tl;dr Australian politics on a national level is f@*#%$ up
How Australian Politics work on a national level
The country is divided up into 'electorates' based on population. People from these electorates vote for candidates for the House of Representatives and The Senate.
There are 76 seats in The Senate and a political party needs 51% of The Senate to form a government. The leader of said political party then becomes the Prime Minister of Australia and the second majority party the "Opposition". The Prime Minister then chooses a person to become Governor General, who has vast more power than the Prime Minister.
The Governor General is "The representative of the Queen" and has the power to fire the Prime Minister and call an election, to call a double dissolution if the Prime Minister recommends it after a piece of legislation has been voted against 3 times in a three month period.
The Prime Minister chooses members of her political party to hold 'cabinets' and become eg. "Minister for Education".
Why Australian Politics is shitting itself
In the national election in 2010, the two major parties, Labor and The Coalition, neither held a majority in The Senate with 31/34 seats, respectively. Minor party The Greens held 9 seats and 2 other independents had seats.
The Labor party had formed government prior to the 2010 Election and was keen to hold government so with some diplomatic ski...sucking up, they formed a minority government with the help of The Greens and the Independents.
This is very problematic as any piece of legislation the Prime Minister wants to bring in must satisfy The Greens, and to lesser extent, the Independents.
Chapter 3: It all goes to hell
Go to any Australian and say 'Carbon Tax' and they will start ranting at you why it is so good for our environment or how it is going to murder our economy.
Australia's economy and the AUD being over parity is almost solely based on the mining boom. Australia is a massive exporter of Coal, Iron ore as well as Uranium and Natural Gas.
The Labor government wants to introduce a tax on Carbon emission that would charge Australia's top 500 carbon emitting companies $23 per tonne. The revenue would fund "compensation for 9/10 Australians" through income tax cuts or similar while also going towards renewable energy.
The Opposition leader is heavily opposed to the Labor government's plan, the leader of the party has numerously called to go to an election over it. The Greens are supportive of The Carbon Tax and so it is possible that the Tax will get passed.
Chapter 3: I: The Boat People
Asylum seekers in Australia have been a big problem over the last few years, with more and more boats coming to our shores. The policy over the years have been to put them in Detention Centres on Christmas Island (The irony!) but over-crowding and long processing delays have caused numerous riots, suicides, etc. The Labor government decided to make a deal with Malaysia to start shipping any refugees that come to us to them in exchange for 4000 of their refugees immediately.
There's one MAJOR problem with that plan, Malaysia has a huge record of being horrible to refugees, plus has not signed the United Nations Refugee Convention.
The High Court of Australia ruled the Labor party's Malaysia deal plan unconstitutional. The Labor party was very angry and decided that they would change the Migration Act so that their plan would be constitutional.
The Labor party needs the support of the Opposition though to get their Malaysia deal working. The Opposition leader has said numerous times that he will not say yes to sending refugees to a country that has not signed the UN Refugee Convention but he says that his party will say yes to a country that has signed it (And suggesting Nauru).
But the Labor government is standing firm on it's Malaysia deal atm, and so far is not going to go with the Oppositions compromise. This means that the Senate is locked in mass debate until the Labor party puts their plan up for voting in the Senate.
The Labor party is defending itself during debate time by bringing up 'Work Choices' an old Coalition (Who are the Opposition atm) policy that restricted the things Unions could do and such.
Chapter 3: II: Kerm would be proud (See what I did there? Trolulululul)
Stephen Conroy, the Communications Minister, proposed a National Mandatory Internet Filter back in 2008. The goal of the filter was to block child pornography and other "Refused Classification" content. You have possibly heard of this because the list of blocked websites on the trial filter got leaked to Wikileaks and had sites that was FAR outside the goals of the filter, blocking websites such as Encyclopedia Dramatica and controversial topics like Euthanasia. A teenager who participated in the trial hacked past the filter within 30 minutes. Close to the 2010 election the filter was shelved until after the election, but it hasn't been brought back up yet (Thank god!).
Chapter 3: III: R
Australia still has no R rating for video games, though it is now just agreed on it (I think) and it is now being introduced later in the year (?) and many MA15+ games are set to be put on the R rating. Previously, any game that fails to get a MA15+ rating would be 'Refused Classification) and be banned from sale in Australia.
How Australian Politics work on a national level
The country is divided up into 'electorates' based on population. People from these electorates vote for candidates for the House of Representatives and The Senate.
There are 76 seats in The Senate and a political party needs 51% of The Senate to form a government. The leader of said political party then becomes the Prime Minister of Australia and the second majority party the "Opposition". The Prime Minister then chooses a person to become Governor General, who has vast more power than the Prime Minister.
The Governor General is "The representative of the Queen" and has the power to fire the Prime Minister and call an election, to call a double dissolution if the Prime Minister recommends it after a piece of legislation has been voted against 3 times in a three month period.
The Prime Minister chooses members of her political party to hold 'cabinets' and become eg. "Minister for Education".
Why Australian Politics is shitting itself
In the national election in 2010, the two major parties, Labor and The Coalition, neither held a majority in The Senate with 31/34 seats, respectively. Minor party The Greens held 9 seats and 2 other independents had seats.
The Labor party had formed government prior to the 2010 Election and was keen to hold government so with some diplomatic ski...sucking up, they formed a minority government with the help of The Greens and the Independents.
This is very problematic as any piece of legislation the Prime Minister wants to bring in must satisfy The Greens, and to lesser extent, the Independents.
Chapter 3: It all goes to hell
Go to any Australian and say 'Carbon Tax' and they will start ranting at you why it is so good for our environment or how it is going to murder our economy.
Australia's economy and the AUD being over parity is almost solely based on the mining boom. Australia is a massive exporter of Coal, Iron ore as well as Uranium and Natural Gas.
The Labor government wants to introduce a tax on Carbon emission that would charge Australia's top 500 carbon emitting companies $23 per tonne. The revenue would fund "compensation for 9/10 Australians" through income tax cuts or similar while also going towards renewable energy.
The Opposition leader is heavily opposed to the Labor government's plan, the leader of the party has numerously called to go to an election over it. The Greens are supportive of The Carbon Tax and so it is possible that the Tax will get passed.
Chapter 3: I: The Boat People
Asylum seekers in Australia have been a big problem over the last few years, with more and more boats coming to our shores. The policy over the years have been to put them in Detention Centres on Christmas Island (The irony!) but over-crowding and long processing delays have caused numerous riots, suicides, etc. The Labor government decided to make a deal with Malaysia to start shipping any refugees that come to us to them in exchange for 4000 of their refugees immediately.
There's one MAJOR problem with that plan, Malaysia has a huge record of being horrible to refugees, plus has not signed the United Nations Refugee Convention.
The High Court of Australia ruled the Labor party's Malaysia deal plan unconstitutional. The Labor party was very angry and decided that they would change the Migration Act so that their plan would be constitutional.
The Labor party needs the support of the Opposition though to get their Malaysia deal working. The Opposition leader has said numerous times that he will not say yes to sending refugees to a country that has not signed the UN Refugee Convention but he says that his party will say yes to a country that has signed it (And suggesting Nauru).
But the Labor government is standing firm on it's Malaysia deal atm, and so far is not going to go with the Oppositions compromise. This means that the Senate is locked in mass debate until the Labor party puts their plan up for voting in the Senate.
The Labor party is defending itself during debate time by bringing up 'Work Choices' an old Coalition (Who are the Opposition atm) policy that restricted the things Unions could do and such.
Chapter 3: II: Kerm would be proud (See what I did there? Trolulululul)
Stephen Conroy, the Communications Minister, proposed a National Mandatory Internet Filter back in 2008. The goal of the filter was to block child pornography and other "Refused Classification" content. You have possibly heard of this because the list of blocked websites on the trial filter got leaked to Wikileaks and had sites that was FAR outside the goals of the filter, blocking websites such as Encyclopedia Dramatica and controversial topics like Euthanasia. A teenager who participated in the trial hacked past the filter within 30 minutes. Close to the 2010 election the filter was shelved until after the election, but it hasn't been brought back up yet (Thank god!).
Chapter 3: III: R
Australia still has no R rating for video games, though it is now just agreed on it (I think) and it is now being introduced later in the year (?) and many MA15+ games are set to be put on the R rating. Previously, any game that fails to get a MA15+ rating would be 'Refused Classification) and be banned from sale in Australia.
I never had known anything about Australia's politics worked before (or even if it really had much of an organized system...) so I learned two things today: Autralia is comparatively as organized as the US, and comparatively as messed up as the US. Perhaps all of these reasons show why Anon keeps attacking them 