Australian Politics

Essay Plan for Australian politics:

The items to be included in the essay are sorted out by the planning process.

Introduction: the introduction part of the essay (10% of the word limit) = 200 words

The introduction part of the essay should not comprise of more than five hundred words. The 10% criteria is applicable to the essay of which is of shorter words.

An introduction part of the essay must comprise of the few main points. The introduction must answer few questions concerning the topic. The topic here is related to the structure and dynamics of politics in Australia. A strong argument relating to the topic must be put forward which would depict the strength of the essay. The questions, which can be answered in the introduction part, could be the role or the purpose of the constitution in the political system of Australia or is there is any need of separating the executive, legislative and the judicial power in the political system (Isserman 2014). The answer to these questions would be put forward by listing the evidence, this would be seen through the demonstration of the dynamics of the political system, and it can be done by reviewing the scholars relating to the issues and problems in the system of politics. The introduction part of the essay must include any subject or topic that would be discussed in the essay.

Body of the essay: The body of the essay comprised of the 80% of the word limit= 1600 words

The importance of each subject discussed in the essay depend upon the time spent about writing it. If the topics to be discussed are of equal importance, then equal amounts of word should be allotted to each. However, a more relevant topic should be allotted more words than a relatively less relevant topic. The body of the essay can be discussed in the forms of separate topic.

Topic 1- Improving the governance system of Australia

Topic 2- Uniqueness of the Australian electoral system and difference between the voting system of the Senate and Housing representative

Topic 3- Interest of the political parties

Topic 4- Australian political system and Constitution

Conclusion

The conclusion part also comprised of 10% of the word limit. The conclusion must have two things in its section. The questions in the introduction part needs to be answered in a different way that is in a concluding way. Does the constitution serve the country’s political system? The recap of the summary needs to be provided in the conclusion part and this would be done by giving the evidence discussed in the body part of the essay. Conclusion is just the summary of what has been discussed in the essay. Therefore, the conclusion part must not have any new information (Godwin 2014).

The conclusion links back to the introduction part and it leaves an impact on the reader, therefore the essay must be wrapped with a suitable conclusion so that it is able to deliver the message.

Annotated Bibliography:

The annotated bibliography could be written down in steps:

The source of discussing the essay should be cited in appropriate style that is the source should be cited in the recommended style of Harvard.

Gauja, A., 2016. Political parties and elections: Legislating for representative democracy. Routledge.

In the source provided, the authors make use of the constitution in the political system. The design of the electoral system is affected by the legal regulation and the legislation governing the country. The constitution of any country serves the political system. The judicial decision and the legislative instruments regulate the activities of political parties. The creation, freedom and the regulation of the political parties is greatly impacted by the constitutional framework.

This particular chapter is useful in writing the essay as it shows the importance of the constitution in the political system of Australia and whether it serve any role. The thinking would be stimulated by the examples provided. However, some additional sources need to be located to understand the concept in a better way.

Additional Resources:

Singleton, G., Aitkin, D., Jinks, B. and Warhurst, J., 2012. Australian Politcal Institutions. Pearson Higher Education AU.

The source taken is about the political institution of Australia. It provides with the features of the electoral system and shows that voting system and its fairness. This helps in evaluating the system of elections and provides the reader with necessary knowledge.

The site of the Australian electoral commission has been cited in the Harvard style and it provided with the various informations on the trends relating to the voting by the minor parties and the transcript of the high court in the case discussion.

Australian Electoral Commission. (2016).Publications. [online] Available at: http://www.aec.gov.au/about_aec/Publications/ [Accessed 3 Sep. 2016]. 

Assessment 3b:

The political system of Australia is older than many of other countries in the world. One of the interesting versions of the democracy of Australia is its political system. The fundamental aspect of the political system is the separation of the legislative, executive and the judiciary powers and this is so because the power separation would ensure the independence regarding them and the entities would not be able to make inappropriate interference in the functioning of one another. The country has two major political parties along with the various minor parties. The constitution plays a very vital role in the political system. The “Australian electoral commission” runs the elections (Brown 2016). The Acts set by the constitution determine the maintenance of the electoral roles and the electrical boundaries.

The framework of the constitutional monarchy incorporates the political system of Australia. The voting is compulsory in Australian and it takes place as a two party system. The house of representative is the lower chamber and the senate is in the upper chamber in the Australian political system. The interesting version of the democracy is depicted in the Australian political system and several reasons attribute to this fact.  The system of compulsory voting and although in case of non-compliance, some penalties are imposed. The elections at the federal level are held atleast very three years. The Australian political system has a culture of very robust nature and the debate languages used are colorful and strong. The parliament and the government is located in the political capital that is Canberra which is not its major city. The prime minister of Australia who is the head of the executive has many seats in the House of Representatives and they represent the leader of the political parties. The political system of Australia is based on the political equality. The powers that the executives and the legislature exercise affect the functioning of the political parties (Clarke et al. 2016).

The legislative authority is carried out is carried out by the hose of representative which is granted to them by the constitution. However, the Senate is more popular than the House and they have similar power. Population is the differentiating factor between the House and Senate. The Senate represents the interest of state. The reason behind the difference in the voting power of Senate and House is that there is able to strike a compromise between the high-minded statesmanship and dynamic populism relating to the direct democracy. Simultaneously, the idea was to strike a compromise between the power of small states and the power of big states. The election of the Senate makes use of the complex voting system as compared to the election of the housing of representatives (Evans and Stoker 2016). The voters in the senate have the option of numbering the candidates in their preference order. In order for the territory and the state senator, the designated quota must be won first and the specified proportion of vote is preferred later. On the other hand, preferential voting system is used for election purpose in the House of Representatives. The voting is done by writing a number and this would be beside the name on every ballot paper. Those candidates would win the seat if the candidate on the first preference basis gains the majority in absolute terms (Fenna et al. 2013).

The voting reform proposed by the Senate does not makes the voting incentive to get reduced for micro parties. The percentage of the quota, which the micro parties are receiving, is quite significant. The balance of power in the Senate is often holding by the minority parties and this form the basis for the decision making of the government. The micro parties in Australia are making a favor among the voters and them generating it (Fowler 2013).

The balance of the lower house is hold by the minority parties. The minority government is a small but it has significant contributions and forms an important part of the parliamentary government across Australia and it forms a version of the same. The role of the opposing party and the government are reversed in case of minority government. The government in the Australian territory has been the minor government (Fox 2014).

The legislative, judiciary and the executive powers in the political system of the Australia is different and it is based on the principles. The division of the power is based on the principles of the ‘separation of the power’. The power to govern is distributed under this principle and the principles avoid a particular group to exercise sole power. The executive, judiciary and the parliament group should work within the areas of responsibility that are designed by the principle. This is done so that the others track the actions of one particular grouped and they keep a check on each other’s actions (Gibson and McAllister 2015). The powers that is separated between the groups is also done on the principle of the responsible government and they guide the law in the way it is managed and made. The powers have been separated so that the executive and the legislative do not abuse their powers and they remain accountable to the parliament. In order to prevent the oppressive government, the bodies have been separated by the powers. However, some of the roles of the legislative, executive and the judiciary are common and sometimes they overlap (Golosov 2015).

The electoral system in Australia is referred to as the preferential system and a greater degree of flexibility is provided in the voting act. Voters are able to vote in a varying degrees and this is done by ordering the candidates in terms of their ranks in the ballot paper, under the preferential system of voting. Thos would help the voters in expressing their vote across the more or several candidates. The ballot structure make the electoral system of Australia different form all the others system of voting. The electoral system serves several functions in the country and the interest of the political parties ultimately lies in the voting process and the candidates who get elected. The system of compulsory voting has contributed to make the party system stable (Koop and Sharman 2015).

However, this voting system would reduce the liberal national coalition. The preferential system of voting would provide the electors which greater choice and when this would be done on the optional basis rather than the full basis. The compulsory voting system is the country has been attacked on the ground of the alleged consequences. The parties become lazy due to the compulsion voting and it was more likely that due to the compulsion, the migrant, young and marginalized constituencies would vote. The system of compulsory voting entrust the self-interest factor and the reason behind this is that the public funds is gained from the actual number of votes (Gauja 2016).

The full preferential voting can be replaced by the use of the optional voting. The political equality is served by the optional voting because no random choice of electors is demanded by the electoral for the candidate who does not have any real preference. The complex voting system would turn off the voters and the outcome would be potentially distorted because of the confusion of the system (Australian Electoral Commission 2016). The different voting method at the federal and the state elections would disenfranchise and confuse the voters. The Australian at the upper house elections confronts the different rules. However, for all the lower house election if the optional preferential voting is adopted , this would lead to the democratic and practical improvement in the electoral system.

The proposition of bills of rights was put forward in the convention of constitution and it was opposed on the ground that some of the discriminatory provisions of the law would be undermined and the laws and regulations were disadvantageous to the people in Australia. The review has come up with the arguments against the introduction of the bills of rights. The bill of rights would produce the ‘judicial imperialism’ and the great power would be transferred to the judge form the elected representatives of the people. The new problems concerning the basics right of the people would be overlooked. The bills of rights would not protect the communists and it cannot be always consider as the good protection. However, there are some arguments in favor of the introduction of the bills of rights (Lawfoundation.net.au 2016).

The powers of the judiciary are limited and the basics rights of the people are not protected by invoking the legal principles by the judges. The bills of rights would provide the judges with the measures to redress the derogations that arise from the fundamental principles. The legitimacy of the people would also be ensured and the rights of the people would be placed above the politics (Mills 2014).

Democracy requires that the basic principles of the constitution and the interest of the minorities would be protected and the modern notion of the democracy is considered more suitable. The introduction of the bills of rights is a debate for the citizens of Australia. Three needs to be as clear-cut understanding of the viewed for sand against the bills of rights in order to take the informed decisions (Marsh and Miller 2012). The decisions to be taken would be informed only if the arguments and favor regarding the bills would be weighed properly.

Some of the recommendations can be made to improve the political system. Some of the proposals is to be made in the regards of the electoral system. The electoral system needs to remove the preferential system of voting which is seen as unfair. The system of first past the post should be removed where the person win highest votes who has the largest numbers of votes. However, the proposed system would make the person win the election if he has less than 50% of votes.  The electoral system should have proportional representation and under this method, the persons would be elected according to the percentage of the votes they receive (McAllister  2013). This system of voting would provide the scope to the smaller parties, they are likely to be more independent, and they have the chance of being elected.

The introduction of the bills of right is also regarded as the proposal that could be introduced to reform the political system in the Australia. Some of the basics laws that the citizens have are entrenched in the bills of rights. Several rights are included such as the judiciary separation, assembly and speech freedom. The political parties needs to be reformed in a way that the parties member should be selected by the party committee based on criteria of objectives and public service people needs to be drawn (McDonald et al. 2013).  In order for the factionalism to get reduced, the ballot which is held within the parties are kept in the secret form. The process of deliberative polling has to become the regular institution. The political system of the country such as Australia can be improved by improving the practices and the institutions and there needs to be the inclusion of the public in the parliamentary debates and who could be able to report on the performance of the parliament.

Reference:

Australian Electoral Commission. (2016).Publications. [online] Available at: http://www.aec.gov.au/about_aec/Publications/ [Accessed 3 Sep. 2016].

Brown, A.J., 2016. Federalism in australia revisited: Political history and culture as Forces for stasis and change. Federalism and decentralization: perceptions for political and institutional reforms, p.235.

Clarke, P., Tew, M., McDonald, S. and Glover, J., 2016. Mortality by Commonwealth Electoral Divisions in Australia.

Evans, M. and Stoker, G., 2016. Political participation in Australia: Contingency in the behaviour and attitudes of citizens. Australian Journal of Political Science, pp.1-16.

Fenna, A., Robbins, J. and Summers, J., 2013. Government Politics in Australia. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Fowler, A., 2013. Electoral and policy consequences of voter turnout: Evidence from compulsory voting in Australia. Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 8(2), pp.159-182.

Fox, S., 2014. Book Review: Comparative: Democratic Decline and Democratic Renewal: Political Change in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.Political Studies Review, 12(3), pp.435-435.

Gauja, A., 2016. Political parties and elections: Legislating for representative democracy.

Gibson, R.K. and McAllister, I., 2015. New media, elections and the political knowledge gap in Australia. Journal of Sociology, 51(2), pp.337-353.

Godwin, J., 2014. Planning your essay. Palgrave Macmillan.

Golosov, G.V., 2015. Party systems, electoral systems, and legislative fragmentation A cross-national empirical study. Party Politics, p.1354068815603624.

Isserman, A., 2014. Dare to plan: An essay on the role of the future in planning practice and education. Town Planning Review, 85(1), pp.9-18.

Koop, R. and Sharman, C., 2015. National party structure in parliamentary federations: subcontracting electoral mobilisation in Canada and Australia.Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 53(2), pp.177-196.’

Lawfoundation.net.au. (2016). Law and Justice Foundation – A Bill of Rights for Australia – But do we need it?. [online] Available at: http://www.lawfoundation.net.au/ljf/app/&id=/a60da51d4c6b0a51ca2571a7002069a0 [Accessed 4 Sep. 2016].

Marsh, I. and Miller, R., 2012. Democratic Decline and Democratic Renewal: Introduction: 1. The decline and renewal of democratic governance: a theoretical framework; Part II. Political Change in Britain: The Development of a Strategy Gap: 2. The mass party system and state strategic capacity in Britain; 3. Neo-liberalism and the decline of state strategic capacity; 4. Why the gap in strategic capacity poses a systemic challenge; Part III. Political Change in Australia: The Development of a Representation Gap: 5. Everyman is king …. Cambridge University Press.

McAllister, I., 2013. The personalization of politics in Australia. Party politics, p.1354068813487111.

McDonald, C., Kirk-Brown, A., Frost, L., Van Dijk, P. and Rainnie, A., 2013. Partnerships and integrated responses to rural decline: The role of collective efficacy and political capital in Northwest Tasmania, Australia. Journal of Rural Studies, 32, pp.346-356.

Mills, S., 2014. The professionals: Strategy, money and the rise of the political campaigner in Australia. Black Inc..

Stoker, G., Evans, M., Li, J. and Halupka, M., 2014. Judging Democratic Politics in Australia: Exploring Citizens’ Folk Theories. Do Democratic Innovations Matter for Citizens.

Wilson, J., 2014. Kevin Rudd, celebrity and audience democracy in Australia. Journalism, 15(2), pp.202-217.

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