1.
Perth
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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
2.
Western Australia
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Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Southern Ocean to the south, the state has about 2.6 million inhabitants, around 11% of the national total. 92% of the lives in the south-west corner of the state. The first European visitor to Western Australia was the Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog, the first European settlement of Western Australia occurred following the landing by Major Edmund Lockyer on 26 December 1826 of an expedition on behalf of the New South Wales colonial government. This was followed by the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829, including the site of the present-day capital, york was the first inland settlement in Western Australia. Situated 97 kilometres east of Perth, it was settled on 16 September 1831, Western Australia achieved responsible government in 1890, and federated with the other British colonies in Australia in 1901. Today its economy relies on mining, agriculture and tourism. The state produces 46% of Australias exports, Western Australia is the second-largest iron ore producer in the world. The International Hydrographic Organization designates the body of water south of the continent as part of the Indian Ocean, the total length of the states eastern border is 1,862 km. There are 20,781 km of coastline, including 7,892 km of island coastline, the total land area occupied by the state is 2.5 million km2. Most of the state is a low plateau with an elevation of about 400 metres, very low relief. This descends relatively sharply to the plains, in some cases forming a sharp escarpment. The extreme age of the landscape has meant that the soils are remarkably infertile, even soils derived from granitic bedrock contain an order of magnitude less available phosphorus and only half as much nitrogen as soils in comparable climates in other continents. Soils derived from extensive sandplains or ironstone are even less fertile, nearly devoid of soluble phosphate and also deficient in zinc, copper, molybdenum, the infertility of most of the soils has required heavy application by farmers of chemical fertilisers, particularly superphosphate, insecticides and herbicides. These have resulted in damage to invertebrate and bacterial populations, the grazing and use of hoofed mammals and, later, heavy machinery through the years have resulted in compaction of soils and great damage to the fragile soils. Large-scale land clearing for agriculture has damaged habitats for native flora, large areas of the states wheatbelt region have problems with dryland salinity and the loss of fresh water. The southwest coastal area has a Mediterranean climate and it was originally heavily forested, including large stands of karri, one of the tallest trees in the world. This agricultural region is one of the nine most bio-diverse terrestrial habitats, thanks to the offshore Leeuwin Current, the area is one of the top six regions for marine biodiversity and contains the most southerly coral reefs in the world
3.
Fremantle
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Fremantle is a major Australian port city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital, Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829. It was declared a city in 1929, and has a population of approximately 27,000, the city is named after Captain Charles Fremantle, the English naval officer who established a camp at the site on 2 May 1829. The city contains well-preserved 19th century buildings and other heritage features, the Western Australian vernacular diminutive for Fremantle is Freo. The Nyungar name for the area is Walyallup, Fremantle lies on a series of limestone hills known by the Nyungar people as Booyeembara, the sandplain to the east is Gardoo. The original vegetation of the area was mainly Xanthorrhoea and eucalyptus trees, the central part of the suburb extends eastwards to include Royal Fremantle Golf Club and a suburban area south of Marmion Street and west of Carrington Street. The City of Fremantle local government area also includes the suburbs of Beaconsfield, Hilton, North Fremantle, OConnor, Samson, South Fremantle, East Fremantle has its own town council and is not governed by the City of Fremantle. Fremantle is the end of the Fremantle railway line runs from Perth to Fremantle. Major highways including Stirling Highway, Canning Highway and Leach Highway have Fremantle as their start point and/or terminus, the regular sea breeze is known as the Fremantle Doctor, as it provides cooling relief from the summer heat when it arrives between noon and 3pm. The traditional owners of the land on which the city of Fremantle is built are the Whadjuk Noongar people who called the area Walyalup, to the local Noongar people, Fremantle is a place of ceremonies, significant cultural practices and trading. For millennia the Noongar people met there in spring and autumn to feast on fish, today, Whadjuk and other Noongars continue to gather and meet in Walyalup and at Manjaree. The area was considered as a site for possible British settlement in 1827 and his favourable report was welcomed by the British Government, who had for some time been suspicious of French colonial intentions towards the western portion of Australia. As a result of Stirlings report, Captain Charles Howe Fremantle of HMS Challenger, the settlement of Perth began on 12 August 1829. Captain Fremantle left the colony on 25 August after providing much assistance to Stirling in setting up the colony and it was then that Stirling decided to name the port settlement Fremantle. In early September 1829 the merchant vessel Anglesea grounded at Gage Roads and she did not break up, as had been expected, but instead survived to become Western Australias first prison hulk. Lotus, which arrived on 10 October 1829, became the vessel to land immigrants at Fremantle. On 1 June 1850, the first convicts arrived at Fremantle aboard the Scindian, the thirty-seventh and last convict ship to dock at Fremantle was the Hougoumont on 10 January 1868, signalling the end of penal transportation to Australia. During this period, notorious South Sea pirate Bully Hayes lived in Fremantle with his fiancée Miss Scott, in 1897, Irish-born engineer C. Y
4.
John Curtin
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John Joseph Ambrose Curtin was the 14th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1941 to 1945, and the Leader of the Labor Party from 1935 to 1945. Having first formed a minority government in 1941, Curtin led Labor to victory at the 1943 election, as the Member for Fremantle, Curtin was the first and to date only prime minister to represent an electorate outside the Eastern states. With the end of the war in sight, Curtin died in office on 5 July 1945 and was succeeded briefly by Frank Forde, Curtin was born in Creswick, Victoria in 1885. His father was an officer of Irish descent, and Curtin was initially raised a Roman Catholic. Curtin attended school until the age of 13, when he left to start working for a newspaper in Creswick and he soon became active in both the Australian Labor Party and the Victorian Socialist Party, which was a Marxist organisation. He wrote for radical and socialist newspapers and it is believed that Curtins first bid for elected office came at this time, when he stood for the position of secretary of the Brunswick Football Club and was defeated. He had earlier played for Brunswick between 1903 and 1907 and he also at this time stood as the Labor candidate for Balaclava in 1914. The strain of this led him to drink heavily and regularly. In 1917, he married Elsie Needham, the sister of Labor Senator Ted Needham, Curtin moved to Cottesloe near Perth in 1917 to become an editor for the Westralian Worker, the official trade union newspaper. He enjoyed the less pressured life of Western Australia and his views gradually moderated. He joined the Australian Journalists Association in 1917 and was elected Western Australian President in 1920 and he wore his AJA badge every day he was prime minister. In addition to his stance on rights, Curtin was also a strong advocate for the rights of women and children. In 1927, the Federal Government convened a Royal Commission on Child Endowment, Curtin was appointed as a member of that commission. Curtin stood for Parliament a second time in 1925, this time for Fremantle, Watson retired in 1928, and Curtin ran again, this time winning on the second count. William Watson chose to come out of retirement in 1931. After the loss, Curtin became the advocate for the Western Australian Government with the Commonwealth Grants Commission and he stood for his old seat in 1934 after Watson announced his retirement for the second time, and was able to win it back. When Scullin resigned as Labor Leader in 1935, Curtin stood in the election to replace him and his opponent was Frank Forde, a well known MP who had been closely associated with the economic policies of the Scullin Government. This led left wing factions and trade unions to support Curtin, in an attempt to block Forde from getting the leadership, with their support, Curtin was able to defeat Forde by just one vote to become Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition
5.
Willem de Vlamingh
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Willem Hesselsz de Vlamingh was a Dutch sea-captain who explored the central west coast of Australia in the late 17th century. The mission proved fruitless, but Vlamingh charted parts of the western coast. Willem de Vlamingh was born in Oost-Vlieland in the Dutch Republic and he was baptised on 28 November 1640. In 1664 De Vlamingh sailed to Nova Zembla and discovered Jelmerland, in 1668 he married, his profession was skipper in whaling, and he still lived on the island Vlieland. In 1687 he and his wife sold their apartment in the Jordaan, De Vlamingh joined the VOC in 1688 and made his first voyage to Batavia in the same year. VOC officials believed it might have run aground on the west coast of Terra Australis, the expedition departed Texel stricly incognito on 3 May 1696 and, because of the Nine Years War with France, sailed around the coast of Scotland to Tristan de Cunha. Early September the three arrived at Cape of Good Hope, where they stayed for seven weeks because of scurvy among the crew. On 27 October they left, using the Brouwer Route on the Indian Ocean route from the African Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch East Indies, on their way east they checked Île Saint-Paul and Île Amsterdam, but no wreckage or survivors were found. On 5 December they sailed on, on 29 December 1696, de Vlaminghs party landed on Rottnest Island. He saw a giant jarrah, numerous quokkas, and thinking they were large rats he named the rats nest because of them. There is plentiful salt, and the coast is full of fish, birds make themselves heard with pleasant song in these scented groves. On 10 January 1697, he ventured up the Swan River and he and his crew are believed to have been the first Europeans to do so. They are also assumed to be the first Europeans to see black swans, the crew split into three parties, hoping to catch an Aborigine, but about five days later they gave up their quest to catch a South lander. On 22 January the sailed through the Geelvink Channel, the next days they saw ten naked, black people. On 24 January they passed Red Bluff, near Wittecarra they went looking for fresh water. The original plate is preserved in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, De Vlamingh, with his son and Collaert, commanded a return fleet from the Indies on 3 or 11 February 1698, which arrived in his hometown, Amsterdam, on 16 August. However, it is not certain that De Vlamingh was still alive at that point, on an earlier retourship, De Vlamingh had sent Witsen a box with seashells, fruits and vegetation from New Holland, as well as eleven drawings that Victor Victorsz had made on the expedition. De Vlamingh also included some black swans, but they died on the voyage, Witsen offered the drawings to Martin Lister
6.
Greenway (landscape)
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A greenway is a strip of undeveloped land near an urban area, set aside for recreational use or environmental protection. A greenway is a trail, found in urban and rural settings, that is frequently created, out of a disused railway, canal towpath, utility, or similar right of way. Rail trails are one of the most common forms of greenway, in Southern England the term also refers to ancient trackways or green lanes, especially those found on chalk downlands, like the Ridgeway. Some greenways include community gardens as well as typical park-style landscaping of trees and they also tend to have a mostly contiguous pathway. Greenways resemble linear parks, but the latter are found in an urban and suburban environment. Tom Turner analyzed greenways in London, looking for patterns among successful examples. He was inspired by the pattern language technique of architect Christopher Alexander, Turner concluded there are seven types, or patterns, of greenway which he named, parkway, blueway, paveway, glazeway, skyway, ecoway and cycleway. These routes should meet satisfactory standards of width, gradient and surface condition to ensure that they are both user-friendly and low-risk for users of all abilities. Charles Little, describes five general types of greenways, Urban riverside greenways, usually created as part of a redevelopment program along neglected, often run-down, city waterfronts. Recreational greenways, featuring paths and trails of various kinds, often relatively long distance, based on natural corridors as well as canals, abandoned rail beds, and public rights-of-way. Ecologically significant natural corridors, usually along rivers and streams and less often ridgelines, to provide for wildlife migration and species interchange, nature study, Greenways are vegetated, linear, and multi-purpose. They incorporate a footpath or bikeway within a linear park, in urban design they are a component of planning for bicycle commuting and walkability. Greenways are found in areas as well as urban. Corridors redeveloped as greenways often travel through both city and country, connecting them together, however, most examples are in Europe and North America. In Australia, a foreshoreway is a greenway that provides a public right-of-way along the edge of the sea, foreshoreways include oceanways, and resemble promenades and boardwalks. Foreshoreways are usually concerned with the idea of sustainable transport and the term is used to avoid the suggestion that the route favours either pedestrians or cyclists, a foreshoreway is accessible to both pedestrians and cyclists and gives them the opportunity to move unimpeded along the seashore. Dead end paths that offer public access only to the ocean are not part of a foreshoreway, the network includes 36 kilometres of poor, medium and high quality pathways. Others include, The Chicago Lakefront Trail, the Dubai Marina, the East River Greenway, New Plymouth Coastal Walkway, public rights of way frequently exist on the foreshore of beaches throughout the world
7.
Sustainable transport
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Components for evaluating sustainability include the particular vehicles used for road, water or air transport, the source of energy, and the infrastructure used to accommodate the transport. Another component for evaluation is pipelines for transporting liquid or gas materials, Transport operations and logistics as well as transit-oriented development are also involved in evaluation. Transportation sustainability is largely being measured by transportation system effectiveness and efficiency as well as the environmental, the entire life cycle of transport systems is subject to sustainability measurement and optimization. Sustainable transport systems make a contribution to the environmental, social. The advantages of increased mobility need to be weighed against the environmental, social, Transport systems have significant impacts on the environment, accounting for between 20% and 25% of world energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The majority of the emissions, almost 97%, came from burning of fossil fuels. Greenhouse gas emissions from transport are increasing at a faster rate than any other energy using sector, road transport is also a major contributor to local air pollution and smog. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that each year 2.4 million premature deaths from air pollution could be avoided. The social costs of transport include road crashes, air pollution, physical inactivity, time taken away from the family while commuting, many of these negative impacts fall disproportionately on those social groups who are also least likely to own and drive cars. Traffic congestion imposes economic costs by wasting time and by slowing the delivery of goods. Traditional transport planning aims to improve mobility, especially for vehicles, communities which are successfully improving the sustainability of their transport networks are doing so as part of a wider programme of creating more vibrant, livable, sustainable cities. There are many definitions of the transport, and of the related terms sustainable transportation. Is Affordable, operates fairly and efficiently, offers a choice of transport mode, Sustainability extends beyond just the operating efficiency and emissions. A Life-cycle assessment involves production, use and post-use considerations, a cradle-to-cradle design is more important than a focus on a single factor such as energy efficiency. Most of the tools and concepts of sustainable transport were developed before the phrase was coined, walking, the first mode of transport, is also the most sustainable. Public transport dates back at least as far as the invention of the bus by Blaise Pascal in 1662. The first passenger tram began operation in 1807 and the first passenger service in 1825. Pedal bicycles date from the 1860s and these were the only personal transport choices available to most people in Western countries prior to World War II, and remain the only options for most people in the developing world
8.
Liberal Party of Australia
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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
9.
Julie Bishop
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Julie Isabel Bishop is an Australian politician, serving as the Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2013, and the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party since 2007. Bishop grew up in the Adelaide Hills and was educated at the St Peters Collegiate Girls School, prior to entering politics, she was managing partner of major Australian law firm Clayton Utz. Bishop began her career as a member of the Australian House of Representatives during the 1998 federal election for the seat of Curtin in Western Australia. She is the first female deputy leader of the Liberal Party and was the woman to hold the title of Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Bishop was born in Lobethal, South Australia, growing up on a farm in the Adelaide Hills. She was educated at St Peters Collegiate Girls School and later at the University of Adelaide and she practised as a barrister and solicitor at the Adelaide law firm Mangan, Ey & Bishop, where she was a partner. In 1983, Bishop moved to Perth, Western Australia, where she practised as a commercial litigation solicitor at Clayton Utz and she became a partner of Clayton Utz in 1985. Bishop became managing partner of the Perth office of Clayton Utz in 1994, in 1996, she attended Harvard Business School for eight weeks to complete an Advanced Management Program for Senior Managers. It was during this course that she was inspired to serve her country, after she returned from America, there she met David Johnston, president of the WA Liberals, who convinced her to enter federal politics. She has also served on the Council of Governors of the Lions Ear, following the Liberals February 2001 state election loss by Richard Court to Geoff Gallop, Bishop was mooted as a possible contender for leader of the state opposition. Initially, Court announced that he would lead the Liberals into opposition, however, behind the scenes he was engineering a deal under which both he and his deputy leader and factional opponent, Colin Barnett, would resign from the state legislature. The deal soon collapsed, however, when Bishop turned it down, declaring that the arrangement wasnt bizarre, Court was forced to leave politics altogether, and Barnett took over as state opposition leader. Bishop was appointed Minister for Ageing in 2003, Bishops education policies centred on the development of national education standards as well as performance-based pay for teachers. On 13 April 2007, the Australian state governments expressed opposition to Bishops policies, in the 2007 budget, the federal government announced a $5b endowment fund for higher education, with the expressed goal of providing world-class tertiary institutions in Australia. Some of Bishops comments, such as the states have ideologically hijacked school syllabi and are wasting $180 million in unnecessary duplication, were criticised by teachers. An advance media kit for a 2006 speech claimed parts of the contemporary curriculum came straight from Chairman Mao, however, Bishop facilitated Johnstons access to the Howard government at the highest level, compounding extensive official complicity and Austrade funding of the multimillion-dollar scam. For example, Firepower was promoted as a co-sponsor of the trade show Australia Week in Moscow, following the Coalitions loss at the 2007 election, Bishop was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party under Brendan Nelson on 29 November 2007. In a ballot of Liberal party room members, Bishop prevailed with 44 votes, Nelson opted not to give National Party leader Warren Truss the post of Deputy Leader of the Opposition, instead giving it to Bishop
10.
Indian Ocean
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The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the worlds oceanic divisions, covering 70,560,000 km2. It is bounded by Asia on the north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, the Indian Ocean is known as Ratnākara, the mine of gems in ancient Sanskrit literature, and as Hind Mahāsāgar, in Hindi. The northernmost extent of the Indian Ocean is approximately 30° north in the Persian Gulf, the oceans continental shelves are narrow, averaging 200 kilometres in width. An exception is found off Australias western coast, where the width exceeds 1,000 kilometres. The average depth of the ocean is 3,890 m and its deepest point is Diamantina Deep in Diamantina Trench, at 8,047 m deep, Sunda Trench has a depth of 7, 258–7,725 m. North of 50° south latitude, 86% of the basin is covered by pelagic sediments. The remaining 14% is layered with terrigenous sediments, glacial outwash dominates the extreme southern latitudes. The major choke points include Bab el Mandeb, Strait of Hormuz, the Lombok Strait, the Strait of Malacca, the Indian Ocean is artificially connected to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal, which is accessible via the Red Sea. All of the Indian Ocean is in the Eastern Hemisphere and the centre of the Eastern Hemisphere is in this ocean, marginal seas, gulfs, bays and straits of the Indian Ocean include, The climate north of the equator is affected by a monsoon climate. Strong north-east winds blow from October until April, from May until October south, in the Arabian Sea the violent Monsoon brings rain to the Indian subcontinent. In the southern hemisphere, the winds are milder. When the monsoon winds change, cyclones sometimes strike the shores of the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean is the warmest ocean in the world. Long-term ocean temperature records show a rapid, continuous warming in the Indian Ocean, Indian Ocean warming is the largest among the tropical oceans, and about 3 times faster than the warming observed in the Pacific. Research indicates that human induced greenhouse warming, and changes in the frequency, among the few large rivers flowing into the Indian Ocean are the Zambezi, Shatt al-Arab, Indus, Godavari, Krishna, Narmada, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Jubba and Irrawaddy River. The oceans currents are controlled by the monsoon. Two large gyres, one in the northern hemisphere flowing clockwise and one south of the equator moving anticlockwise, during the winter monsoon, however, currents in the north are reversed. Deep water circulation is controlled primarily by inflows from the Atlantic Ocean, the Red Sea, north of 20° south latitude the minimum surface temperature is 22 °C, exceeding 28 °C to the east. Southward of 40° south latitude, temperatures drop quickly, surface water salinity ranges from 32 to 37 parts per 1000, the highest occurring in the Arabian Sea and in a belt between southern Africa and south-western Australia
11.
Western Australian Legislative Assembly
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The Western Australian Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Western Australia, an Australian state. The Parliament sits in Parliament House in the Western Australian capital, the Legislative Assembly today has 59 members, elected for four-year terms from single-member electoral districts. Members are elected using the voting system. As with all other Australian states and territories, voting is compulsory for all Australian citizens over the voting age of 18. Most legislation in Western Australia is initiated in the Legislative Assembly, the party or coalition that can command a majority in the Legislative Assembly is invited by the Governor to form a government. As Australian political parties traditionally vote along party lines, most legislation introduced by the party will pass through the House of Assembly. The Legislative Assembly was the first elected legislature in Western Australia, having been created in 1890 and it initially consisted of 30 members, all of whom were elected, although only male landowners could vote. This replaced a system where the Governor was responsible for most legislative matters, suffrage was extended to all adult males in 1893, although Indigenous Australians were specifically excluded. Women gained the right to vote in 1899, making Western Australia the second of the Australian colonies to do so. In 1921, Edith Cowan became the first woman to be elected to parliament anywhere in Australia when she won the Legislative Assembly seat of West Perth for the Nationalist Party, for many years, Western Australia used a zonal electoral system for both houses of parliament. In most Australian jurisdictions, each state represents an approximately equal number of voters. However, in Western Australia, until 2008 an MP represented 28,519 voters in greater Perth or 14,551 country voters. There has been strong support over time in some quarters for the principle of one vote one value,30 votes as a majority are required to pass legislation
12.
Prime Minister of Australia
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The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the head of government of Australia. The individual who holds the office is the most senior Minister of the Crown, the leader of the Cabinet, the office is not mentioned in the Constitution of Australia and exists only through longstanding political convention and tradition. Despite this, in practice it is the most powerful position in Australia. The individual who holds the office is commissioned by the Governor-General of Australia, almost always and according to convention, the Prime Minister is the leader of the majority party or largest party in a coalition of parties in the House of Representatives. However, there is no requirement that the prime minister sit in the House of Representatives. The only case where a member of the Senate was appointed minister was John Gorton. Malcolm Turnbull has held the office of Prime Minister since 15 September 2015, the Prime Minister and Treasurer are traditionally members of the House, but the Constitution does not have such a requirement. Before being sworn in as a Minister of the Crown, a person must first be sworn in as a member of the Federal Executive Council if they are not already a member. Membership of the Federal Executive Council entitles the member to the style of The Honourable for life, the senior members of the Executive Council constitute the Cabinet of Australia. The Prime Minister is, like ministers, normally sworn in by the Governor-General. When defeated in an election, or on resigning, the Prime Minister is said to hand in the commission, in the event of a Prime Minister dying in office, or becoming incapacitated, the Governor-General can terminate the commission. Despite the importance of the office of minister, the Constitution does not mention the office by name. The conventions of the Westminster system were thought to be entrenched in Australia by the authors of the Constitution that it was deemed unnecessary to detail them. The formal title of the portfolio has always been simply Prime Minister, except for the period of the Fourth Deakin Ministry, Page was the leader of the smaller party in the governing coalition, the Country Party. He held the office for three weeks until the UAP elected a new leader, Robert Menzies, in August 1941 Menzies resigned as prime minister. In July 1945 John Curtin died suddenly and his deputy, Frank Forde, was sworn in the next day as prime minister, although the Labor Party had not had an opportunity to meet and elect a new leader. Forde served for eight days until Ben Chifley was elected leader, Chifley was then sworn in, replacing Forde, who became Australias shortest-serving prime minister. Harold Holt disappeared while swimming on 17 December 1967 and was declared presumed dead on 19 December, the governor-general, Lord Casey, commissioned the Leader of the Country Party, John McEwen, to form a government until the Liberal Party elected a new leader
