist and Free Trade parties and Labour held the balance of power. It offered parliamentary support in exchange for policy concessions, the United Labor Party of South Australia was founded in 1891, and three candidates were that year elected to the South Australian Legislative Council. The first successful South Australian House of Assembly candidate was John McPherson at the 1892 East Adelaide by-election, at the 1893 South Australian elections the ULP was immediately elevated to balance of power status with 10 of 54 lower house seats. The liberal government of Charles Kingston was formed with the support of the ULP, so successful, less than a decade later at the 1905 election, Thomas Price would form the worlds first stable Labor government. John Verran led Labor to form the states first of many majority governments at the 1910 election, in 1899, Anderson Dawson formed a minority Labour government in Queensland, the first in the world, which lasted one week while the conservatives regrouped after a split. The colonial Labour parties and the unions were mixed in their support for the Federation of Australia. They feared that federation would further entrench the power of the conservative forces, the first Labour leader and Prime Minister, Chris Watson, however, was a supporter of federation
5.
Australian House of Representatives
–
The Australian House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the Parliament of Australia. It is referred to as the house, with the Senate being referred to as the upper house. The House is almost always dissolved earlier, usually alone but sometimes in a double dissolution of both Houses, a member of the House may be referred to as a Member of Parliament, while a member of the Senate is usually referred to as a Senator. The government of the day and by extension the Prime Minister must achieve, the House of Representatives currently consists of 150 members, elected by and representing single member districts, known as electoral divisions. The number of members is not fixed, but can vary with boundary changes resulting from electoral redistributions, the most recent overall increase in the size of the House, which came into effect at the 1984 election, increased the number of members from 125 to 148. It reduced to 147 at the 1993 election, returned to 148 at the 1996 election, each division elects one member using full-preference Instant-runoff voting. This was put in place after the 1918 Swan by-election, which Labor unexpectedly won with the largest primary vote, the Nationalist government of the time changed the lower house voting system from first-past-the-post to full-preference preferential voting, effective from the 1919 general election. This system has remained in place since, allowing the Coalition parties to safely contest the same seats, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act of 1900 established the House of Representatives as part of the new system of dominion government in newly federated Australia. The House is presided over by the Speaker, Members of the House are elected from single member electorates. One vote one value legislation requires all electorates to have approximately the number of voters with a maximum 10% variation. However, the quota for the number of voters in an electorate is determined by the number of voters in the state in which that electorate is found. Meanwhile, all the states except Tasmania have electorates approximately within the same 10% tolerance, voting is by the preferential system, also known as instant-runoff voting. A full allocation of preferences is required for a vote to be considered formal and this allows for a calculation of the two-party-preferred vote. Under Section 24 of the Constitution, each state is entitled to members based on a quota determined from the latest statistics of the Commonwealth. These statistics arise from the census conducted under the auspices of section 51, the parliamentary entitlement of a state or territory is established by the Electoral Commissioner dividing the number of the people of the Commonwealth by twice the number of Senators. This is known as the Nexus Provision, the reasons for this are twofold, to maintain a constant influence for the smaller states and to maintain a constant balance of the two Houses in case of a joint sitting after a double dissolution. The population of state and territory is then divided by this quota to determine the number of members to which each state. Under the Australian Constitution all original states are guaranteed at least five members, the Federal Parliament itself has decided that the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory should have at least one member each
6.
Liberal Party of Australia
–
The Liberal Party of Australia is a major political party in Australia. Founded in 1945 to replace the United Australia Party, the Liberal Party is one of the two parties in Australian politics, along with the Australian Labor Party. Except for a few periods, the Liberal Party and its predecessors have operated in similar coalitions since the 1920s. Internationally, the Liberal Party is affiliated to the International Democrat Union, the partys leader is Malcolm Turnbull and its deputy leader is Julie Bishop. Now the Turnbull Government, the party had been elected at the 2013 federal election as the Abbott Government which took office on 18 September 2013. At state and territory level, the Liberal Party is in office in two states, Will Hodgman Premier of Tasmania since 2014 and Gladys Berejiklian Premier of New South Wales since 2017. The party is in opposition in the states of Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, the partys ideology has been referred to as liberal, conservative, liberal-conservative, and classically liberal. The Liberal Party tends to promote economic liberalism and cultural liberalism, two past leaders of the party, Sir Robert Menzies and John Howard, are Australias two longest-serving Prime Ministers. The Liberal Party has spent more time in government than any other federal Australian political party, the contemporary Liberal Party generally advocates economic liberalism. Historically, the party has supported a higher degree of protectionism and interventionism than it has in recent decades. However, from its foundation the party has identified itself as an anti-socialist grouping of liberals, strong opposition to socialism and communism in Australia and abroad was one of its founding principles. The partys founder and longest-serving leader Robert Menzies envisaged that Australias middle class would form its main constituency, in the 1970s a left-wing middle class emerged that no longer voted Liberal. In country areas they either compete with or have a truce with the Nationals, Menzies was an ardent constitutional monarchist, who supported the Monarchy in Australia and links to the Commonwealth of Nations. Today the party is divided on the question of republicanism, with some being republicans, the Menzies Government formalised Australias alliance with America in 1951, and the party has remained a strong supporter of the mutual defence treaty. Liberal leaders from Menzies to Malcolm Fraser generally maintained Australias high tariff levels, at that time the Liberals coalition partner, the Country Party, the older of the two in the coalition, had considerable influence over the governments economic policies. Socially, while liberty and freedom of form the basis of its beliefs. A West Australian Liberal, Ken Wyatt, became the first Indigenous Australian elected to the House of Representatives in 2010, the party has two factions, the conservative right and the moderate left. Both factions support the market and differ mainly over their level of social conservatism
7.
Lyndon LaRouche
–
Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. is an American political activist and founder of the LaRouche movement. He has written on economic, scientific, and political topics, as well as on history, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. LaRouche was a candidate in each election from 1976 to 2004, running once for his own U. S. Labor Party. LaRouche was born in Rochester, New Hampshire, the oldest of three children of Jessie Lenore and Lyndon H. LaRouche, Sr and his paternal grandfathers family emigrated to the United States from Rimouski, Quebec, whereas his maternal grandfather was born in Scotland. His father worked for the United Shoe Machinery Corporation in Rochester before the family moved to Lynn and his parents became Quakers after his father converted from Catholicism. They forbade him from fighting other children, even in self-defence. As a result, he spent much of his time alone, taking walks through the woods. He graduated from Lynns English High School in 1940, in the same year, the Lynn Quakers expelled his father from the group, for reportedly accusing other Quakers of misusing funds, while writing under the pen name Hezekiah Micajah Jones. LaRouche and his resigned in sympathy for his father. LaRouche attended Northeastern University in Boston and left in 1942 and he later wrote that his teachers lacked the competence to teach me on conditions I was willing to tolerate. As a Quaker, he was a conscientious objector during World War II, in 1944 he joined the United States Army as a non-combatant and served in India and Burma with medical units. He ultimately worked as a clerk at the end of the war. He described his decision to serve as one of the most important of his life, while in India he developed sympathy for the Indian Independence movement. LaRouche wrote that many GIs feared they would be asked to support British forces in actions against Indian independence forces, and characterized that prospect as revolting to most of us. He discussed Marxism in the CO camp, and while traveling home on the SS General Bradley in 1946, he met Don Merrill, a soldier, also from Lynn. Back in the U. S. he resumed his education at Northeastern University and he returned to Lynn in 1948, and the next year joined the Socialist Workers Party, adopting the name Lyn Marcus for his political work. He arrived in New York City in 1953, where he worked as a management consultant, in 1954 he married Janice Neuberger, a psychiatrist and member of the SWP. Their son, Daniel, was born in 1956, by 1961 the LaRouches were living on Central Park West in Manhattan, and LaRouches activities were mostly focused on his career and not on the SWP
8.
Transport Workers Union of Australia
–
The Transport Workers Union of Australia is a trade union with over 90,000 members throughout Australia. It is largely progressive and militant, the TWU is affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the International Transport Workers Federation. In South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales, the Union is affiliated with the Labor Right, the TWUs coverage of gas industry staff extends from its amalgamation with The Federated Gas Employees Industrial Union in 1997. South Australia is the state to have an extensive membership in this industry as it was the base of the FGIEU. It is the state to have a Gas Industry Sub-branch. The history of the Transport Workers Union is partly a story of the technological and economic changes to the ways people. It is also a story about how the market cannot be relied upon to create a safe, efficient. But most of all, the story of the TWU is a story about how transport workers have stood together with their workmates to better their pay, a union, is nothing more than its members, gathered together in common cause. In the 1880s small independent unions of drivers sprung up in the colonies of Australia. Many of these unions were short-lived and it was an extremely competitive industry. A self-employed carrier could set himself up with a horse and cart for a relatively small sum of money. Conditions were poor with wage-earning drivers working very long hours for low rates of pay, much of the available work was casual and seasonal. After the turn of the century, small specialised transport unions were established throughout Australia and these included separate unions of milk carters, bread carters, and fuel and fodder carters. Numbers of wage-earning drivers increased in the cities during this period as carrying firms grew in size stimulated by the growth in manufacturing. Wharves and railway depots were also important sources of work for drivers, by 1903 it was reported that work had become more stable and less casual. Drivers could be expected to work up to 19 hours a day, wages were generally between 25-35 shillings a week. The growth in the transport sector provided a stimulus for carters unions to reorganise themselves to them a stronger force. This led to the Federal registration of the Federated Carters and Drivers Industrial Union in 1906 and this union is the direct predecessor of todays Transport Workers Union of Australia
9.
Citizens Electoral Council
–
The Citizens Electoral Council of Australia is a minor political party in Australia affiliated with the international LaRouche Movement, led by American political activist Lyndon LaRouche. For the purpose of registration with the Australian Electoral Commission it reported having 549 members in 2007. They have been described as far right, fascist and lunar right and its purpose was to lobby for binding voter-initiated referenda. CEC candidate Trevor Perrett won the 1988 Barambah state by-election in Queensland, however, Perrett soon switched to the National Party. By 1989, the CEC leadership was under the influence of the Lyndon LaRouche movement, league of Rights publications now warn their readers to avoid the CEC, citing attacks on the British Royal Family for supposed drug connections and LaRouches criminal convictions. They warn that the LaRouche movement is strongly pro-republican and that they have received reports that LaRouches organisation is being used by the Zionists. In the mid-2000s, the party support from Muslim groups opposed to the detention of suspected terrorists by the United States at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In 2004, the CEC received the largest contribution of any political party, the CEC leader is National Secretary and National Treasurer Craig Isherwood of Melbourne, who has been a CEC election candidate numerous times. Other members of the Isherwood family are prominent in the CEC. Rebuild the Country with a Peoples Bank being a predominant slogan on their election material, the official thirteen-point platform is as follows, The establishment of a New Bretton Woods International Monetary System. The establishment of a National Bank and State Banks, in opposition the CEC stands for. a Republic and a government that governs for all the people. And that the Australian Liberal party was founded by pro-Hitler Fascists, the Anti-Defamation Commission of the Australian branch of Bnai Brith has published a Briefing Paper with details of the CECs alleged antisemitic, anti-gay, anti-Aboriginal and racist underpinnings. The document cites CEC publications and quotes former CEC members, the CEC in turn has published a response to the ADCs accusations and described the ADC as a front for Queen Elizabeths Privy Council, the ruling body of the British Commonwealth. Former members of the CEC and families of current members have accused the group of brainwashing members, for example, former CEC staffer Donald Veitch has claimed that new recruits undergo deprogramming sessions and that recruits are probed for sexual peccadilloes. Veitch has stated, The mind control operations commenced by Lyndon LaRouche in the USA in the mid-1970s are still being practised today within his movement in Australia. Despite running in almost every election of the past two decades in no election has the CEC ever garnered more than 2% of the vote. At the 2001 federal election, CEC candidates polled extremely low totals, for example, in the New South Wales Senate elections, the party fielded candidates for the Senate and most House of Representatives seats at the 2004 federal election. Australian Electoral Commission records indicate that the CEC has successfully raised several million dollars since 2001, despite this fundraising, the CEC polled extremely low totals again in 2004
