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European land exploration of Australia | "it was with infinite regret and pain that I was forced to come to the conclusion, that the interior of this vast country is a marsh and uninhabitable".
Oxley resolved to turn back and after resting for two days Oxley's party began to retrace their steps along the Lachlan River. They left the Lachlan up-stream of the present site of Lake Cargelligo and crossed to the Bogan River and then across to the upper waters of the Macquarie River, which they followed back to Bathurst (arriving on 29 August 1817).
Oxley travelled to Dubbo on 12 June 1818. He wrote that he had passed that day "over a very beautiful country, thinly wooded and apparently safe from the highest floods..." Later in 1818 Oxley and his men explored the Macquarie River at length before turning west. On 26 August 1818 they climbed a hill and saw before them rich, fertile land (Peel River), near the present site of Tamworth. Continuing further east they crossed the Great Dividing Range passing by the Apsley Falls on 13 September 1818 which he named the Bathurst Falls. He described it as "one of the most magnificent waterfalls we have seen". He discovered and named the Arbuthnot Range, since renamed the Warrumbungle Range. Upon reaching the Hastings River they followed it to its mouth, discovering that it flowed into the sea at a spot which they named Port Macquarie.
In 1824, Governor Thomas Brisbane asked Hamilton Hume and William Hovell to travel from Hume's station, near modern-day Canberra, to Spencer Gulf (west of modern-day Adelaide). However, they were required to pay their own costs. Hume and Hovell decided that Western Port (in present-day Victoria) was a more realistic goal, and they left with a party of six men. After discovering and crossing the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers, they eventually reached a site near modern-day Geelong, somewhat west of their intended destination. |
European land exploration of Australia | Inland sea
After the Great Dividing Range had been crossed at numerous points and many rivers were discovered—the Darling, Macquarie, Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers—all of which flowed west, a theory was developed of a vast inland sea into which these rivers flowed. Another reason behind the idea of an inland sea was that Matthew Flinders, who had very carefully mapped much of Australia's coast had discovered no great river delta where these rivers should have emerged had they reached the coast. The Murray-Darling basin actually drains into Lake Alexandrina. Matthew Flinders had noted this on his maps but viewed from the sea does not look like the outfall of a large watershed, but instead as a gentle tidal basin.
The mystery was solved by Charles Sturt, who in 1829–30 undertook an expedition similar to the one which Hume and Hovell had refused: a trip to the mouth of the Murray River. They followed the Murrumbidgee until it met the Murray, and then found the junction of the Murray and the Darling before continuing on to the mouth of the Murray. The search for an inland sea was an inspiration for many early expeditions west of the Great Dividing Ranges. This quest drove many explorers to extremes of endurance and hardship. Charles Sturt's expedition explained the mystery. It also led to the opening of South Australia to settlement.
The theory of the inland sea had some supporters. Major Thomas Mitchell, the Surveyor-General of New South Wales, set out in 1836 to disprove Sturt's claims and in doing so made a significant discovery. He led an expedition to 'fill in the gaps' left by these previous expeditions. He set off along the Lachlan River, down to the Murray River. He then set off for the southern coast, mapping what is now western Victoria. There he discovered the richest grazing land ever seen to that time and named it Australia Felix. He was knighted for this discovery in 1837. When he reached the coast at Portland Bay, he was surprised to find a small settlement. It had been established by the Henty family, who had sailed across Bass Strait from Van Diemen's Land in 1834, without the authorities being informed. He was meticulous in seeking to record the original Aboriginal place names around the colony, for which reason the majority of place names to this day retain their Aboriginal titles.
The Polish scientist/explorer Count Paul Edmund Strzelecki conducted surveying work in the Australian Alps in 1839 and became the first European to ascend Australia's highest peak, which he named Mount Kosciuszko in honour of the Polish patriot Tadeusz Kosciuszko. |
European land exploration of Australia | The vast interior
From 1858 onwards, the so-called "Afghan" cameleers and their beasts played an instrumental role in opening up the outback and helping to build infrastructure.
The competition to chart a route for the Australian Overland Telegraph Line spurred a number of cross-continental expeditions. Perhaps the most famous of these was the Burke and Wills expedition led by Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills who in 1860–61 led a well equipped expedition from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Due to an unfortunate run of bad luck, oversight and poor leadership, Burke and Wills both died on the return trip. |
European land exploration of Australia | List of expeditions 1804–1897
Expeditions (in chronological order): |
European land exploration of Australia | Other 19th-century explorers
Other explorers by land (in alphabetical order): |
European land exploration of Australia | 20th-century explorers
By the turn of the 20th century, most of the major geographical features of Australia had been discovered by European explorers. However, there are some 20th-century people who are considered explorers. They include: |
European land exploration of Australia | Ted Colson (First to cross the Simpson Desert in 1936.)
Donald George Mackay (Five major expeditions to survey and accurately map the Northern Territory, discoverer of Lake Mackay)
Cecil Madigan (Major scientific expedition to the Simpson Desert in 1939. In 1930, Madigan coined the name "Simpson Desert" after Alfred Allen Simpson, following an aerial survey.)
Len Beadell (Surveyor, road builder, author.)
In 1928, the Royal Australian Air Force started photographing Australian land features from aircraft, and in 1929, the Australian Survey Corps had aerial photos of coastal areas north of Sydney. Urbanized areas were generally first photographed from aircraft during World War II, and the Air Force produced imagery of 1.25 million square miles of northern and central Australia between 1947 and 1952. |
European land exploration of Australia | 21st-century activity
Google Street View sent cars across Australia to create a visual map of the country's streetscapes, starting in urban areas around 2008. While the service had a brief hiatus due to concerns over collecting wi-fi data from 2010 to 2011, mapping with the Google cars resumed and continued until at least 2015. |
European land exploration of Australia | Indigenous Australians participating in European exploration
A number of Indigenous Australians participated in the European exploration of Australia. They include: |
European land exploration of Australia | Jackey Jackey (aka Galmahra), who accompanied Kennedy's expedition
Tommy Windich, who joined John Forrest in his search for Ludwig Leichhardt
Wylie, who accompanied Eyre's expedition across the Nullarbor |
European land exploration of Australia | Naturalists and other scientists
There are a number of naturalists and other scientists closely associated with European exploration of Australia. They include: |
European land exploration of Australia | Daniel Solander, accompanied Cook's 1770 expedition
Jacques Labillardière, accompanied Bruni d'Entrecasteaux
Allan Cunningham, accompanied Oxley's 1817 expedition
John Gilbert, accompanied Leichhardt's expedition
Ferdinand von Mueller, accompanied Augustus Gregory's expedition
Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour, François Péron and Charles Alexander Lesueur, accompanied Nicolas Baudin's 1801 expedition
John Lhotsky
Gerard Krefft
Olive Pink
Scientists of the Horn Expedition of 1894, including Walter Baldwin Spencer, Edward Charles Stirling and Ralph Tate |
European land exploration of Australia | Uncategorised explorers
References
Further reading
Bennett, S. (1867). The history of Australian discovery and colonisation. Sydney: Hanson and Bennett.
Ridpath, J. C. (1899). Ridpath's universal history; an account of the origin, primitive condition, and race development of the greater divisions of mankind, and also of the principal events in the evolution and progress of nations from the beginnings of the civilized life to the close of the nineteenth century. Cincinnati: Jones Brothers Pub. |
European land exploration of Australia | External links
Explorers page at Project Gutenburg Australia
Australian Discovery page at Project Gutenburg Australia |
Parliament of Australia | The Parliament of Australia (officially the Parliament of the Commonwealth and also known as Federal Parliament) is the legislative body of the federal level of government of Australia. It consists of three elements: the monarch (represented by the governor-general), the Senate and the House of Representatives. It combines elements from the UK Parliament (the Westminster system in which the party with a majority in the lower house is entitled to form a government) and the US Congress (equal representation of each state in a powerful upper house).
The upper house, the Senate, consists of 76 members: twelve for each state, and two for each of the self-governing territories. Senators are elected using the proportional system and as a result, the chamber features a multitude of parties vying for power. The governing party or coalition has not held a majority in the Senate since 1981 (except between 2005 and 2007) and usually needs to negotiate with other parties and independents to get legislation passed.
The lower house, the House of Representatives, currently consists of 151 members, each elected using full preferential voting from single-member electorates (also known as electoral divisions or seats). This tends to lead to the chamber being dominated by two major political groups, the centre‑right Coalition (consisting of the Liberal and National parties) and the centre‑left Labor Party. The government of the day must achieve the confidence of this House in order to gain and remain in power.
The House of Representatives has a maximum term of three years, although it can be dissolved early. The Senate has fixed terms, with half of the state senators' terms expiring every three years (the terms of the four territory senators are linked to House elections). As a result, House and Senate elections almost always coincide. A deadlock-breaking mechanism known as a double dissolution can be used to dissolve the full Senate as well as the House if the Senate refuses to pass a piece of legislation passed by the House.
The two houses of Parliament meet in separate chambers of Parliament House (except in rare joint sittings) on Capital Hill in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. |
Parliament of Australia | History
Temporary home in Melbourne (1901–1927)
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 large 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, which it borrowed from the Parliament of Victoria (which sat, instead, in the Royal Exhibition Building until 1927). During this time, Sir Frederick Holder became the first speaker and also the first (and thus far only) parliamentarian to die during a sitting. On 23 July 1909 during an acrimonious debate that had extended through the night to 5 am, Holder exclaimed: "Dreadful, dreadful!" before collapsing as a result of a cerebral haemorrhage. |
Parliament of Australia | Old Parliament House (1927–1988)
The Constitution provided that a new national capital would be established for the nation. This was a compromise at Federation due to the rivalry between the two largest Australian cities, Sydney and Melbourne, which both wished to become the new capital. The site of Canberra was selected for the location of the nation's capital city in 1908. A competition was announced on 30 June 1914 to design Parliament House, with prize money of £7,000. 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 Commonwealth's chief architect, worked on the design as part of his official duties. He had little personal enthusiasm for the project, as he felt it was a waste of money and expenditure on it could not be justified at the time. Nevertheless, he designed the building by default.
The construction of Old Parliament House, as it is called today, commenced on 28 August 1923 and was completed in early 1927. It was built by the Commonwealth Department of Works, using workers and materials from all over Australia. 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, but was actually used for more than 60 years. |
Parliament of Australia | The building was opened on 9 May 1927 by the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother). 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 Union Jacks and Australian flags and bunting. Temporary stands were erected bordering the lawns in front of the Parliament and these were filled with crowds. A Wiradjuri elder, Jimmy Clements, was one of only two Aboriginal Australians present, having walked for about a week from Brungle Station (near Tumut) to be at the event. Dame Nellie Melba sang "God Save the King". The Duke of York unlocked the front doors with a golden key, and led the official party into King's Hall where he unveiled the statue of his father, King George V. The Duke then opened the first parliamentary session in the new Senate Chamber. |
Parliament of Australia | New Parliament House (1988–present)
In 1978 the Fraser government decided to proceed with a new building on Capital Hill, and the Parliament House Construction Authority was created. A two-stage competition was announced, for which the Authority consulted the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and, together with the National Capital Development Commission, made available to competitors a brief and competition documents. The design competition drew 329 entries from 29 countries.
The competition winner was the Philadelphia-based architectural firm of Mitchell/Giurgola, with the on-site work directed by the Italian-born architect Romaldo Giurgola, with a design which involved burying most of the building under Capital Hill, and capping the edifice with an enormous spire topped by a large Australian flag. The façades, however, included deliberate imitation of some of the patterns of the Old Parliament House, so that there is a slight resemblance despite the massive difference of scale. The building was also designed to sit above Old Parliament House when seen from a distance.
Construction began in 1981, and the House was intended to be ready by Australia Day, 26 January 1988, the 200th anniversary of European settlement in Australia. It was expected to cost $220 million. Neither the deadline nor the budget was met. In the end it cost more than $1.1 billion to build.
New Parliament House was finally opened by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on 9 May 1988, the anniversary of the opening of both the first Federal Parliament in Melbourne on 9 May 1901 and the Provisional Parliament House in Canberra on 9 May 1927.
In March 2020, the 46th Parliament of Australia was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia; an adjournment rather than prorogation. Its committees would continue to operate using technology. This unprecedented move was accompanied by two motions raised by the Attorney-General of Australia, Christian Porter, and passed on 23 March 2020. One motion was designed to allow MPs to participate in parliament by electronic means, if agreed by the major parties and the speaker; the second determined that with the agreement of the two major parties, the standing orders could be amended without requiring an absolute majority. |
Parliament of Australia | Composition and electoral systems
The Constitution establishes the Commonwealth Parliament, consisting of three components: the King of Australia, the Senate and the House of Representatives. |
Parliament of Australia | Monarch
All of the constitutional functions of the King are exercisable by the governor-general (except the power to appoint the governor-general), whom the King appoints as his representative in Australia on the advice of the prime minister. However, by convention, the governor-general exercises these powers only upon the advice of ministers, except for limited circumstances covered by the reserve powers. |
Parliament of Australia | Senate
The upper house of the Australian Parliament is the Senate, which consists of 76 members. Like the United States Senate, on which it was partly modelled, the Australian Senate includes an equal number of senators from each state, regardless of population. Unlike it however, the Australian Senate has always been directly elected.
The Constitution allows Parliament to determine the number of senators by legislation, provided that the six original states are equally represented. Furthermore, the Constitution provides that each original state is entitled to at least six senators. However, neither of these provisions applies to any newly admitted states, or to territories. Since an act was passed in 1973, senators have been elected to represent the territories. Currently, the two Northern Territory senators represent the residents of the Northern Territory as well as the Australian external territories of Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The two Australian Capital Territory senators represent the Australian Capital Territory, the Jervis Bay Territory and since 1 July 2016, Norfolk Island. While only half of the state Senate seats go up for re-election each three years (except in the case of a double dissolution) as they serve six-year terms, all of the territory senators must face the voters every three years.
Until 1949, each state elected the constitutional minimum of six senators. This number increased to ten from the 1949 election, and was increased again to twelve from the 1984 election. The system for electing senators has changed several times since Federation. The original arrangement used a first-past-the-post block voting or "winner takes all" system, on a state-by-state basis. This was replaced in 1919 by preferential block voting. Block voting tended to produce landslide majorities and even "wipe-outs". For instance, from 1920 to 1923 the Nationalist Party had 35 of the 36 senators, and from 1947 to 1950, the Australian Labor Party had 33 of the 36 senators.
In 1948, single transferable vote proportional representation on a state-by-state basis became the method for electing senators. This change has been described as an "institutional revolution" that has led to the rise of a number of minor parties such as the Democratic Labor Party, Australian Democrats and Australian Greens who have taken advantage of this system to achieve parliamentary representation and the balance of power. From the 1984 election, group ticket voting was introduced in order to reduce a high rate of informal voting but in 2016, group tickets were abolished to end the influence that preference deals amongst parties had on election results and a form of optional preferential voting was introduced.
Section 15 of the Constitution provides that a casual vacancy of a senator shall be filled by the state Parliament. If the previous senator was a member of a particular political party the replacement must come from the same party, but the state Parliament may choose not to fill the vacancy, in which case section 11 requires the Senate to proceed regardless. If the state Parliament happens to be in recess when the vacancy occurs, the Constitution provides that the state governor can appoint someone to fill the place until fourteen days after the state Parliament resumes sitting. The state Parliament can also be recalled to ratify a replacement. |
Parliament of Australia | House of Representatives
The lower house of the Australian Parliament, the House of Representatives, is made up of single member electorates with a population of roughly equal size. As is convention in the Westminster system, the party or coalition of parties that has the majority in this House forms the government with the leader of that party or coalition becoming the prime minister. If the government loses the confidence of the House, they are expected to call a new election or resign.
Parliament may determine the number of members of the House of Representatives but the Constitution provides that this number must be "as nearly as practicable, twice the number of Senators"; this requirement is commonly called the "nexus clause". Hence, the House presently consists of 151 members. Each state is allocated seats based on its population; however, each original state, regardless of size, is guaranteed at least five seats. The Constitution does not guarantee representation for the territories. Parliament granted a seat to the Northern Territory in 1922, and to the Australian Capital Territory in 1948; these territorial representatives, however, had only limited voting rights until 1968. Federal electorates have their boundaries redrawn or redistributed whenever a state or territory has its number of seats adjusted, if electorates are not generally matched by population size or if seven years have passed since the most recent redistribution.
From 1901 to 1949, the House consisted of either 74 or 75 members (the Senate had 36). Between 1949 and 1984, it had between 121 and 127 members (the Senate had 60 until 1975, when it increased to 64). In 1977, the High Court ordered that the size of the House be reduced from 127 to 124 members to comply with the nexus provision. In 1984, both the Senate and the House were enlarged; since then the House has had between 148 and 151 members (the Senate has 76).
First-past-the-post voting was used to elect members of the House of Representatives until in 1918 the Nationalist Party government, a predecessor of the modern-day Liberal Party of Australia, changed the lower house voting system to full preferential voting for the subsequent 1919 election. This was in response to Labor unexpectedly winning the 1918 Swan by-election with the largest primary vote, due to vote splitting among the conservative parties. This system has remained in place ever since, allowing the Coalition parties to safely contest the same seats. Full-preference preferential voting re-elected the Bob Hawke government at the 1990 election, the first time in federal history that Labor had obtained a net benefit from preferential voting. |
Parliament of Australia | Both houses
It is not possible to be simultaneously a member of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, but a number of people have been members of both houses at different times in their parliamentary career.
Only Australian citizens are eligible for election to either house. They must not also be a subject or citizen of a "foreign power". When the Constitution was drafted, all Australians (and other inhabitants of the British empire) were British subjects, so the word "foreign" meant outside the Empire. But, in the landmark case Sue v Hill (1999), the High Court of Australia ruled that, at least since the passage of the Australia Act 1986, Britain has been a "foreign power", so that British citizens are also excluded.
Compulsory voting was introduced for federal elections in 1924. The immediate justification for compulsory voting was the low voter turnout (59.38%) at the 1922 federal election, down from 71.59% at the 1919 federal election. Compulsory voting was not on the platform of either the Stanley Bruce-led Nationalist/Country party coalition government or the Matthew Charlton-led Labor opposition. The actual initiative for change was made by Herbert Payne, a backbench Tasmanian Nationalist Senator who on 16 July 1924 introduced a private Senator's bill in the Senate. Payne's bill was passed with little debate (the House of Representatives agreeing to it in less than an hour), and in neither house was a division required, hence no votes were recorded against the bill. The 1925 federal election was the first to be conducted under compulsory voting, which saw the turnout figure rise to 91.4%. The turnout increased to about 95% within a couple of elections and has stayed at about that level since.
Since 1973, citizens have had the right to vote upon turning 18. Prior to this it was 21.
Australian Federal Police officers armed with assault rifles have been situated in the Federal Parliament since 2015. It is the first time in Australian history that a parliament has possessed armed personnel. |
Parliament of Australia | Procedure
Each of the two Houses elects a presiding officer. The presiding officer of the Senate is called the President; that of the House of Representatives is the Speaker. Elections for these positions are by secret ballot. Both offices are conventionally filled by members of the governing party, but the presiding officers are expected to oversee debate and enforce the rules in an impartial manner.
The Constitution authorises Parliament to set the quorum for each chamber. The quorum of the Senate is one-quarter of the total membership (nineteen); that of the House of Representatives is one-fifth of the total membership (thirty-one). In theory, if a quorum is not present, then a House may not continue to meet. In practice, members usually agree not to notice that a quorum is not present, so that debates on routine bills can continue while other members attend to other business outside the chamber. Sometimes the Opposition will "call a quorum" as a tactic to annoy the Government or delay proceedings, particularly when the Opposition feels it has been unfairly treated in the House. Proceedings are interrupted until a quorum is present. It is the responsibility of the government whip to ensure that, when a quorum is called, enough government members are present to form a quorum.
Both Houses may determine motions by voice vote: the presiding officer puts the question, and, after listening to shouts of "Aye" and "No" from the members, announces the result. The announcement of the presiding officer settles the question, unless at least two members demand a "division", or a recorded vote. In that case the bells are rung throughout Parliament House summoning Senators or Members to the chamber. During a division, members who favour the motion move to the right side of the chamber (the side to the Speaker's or President's right), and those opposed move to the left. They are then counted by "tellers" (government and opposition whips), and the motion is passed or defeated accordingly. In the Senate, in order not to deprive a state of a vote in what is supposed to be a states' house, the president is permitted a vote along with other senators (however, that right is rarely exercised); in the case of a tie, the president does not have a casting vote and the motion fails. In the House of Representatives, the Speaker does not vote, but has a casting vote if there is a tie.
Most legislation is introduced into the House of Representatives and goes through a number of stages before it becomes law. The legislative process occurs in English, although other Australian parliaments have permitted use of Indigenous languages with English translation. Government bills are drafted by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel.
The first stage is a first reading, where the legislation is introduced to the chamber, then there is a second reading, where a vote is taken on the general outlines of the bill. Although rare, the legislation can then be considered by a House committee, which reports back to the House on any recommendations. This is followed by a consideration in detail stage, where the House can consider the clauses of the bill in detail and make any amendments. This is finally followed by a third reading, where the bill is either passed or rejected by the House. If passed, the legislation is then sent to the Senate, which has a similar structure of debate and passage except that consideration of bills by Senate committees is more common than in the House and the consideration in detail stage is replaced by a committee of the whole. Once a bill has been passed by both Houses in the same form, it is then presented to the governor-general for royal assent. |
Parliament of Australia | Functions
The principal function of the Parliament is to pass laws, or legislation. Any parliamentarian may introduce a proposed law (a bill), except for a money bill (a bill proposing an expenditure or levying a tax), which must be introduced in the House of Representatives. In practice, the great majority of bills are introduced by ministers. Bills introduced by other members are called private members' bills. All bills must be passed by both houses and assented to by the governor-general to become law. The Senate has the same legislative powers as the House, except that it may not amend or introduce money bills, only pass or reject them. The enacting formula for acts of Parliament since 1990 is simply "The Parliament of Australia enacts:".
Commonwealth legislative power is limited to that granted in the Constitution. Powers not specified are considered "residual powers", and remain the domain of the states. Section 51 grants the Commonwealth power over areas such as taxation, external affairs, defence and marriage. Section 51 also allows state parliaments to refer matters to the Commonwealth to legislate.
Section 96 of the Australian Constitution gives the Commonwealth Parliament the power to grant money to any State, "on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit". In effect, the Commonwealth can make grants subject to states implementing particular policies in their fields of legislative responsibility. Such grants, known as "tied grants" (since they are tied to a particular purpose), have been used to give the federal parliament influence over state policy matters such as public hospitals and schools.
The Parliament performs other functions besides legislation. It can discuss urgency motions or matters of public importance: these provide a forum for debates on public policy matters. Senators and members can move motions on a range of matters relevant to their constituents, and can also move motions of censure against the government or individual ministers. On most sitting days in each house there is a session called question time in which senators and members address questions without notice to the prime minister and other ministers. Senators and members can also present petitions from their constituents. Both houses have an extensive system of committees in which draft bills are debated, matters of public policy are inquired into, evidence is taken and public servants are questioned. There are also joint committees, composed of members from both houses. |
Parliament of Australia | Conflict between the houses
In the event of conflict between the two houses over the final form of legislation, the Constitution provides for a simultaneous dissolution of both houses – known as a double dissolution. Section 57 of the Constitution states that, If the House of Representatives passes any proposed law, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the House of Representatives, in the same or the next session, again passes the proposed law with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously.
In an election following a double dissolution, each state elects their entire 12-seat Senate delegation, while the two territories represented in the Senate each elect their two senators as they would in a regular federal election. Because all seats are contested in the same election, it is easier for smaller parties to win seats under the single transferable vote system: the quota for the election of each senator in each Australian state in a full Senate election is 7.69% of the vote, while in a normal half-Senate election the quota is 14.28%.
If the conflict continues after such an election, the governor-general may convene a joint sitting of both houses to consider the bill or bills, including any amendments which have been previously proposed in either house, or any new amendments. If a bill is passed by an absolute majority of the total membership of the joint sitting, it is treated as though it had been passed separately by both houses, and is presented for royal assent. With proportional representation, and the small majorities in the Senate compared to the generally larger majorities in the House of Representatives, and the requirement that the number of members of the lower house be "nearly as practicable" twice that of the Senate, a joint sitting after a double dissolution is more likely than not to lead to a victory for the lower house over the Senate. This provision has only been invoked on one occasion, after the election following the 1974 double dissolution. However, there are other occasions when the two houses meet as one. |
Parliament of Australia | Committees
In addition to the work of the main chambers, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have a large number of investigatory and scrutiny committees which deal with matters referred to them by their respective houses or ministers. They provide the opportunity for all members and senators to ask questions of witnesses, including ministers and public officials, as well as conduct inquiries, and examine policy and legislation. Once a particular inquiry is completed the members of the committee can then produce a report, to be tabled in Parliament, outlining what they have discovered as well as any recommendations that they have produced for the government or house to consider. |
Parliament of Australia | The ability of the houses of Parliament to establish committees is referenced in section 49 of the Constitution, which states that, The powers, privileges, and immunities of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, and of the members and the committees of each House, shall be such as are declared by the Parliament, and until declared shall be those of the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom, and of its members and committees, at the establishment of the Commonwealth.
Parliamentary committees can be given a wide range of powers. One of the most significant powers is the ability to summon people to attend hearings in order to give evidence and submit documents. Anyone who attempts to hinder the work of a Parliamentary committee may be found to be in contempt of Parliament. There are a number of ways that witnesses can be found in contempt, these include; refusing to appear before a committee when summoned, refusing to answer a question during a hearing or to produce a document, or later being found to have lied to or misled a committee. Anyone who attempts to influence a witness may also be found in contempt. Other powers include, the ability to meet throughout Australia, to establish subcommittees and to take evidence in both public and private hearings.
Proceedings of committees are considered to have the same legal standing as proceedings of Parliament, they are recorded by Hansard, except for private proceedings, and also operate under the protections of parliamentary privilege. Every participant, including committee members and witnesses giving evidence, is protected from being prosecuted under any civil or criminal action for anything they may say during a hearing. Written evidence and documents received by a committee are also protected.
Types of committees include:
Standing committees, which are established on an ongoing basis and are responsible for scrutinising bills and topics referred to them by the chamber or minister; examining the government's budget and activities (in what is called the budget estimates process); and for examining departmental annual reports and activities.
Select committees, which are temporary committees, established in order to consider a particular matter. A select committee expires when it has published its final report on an inquiry.
Domestic committees, which are responsible for administering aspects of the Parliament's own affairs. These include the Selection Committees of both Houses that determine how the Parliament will deal with particular pieces of legislation and private members' business, and the Privileges Committees that deal with matters of parliamentary privilege.
Legislative scrutiny committees, which examine legislation and regulations to determine their impact on individual rights and accountability.
Joint committees are also established to include both members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Joint committees may be standing (ongoing) or select (temporary) in nature. |
Parliament of Australia | Relationship with the Government
Under the Constitution, the governor-general has the power to appoint and dismiss ministers who administer government departments. In practice, the governor-general chooses ministers in accordance with the traditions of the Westminster system. The governor-general appoints as prime minister the leader of the party that has a majority of seats in the House of Representatives; the governor-general then, on the advice of the prime minister, appoints the other ministers, chosen from the majority party or coalition of parties.
These ministers then meet in a council known as Cabinet. Cabinet meetings are strictly private and occur once a week where vital issues are discussed and policy formulated. The Constitution does not recognise the Cabinet as a legal entity; it exists solely by convention. Its decisions do not in and of themselves have legal force. However, it serves as the practical expression of the Federal Executive Council, which is Australia's highest formal governmental body. In practice, the Federal Executive Council meets solely to endorse and give legal force to decisions already made by the Cabinet. All members of the Cabinet are members of the executive council. The governor-general is bound by convention to follow the advice of the executive council on almost all occasions, giving it de facto executive power. A senior member of the Cabinet holds the office of vice-president of the executive council and acts as presiding officer of the executive council in the absence of the governor-general. The Federal Executive Council is the Australian equivalent of the executive councils and privy councils in other Commonwealth realms such as the King's Privy Council for Canada and the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.
A minister is not required to be a senator or member of the House of Representatives at the time of their appointment, but their office is forfeited if they do not become a member of either house within three months of their appointment. This provision was included in the Constitution (section 64) to enable the inaugural ministry, led by Edmund Barton, to be appointed on 1 January 1901, even though the first federal elections were not scheduled to be held until 29 and 30 March.
After the 1949 election, John Spicer and Bill Spooner became ministers in the Menzies Government on 19 December, despite their terms in the Senate not beginning until 22 February 1950.
The provision was also used after the disappearance and presumed death of the Liberal prime minister Harold Holt in December 1967. The Liberal Party elected John Gorton, then a senator, as its new leader, and he was sworn in as prime minister on 10 January 1968 (following an interim ministry led by John McEwen). On 1 February, Gorton resigned from the Senate to stand for the 24 February by-election in Holt's former House of Representatives electorate of Higgins due to the convention that the prime minister be a member of the lower house. For 22 days (2 to 23 February inclusive) he was prime minister while a member of neither house of parliament.
On a number of occasions when ministers have retired from their seats prior to an election, or stood but lost their own seats in the election, they have retained their ministerial offices until the next government is sworn in. |
Parliament of Australia | Role of the Senate
Unlike upper Houses in other Westminster system governments, the Senate is not a vestigial body with limited legislative power. Rather it was intended to play – and does play – an active role in legislation. Rather than being modelled solely after the House of Lords, as the Canadian Senate was, the Australian Senate was in part modelled after the United States Senate, by giving equal representation to each state. The Constitution intended to give less populous states added voice in a federal legislature, while also providing for the revising role of an upper house in the Westminster system.
One of the functions of the Senate, both directly and through its committees, is to scrutinise government activity. The vigour of this scrutiny has been fuelled for many years by the fact that the party in government has seldom had a majority in the Senate. Whereas in the House of Representatives the government's majority has sometimes limited that chamber's capacity to implement executive scrutiny, the opposition and minor parties have been able to use their Senate numbers as a basis for conducting inquiries into government operations.
The Constitution prevents the Senate from originating or amending the annual appropriation bills "for the ordinary annual services of the Government"; they may only defer or reject them. As a result, whilst the framers of the Constitution intended that the executive government would require the support of the House of Representatives, the text of the Constitution also effectively allows the Senate to bring down the government once a year by blocking the annual appropriations bills, also known as blocking supply.
The ability to block supply was the origin of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis. The Opposition used its numbers in the Senate to defer supply bills, refusing to deal with them until an election was called for both Houses of Parliament, an election which it hoped to win. The prime minister, Gough Whitlam, contested the legitimacy of the blocking and refused to resign. The prime minister argued that a government may continue in office for as long as it has the support of the lower house, while the opposition argued that any government who has been denied supply is obliged to either call new elections or resign. In response to the deadlock, the governor-general Sir John Kerr dismissed Whitlam's government and appointed Malcolm Fraser as caretaker prime minister on the understanding that he could secure supply and would immediately call new elections. This action in itself was a source of controversy and debate continues on the proper usage of the Senate's ability to block supply and on whether such a power should even exist.
The blocking of supply alone cannot force a double dissolution. There must be legislation repeatedly blocked by the Senate which the government can then choose to use as a trigger for a double dissolution. |
Parliament of Australia | Parliamentary departments
There are four parliamentary departments supporting the Australian Parliament: |
Parliament of Australia | Department of the Senate, which consists of seven Offices and whose work is determined by the Senate and its committees.
Department of the House of Representatives, which provides various services to support the smooth operation of the House of Representatives, its committees and certain joint committees.
Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS), which performs diverse support functions, such as research; the Parliamentary Library of Australia; broadcasting on radio and TV; Hansard transcripts; computing services; and general maintenance and security.
Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), which "improves transparency around fiscal and budget policy issues" and provides costing services to parliamentarians. |
Parliament of Australia | Privileges
Members of the Australian Parliament do not have legal immunity: they can be arrested and tried for any offence. They do, however, have parliamentary privilege: they cannot be sued for anything they say in Parliament about each other or about persons outside the Parliament. This privilege extends to reporting in the media of anything a senator or member says in Parliament. The proceedings of parliamentary committees, wherever they meet, are also covered by privilege, and this extends to witnesses before such committees.
From the beginning of Federation until 1987, parliamentary privilege operated under section 49 of the Constitution, which established the privileges of both houses and their members to be the same as the House of Commons of the United Kingdom at the time of the Constitution's enactment. The Parliament was also given the power to amend its privileges. In 1987, the Parliament passed the Parliamentary Privileges Act, which clarified the meaning and extent of privilege as well as how the Parliament deals with breaches.
There is a legal offence called contempt of Parliament. A person who speaks or acts in a manner contemptuous of the Parliament or its members can be tried and, if convicted, imprisoned. The Parliament previously had the power to hear such cases itself, and did so in the Browne–Fitzpatrick privilege case, 1955. This power has now been delegated to the courts. There have been few convictions. In May 2007, Harriet Swift, an anti-logging activist from New South Wales was convicted and reprimanded for contempt of Parliament, after she wrote fictitious press releases and letters purporting to be from Federal MP Gary Nairn as an April Fools' Day prank. |
Parliament of Australia | Broadcasting
Radio broadcasts of parliamentary proceedings began on 10 July 1946. They were originally broadcast on Radio National. Since August 1994 they have been broadcast on ABC News, a government-owned channel set up specifically for this function. It operates 24 hours a day and broadcasts other news items when parliament is not sitting.
The first televised parliamentary event was the historic 1974 Joint Sitting. Regular free-to-air television broadcasts of question time began in August 1990 from the Senate and February 1991 from the House of Representatives. Question time from the House of Representatives is televised live, and the Senate question time is recorded and broadcast later that day. Other free-to-air televised broadcasts include: the Treasurer's Budget speech and the Leader of the Opposition's reply to the Budget two days later; the opening of Parliament by the governor-general; the swearing-in of governors-general; and addresses to the Parliament by visiting heads of state.
In 2009, the pay TV company Foxtel launched A-SPAN, now called Sky News Extra, which broadcasts live sittings of the House of Representatives and the Senate, parliamentary committee meetings and political press conferences.
The Parliament House official website provides free extensive daily proceedings of both chambers as well as committee hearings live on the Internet. |
Parliament of Australia | Current parliament
The current Parliament is the 47th Australian Parliament. The most recent federal election was held on 21 May 2022 and the 47th Parliament first sat on 26 July.
The outcome of the 2022 election saw the Labor Party return to government for the first time in nine years, winning 77 seats in the 151-seat House of Representatives (an increase of 9 seats compared to the 2019 election), a majority government. The Liberal/National Coalition, which had been in power since the 2013 election, lost 19 seats compared to the previous election to finish with 58 seats, and went into opposition. The crossbench grew to its largest ever size, with 16 members; 4 Greens, 1 Centre Alliance MP, 1 Katter's Australian Party MP, and 12 independents.
In the Senate, the Labor government retained 26 seats, the Liberal/National Coalition dropped to 32 seats, the Greens increased to 12 seats, the Jacqui Lambie Network had 2 seats, One Nation had 2 seats, the United Australia Party won 1 seat, and independent David Pocock won 1 seat in the Australian Capital Territory.
On 17 February 2023, Alan Tudge announced that he would retire from Parliament and resign as the member for the Division of Aston. This triggered a by-election held on 1 April 2023, contested by Liberal Roshena Campbell and Labor's Mary Doyle. Doyle was declared elected, marking the first time in 103 years that a government won a by-election in a seat held by the opposition. This increased the balance of the government's power by one in the lower house from 77 to 78. |
Parliament of Australia | Historical compositions
Senate
The Senate has included representatives from a range of political parties, including several parties that have seldom or never had representation in the House of Representatives, but which have consistently secured a small but significant level of electoral support, as the table shows.
Results represent the composition of the Senate after the elections. The full Senate has been contested on eight occasions; the inaugural election and seven double dissolutions. These are underlined and highlighted in puce. |
Parliament of Australia | House of Representatives
A two-party system has existed in the Australian House of Representatives since the two non-Labor parties merged in 1909. The 1910 election was the first to elect a majority government, with the Australian Labor Party concurrently winning the first Senate majority. Prior to 1909 a three-party system existed in the chamber. A two-party-preferred vote (2PP) has been calculated since the 1919 change from first-past-the-post to preferential voting and subsequent introduction of the Coalition. ALP = Australian Labor Party, L+NP = grouping of Liberal/National/LNP/CLP Coalition parties (and predecessors), Oth = other parties and independents. |
Parliament of Australia | See also
2022 Australian federal election
Chronology of Australian federal parliaments
List of legislatures by country
List of official openings by Elizabeth II in Australia
Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 2022-2025
Members of the Australian Senate, 2022-2025
List of longest-serving members of the Parliament of Australia |
Parliament of Australia | Notes
References
Further reading
External links |
Parliament of Australia | Australian House of Representatives YouTube official channel
The Parliament of Australia's website
The Australian Constitution from the Federal Register of Legislation
Australian Parliament – live broadcasting
Parliament of Australia Committees |
Australian House of Representatives | The Australian House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are set down in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia.
The term of members of the House of Representatives is a maximum of three years from the date of the first sitting of the House, but on only one occasion since Federation has the maximum term been reached. The House is almost always dissolved earlier, usually alone but sometimes in a double dissolution alongside the Senate. Elections for members of the House of Representatives are often held in conjunction with those for the Senate. A member of the House may be referred to as a "member of parliament" ("MP" or "member"), while a member of the Senate is usually referred to as a "senator". Under the conventions of the Westminster system, the government of the day and the prime minister must achieve and maintain the confidence of this House in order to gain and remain in power.
The House of Representatives currently consists of 151 members, elected by and representing single member districts known as electoral divisions (commonly referred to as "electorates" or "seats"). The number of members is not fixed but can vary with boundary changes resulting from electoral redistributions, which are required on a regular basis. 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, increased to 150 at the 2001 election, and stands at 151 as of the 2022 Australian federal election.
The House of Representatives chamber is designed to seat up to 172 members, with provision for an ultimate total of 240 to be accommodated.
Each division elects one member using full-preferential instant-runoff voting. This was put in place after the 1918 Swan by-election, which Labor unexpectedly won with the largest primary vote and the help of vote splitting in the conservative parties. The Nationalist government of the time changed the lower house voting system from first-past-the-post to full-preferential voting, effective from the 1919 general election. |
Australian House of Representatives | Origins and role
The Constitution of Australia of 1900 established the House of Representatives in a newly federated Australia. The House is presided over by the speaker. Members of the House are elected from single member electorates (geographic districts, commonly referred to as "seats" but officially known as "Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives"). One vote, one value legislation requires all electorates to have approximately the same number of voters with a maximum 10% variation. However, the baseline 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. Consequently, the electorates of the smallest states and territories have more variation in the number of voters in their electorates. Meanwhile, all the states except Tasmania have electorates approximately within the same 10% tolerance, with most electorates holding 85,000 to 105,000 voters. Federal electorates have their boundaries redrawn or redistributed whenever a state or territory has its number of seats adjusted, if electorates are not generally matched by population size or if seven years have passed since the most recent redistribution. Full preferential voting is used in elections, a type of instant-runoff voting. A full allocation of preferences is required for a vote to be considered formal. 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 population quota determined from the "latest statistics of the Commonwealth". These statistics arise from the census conducted under the auspices of section 51(xi). Until its repeal by the 1967 referendum, section 127 prohibited the inclusion of Aboriginal people in section 24 determinations as including the Indigenous peoples could alter the distribution of seats between the states to the benefit of states with larger Aboriginal populations. Section 127, along with section 25 (to discourage, but still allow, racial prohibitions on voting by reducing a state's representation if they did so) and the race power, have been described as racism built into Australia's constitutional DNA, and modifications to prevent lawful race-based discrimination have been proposed.
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 each state and territory is then divided by this quota to determine the number of members to which each state and territory is entitled. 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.
According to the Constitution, the powers of both Houses are nearly equal, with the consent of both Houses needed to pass legislation. The difference mostly relates to taxation legislation. In practice, by convention, the person who can control a majority of votes in the lower house is invited by the governor-general to form the government. In practice that means that the leader of the party (or coalition of parties) with a majority of members in the House becomes the prime minister, who then can nominate other elected members of the government party in both the House and the Senate to become ministers responsible for various portfolios and administer government departments. Bills appropriating money (supply bills) can only be introduced or amended in the lower house and thus only the party with a majority in the lower house can govern. In the current Australian party system, this ensures that virtually all contentious votes are along party lines, and the government party usually has a majority in those votes in the lower house.
The opposition party's main role in the House is to present arguments against the government's policies and legislation where appropriate and attempt to hold the government accountable as much as possible by asking questions of importance during question time and during debates on legislation. By contrast, the only period in recent times during which the government of the day has had a majority in the Senate was from July 2005 (when the senators elected at the 2004 election took their seats) to July 2008 (when the senators elected at the 2007 election took their seats). Hence, votes in the Senate are usually more meaningful. The House's well-established committee system is not always as prominent as the Senate committee system because of the frequent lack of Senate majority. |
Australian House of Representatives | In a reflection of the United Kingdom House of Commons, the predominant colour of the furnishings in the House of Representatives is green. However, the colour was tinted slightly in the new Parliament House (opened 1988) to suggest the colour of eucalyptus trees. Also, unlike the House of Commons, the seating arrangement of the crossbench is curved, similar to the curved seating arrangement of the United States House of Representatives. This suggests a more collaborative, and less oppositional, system than in the United Kingdom parliament (where all members of parliament are seated facing the opposite side).
Australian parliaments are notoriously rowdy, with MPs often trading colourful insults. As a result, the speaker often has to use the disciplinary powers granted to him or her under standing orders.
Since 2015, Australian Federal Police officers armed with assault rifles have been present in both chambers of the federal Parliament. |
Australian House of Representatives | Electoral system
From the beginning of Federation until 1918, first-past-the-post voting was used in order to elect members of the House of Representatives but since the 1918 Swan by-election which Labor unexpectedly won with the largest primary vote due to vote splitting amongst the conservative parties, the Nationalist Party government, a predecessor of the modern-day Liberal Party of Australia, changed the lower house voting system to instant-runoff voting, which in Australia is known as full preferential voting, as of the subsequent 1919 election. This system has remained in place ever since, allowing the Coalition parties to safely contest the same seats. Full-preference preferential voting re-elected the Hawke government at the 1990 election, the first time in federal history that Labor had obtained a net benefit from preferential voting.
From 1949 onwards, the vast majority of electorates, nearly 90%, are won by the candidate leading on first preferences, giving the same result as if the same votes had been counted using first-past-the-post voting. The highest proportion of seats (up to 2010) won by the candidate not leading on first preferences was the 1972 federal election, with 14 of 125 seats not won by the plurality candidate. |
Australian House of Representatives | Allocation process for the House of Representatives
The main elements of the operation of preferential voting for single-member House of Representatives divisions are as follows: |
Australian House of Representatives | Voters are required to place the number "1" against their first choice of candidate, known as the "first preference" or "primary vote".
Voters are then required to place the numbers "2", "3", etc., against all of the other candidates listed on the ballot paper, in order of preference. Every candidate must be numbered, otherwise the vote becomes "informal" (spoiled) and does not count.)
Prior to counting, each ballot paper is examined to ensure that it is validly filled in (and not invalidated on other grounds).
The number "1" or first preference votes are counted first. If no candidate secures an absolute majority (more than half) of first preference votes, then the candidate with the fewest votes is excluded from the count.
The votes for the eliminated candidate (i.e. from the ballots that placed the eliminated candidate first) are re-allocated to the remaining candidates according to the number "2" or "second preference" votes.
If no candidate has yet secured an absolute majority of the vote, then the next candidate with the fewest primary votes is eliminated. This preference allocation is repeated until there is a candidate with an absolute majority. Where a second (or subsequent) preference is expressed for a candidate who has already been eliminated, the voter's third or subsequent preferences are used.
Following the full allocation of preferences, it is possible to derive a two-party-preferred figure, where the votes have been allocated between the two main candidates in the election. In Australia, this is usually between the candidates from the Coalition parties and the Australian Labor Party. |
Australian House of Representatives | Relationship with the government
Under the Constitution, the governor-general has the power to appoint and dismiss the "Queen's Ministers of State" who administer government departments. In practice, the governor-general chooses ministers in accordance with the traditions of the Westminster system that the government be drawn from the party or coalition of parties that has a majority in the House of Representatives, with the leader of the largest party becoming prime minister.
A sub-set of the most important ministers then meet in a council known as Cabinet. Cabinet meetings are strictly private and are frequently held to discuss vital issues and make policy decisions. The Constitution does not recognise the Cabinet as a legal entity; it exists solely by convention. Its decisions do not in and of themselves have legal force. However, it serves as the practical expression of the Federal Executive Council, which is Australia's highest formal executive body. In practice, the Federal Executive Council meets solely to endorse and give legal force to decisions already made by the Cabinet. All members of the Cabinet are members of the Executive Council. While the governor-general is the nominal presiding officer, he almost never attends Executive Council meetings. A senior Cabinet member holds the office of Vice-President of the Executive Council and acts as presiding officer of the Executive Council in the absence of the governor-general. The Federal Executive Council is the Australian equivalent of the executive councils and privy councils in other Commonwealth realms such as the King's Privy Council for Canada and the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.
A minister must be a senator or member of the House of Representatives at the time of their appointment, or become one within three months of their appointment. This provision was included in the Constitution (section 64) to enable the inaugural ministry, led by Edmund Barton, to be appointed on 1 January 1901, even though the first federal elections were not scheduled to be held until 29 and 30 March.
After the 1949 election, Bill Spooner was appointed a minister in the Fourth Menzies ministry on 19 December, however his term as a Senator did not begin until 22 February 1950.
The provision was also used after the disappearance and presumed death of the Liberal prime minister Harold Holt in December 1967. The Liberal Party elected John Gorton, then a senator, as its new leader, and he was sworn in as prime minister on 10 January 1968 (following an interim ministry led by John McEwen). On 1 February, Gorton resigned from the Senate to stand for the 24 February by-election in Holt's former House of Representatives electorate of Higgins due to the convention that the prime minister be a member of the lower house. For 22 days (2 to 23 February inclusive) he was prime minister while a member of neither house of parliament.
On a number of occasions when ministers have retired from their seats prior to an election, or stood but lost their own seats in the election, they have retained their ministerial offices until the next government is sworn in. |
Australian House of Representatives | Committees
In addition to the work of the main chamber, the House of Representatives also has a large number of committees which deal with matters referred to them by the main House. They provide the opportunity for all MPs to ask questions of ministers and public officials as well as conduct inquiries, examine policy and legislation. Once a particular inquiry is completed the members of the committee can then produce a report, to be tabled in Parliament, outlining what they have discovered as well as any recommendations that they have produced for the government to consider.
The ability of the chambers of Parliament to establish committees is given in section 49 of the Constitution, which states that, "The powers, privileges, and immunities of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, and of the members and the committees of each House, shall be such as are declared by the Parliament, and until declared shall be those of the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom, and of its members and committees, at the establishment of the Commonwealth."
Parliamentary committees can be given a wide range of powers. One of the most significant powers is the ability to summon people to attend hearings in order to give evidence and submit documents. Anyone who attempts to hinder the work of a Parliamentary committee may be found to be in contempt of parliament. There are a number of ways that witnesses can be found in contempt. These include refusing to appear before a committee when summoned, refusing to answer a question during a hearing or to produce a document, or later being found to have lied to or misled a committee. Anyone who attempts to influence a witness may also be found in contempt. Other powers include, the ability to meet throughout Australia, to establish subcommittees and to take evidence in both public and private hearings.
Proceedings of committees are considered to have the same legal standing as proceedings of Parliament, they are recorded by Hansard, except for private hearings, and also operate under parliamentary privilege. Every participant, including committee members and witnesses giving evidence, are protected from being prosecuted under any civil or criminal action for anything they may say during a hearing. Written evidence and documents received by a committee are also protected.
Types of committees include:
Standing committees, which are established on a permanent basis and are responsible for scrutinising bills and topics referred to them by the chamber; examining the government's budget and activities and for examining departmental annual reports and activities.
Select committees, which are temporary committees, established in order to deal with particular issues.
Domestic committees, which are responsible for administering aspects of the House's own affairs. These include the Selection Committee that determines how the House will deal with particular pieces of legislation and private members business and the Privileges Committee that deals with matters of parliamentary privilege.
Legislative scrutiny committees, which examine legislation and regulations to determine their impact on individual rights and accountability.
Joint committees are also established to include both members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. |
Australian House of Representatives | Federation Chamber
The Federation Chamber is a second debating chamber that considers relatively uncontroversial matters referred by the House. The Federation Chamber cannot, however, initiate or make a final decision on any parliamentary business, although it can perform all tasks in between. |
Australian House of Representatives | The Federation Chamber was created in 1994 as the Main Committee, to relieve some of the burden of the House: different matters can be processed in the House at large and in the Federation Chamber, as they sit simultaneously. It is designed to be less formal, with a quorum of only three members: the deputy speaker of the House, one government member, and one non-government member. Decisions must be unanimous: any divided decision sends the question back to the House at large. |
Australian House of Representatives | The Federation Chamber was created through the House's standing orders: it is thus a subordinate body of the House, and can only be in session while the House itself is in session. When a division vote in the House occurs, members in the Federation Chamber must return to the House to vote.
The Federation Chamber is housed in one of the House's committee rooms; the room is customised for this purpose and is laid out to resemble the House chamber.
Due to the unique role of what was then called the Main Committee, proposals were made to rename the body to avoid confusion with other parliamentary committees, including "Second Chamber" and "Federation Chamber". The House of Representatives later adopted the latter proposal.
The concept of a parallel body to expedite Parliamentary business, based on the Australian Federation Chamber, was mentioned in a 1998 British House of Commons report, which led to the creation of that body's parallel chamber Westminster Hall. |
Australian House of Representatives | Current House of Representatives
The current Parliament is the 47th Australian Parliament. The most recent federal election was held on 21 May 2022, with the 47th Parliament first sitting in July 2022.
The 2022 election saw the incumbent Liberal/National Coalition government defeated, with the opposition Albanese-led Labor Party gaining 77 seats in the 151 seat House of Representatives, for a two-seat majority government, while the Coalition lost 18 seats to finish with 58 seats, their worst result since 1946 (the first election after the formation of the current Liberal Party).
On the crossbench, the Australian Greens gained three seats, upping their total from one to four, while the Centre Alliance and Katter's Australian Party held their current standing of one seat each, and independents gained seven seats to bring their total to ten, six of these being teal independents.
On 23 December 2022, Andrew Gee MP quit the National Party to become an independent, citing his disappointment over the party's opposition to the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
On 1 April 2023, Labor's Mary Doyle was elected in a by-election for the division of Aston, replacing former Liberal cabinet minister Alan Tudge and increasing the Labor majority to three seats. |
Australian House of Representatives | House of Representatives primary, two-party and seat results
Prior to the 1909 merger of the two non-Labor parties, a three-party system existed in the chamber, with a two-party system in place since.
The 1910 election was the first to elect a majority government, with the Australian Labor Party also winning the first Senate majority.
A two-party-preferred vote (2PP) has been calculated since the 1919 change from first-past-the-post to preferential voting, and subsequent introduction of the Coalition. ALP = Australian Labor Party, L+NP = grouping of Liberal/National/LNP/CLP Coalition parties (and predecessors), Oth = other parties and independents. |
Australian House of Representatives | See also
2022 Australian federal election
Australian House of Representatives committees
Canberra Press Gallery
Chronology of Australian federal parliaments
Clerk of the Australian House of Representatives
Father of the Australian House of Representatives
List of Australian federal by-elections
Members of the Australian House of Representatives
Members of the Australian Parliament who have served for at least 30 years
Members of the Australian Parliament who have represented more than one state or territory
Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives
Women in the Australian House of Representatives
Browne–Fitzpatrick privilege case, 1955 |
Australian House of Representatives | Notes
References
Further reading
External links |
Australian House of Representatives | House of Representatives – Official website.
Australian Parliament – live broadcasting |
Coalition (Australia) | The Liberal–National Coalition, commonly known simply as the Coalition or the LNP, is an alliance of centre-right to right-wing political parties that forms one of the two major groupings in Australian federal politics. The two partners in the Coalition are the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia (the latter previously known as the Country Party and the National Country Party). Its main opponent is the Australian Labor Party (ALP); the two forces are often regarded as operating in a two-party system. The Coalition was last in government from 2013 to 2022. The group is led by Peter Dutton, who succeeded Scott Morrison after the 2022 federal election.
The two parties in the Coalition have different geographical voter bases, with the Liberals – the larger party – drawing most of their vote from urban areas and the Nationals operating almost exclusively in rural and regional areas. They occupy a broadly similar place on the right of the political spectrum. The partnership between the two current parties dates back to 1946, shortly after the Liberal Party was formed, and has continued almost uninterrupted since then. The Country Party also maintained similar alliances with the Liberal Party's predecessors, the United Australia Party and Nationalist Party, and similar parties at state level. The first such federal arrangement was formed in 1923, as a solution to the hung parliament that resulted from the 1922 federal election.
The Liberals and Nationals maintain separate organisational wings and separate parliamentary parties, but co-operate in various ways determined by a mixture of formal agreements and informal conventions. There is a single Coalition frontbench, both in government and in opposition, with each party receiving a proportionate number of positions. By convention, the leader of the Liberal Party serves as the overall leader, serving as prime minister when the Coalition is in government and leader of the opposition when the Coalition is in opposition. The leader of the National Party becomes the deputy prime minister during periods of Coalition government. The two parties co-operate on their federal election campaigns, run joint Senate tickets in most states, and generally avoid running candidates against each other in the House of Representatives.
A merger of the Liberals and Nationals has been suggested on a number of occasions, but has never become a serious proposition. The relationship between the two parties varies at state and territory level. The situation in New South Wales and Victoria broadly mirrors that at federal level, while in Western Australia the parties are much more independent of each other. In the Northern Territory the territorial parties merged in 1974 to form the Country Liberal Party (CLP), and in 2008 the Queensland state-level parties merged, forming the Liberal National Party of Queensland (LNP). LNP and CLP members elected to federal parliament do not form separate parliamentary parties, joining either the Liberals or Nationals. In South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, the Nationals have no sitting MPs and little or no organisational presence. |
Coalition (Australia) | History
The origins of the Coalition date back to the 1922 federal election, when the Nationalist Party, the main middle-class non-Labor party of the time, lost the absolute majority it had held since its formation in 1917. The Nationalists could only stay in office with the support of the two-year-old Country Party. It soon became apparent that a confidence and supply agreement would not be enough to keep the Nationalists in office.
However, Country Party leader Earle Page had never trusted the Nationalist Prime Minister, Billy Hughes. Indeed, the Country Party had been formed in part due to discontent with Hughes' rural policy. Page not only let it be known that he would not serve under Hughes, but demanded Hughes' resignation before he would even consider coalition talks. Hughes resigned, and Page then entered negotiations with the new Nationalist leader, Stanley Bruce. The Country Party's terms were unusually stiff for a prospective junior partner in a Westminster system (and especially so for a relatively new party) – five seats in an 11-member cabinet, as well as the Treasurer's post and second rank in the ministry for Page. Nonetheless, Bruce agreed rather than force a new election. Since then, the leader of the Country Party, which evolved into the National Party, has ranked second in nearly all non-Labor governments, a status formalised in 1967 when the post of Deputy Prime Minister was formally created to denote Country leader John McEwen's status as the number-two man in the government.
The Nationalist–Country Coalition was reelected twice, and continued in office until its defeat in 1929.
The Country Party and the Nationalists' successor party, the United Australia Party, fought the 1931 federal election with a joint Senate ticket, though they ran separate House tickets. The UAP came up only four seats short of a majority in its own right. The Emergency Committee of South Australia, which stood for the UAP and Country Party in South Australia, joined the UAP party room, giving the UAP enough support to rule alone. However, the parties once again joined in a full Coalition government following the 1934 federal election.
After the death of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons in April 1939, Page was appointed as his successor on an interim basis, pending the new election of a new UAP leader. Despite Page's misgivings, the UAP elected Robert Menzies – who was known to dislike the Country Party. Page subsequently made a vitriolic speech in parliament attacking Menzies's character, and withdrew his party from the coalition – the most recent occasion on which the coalition has been broken while in government. However, a number of Page's colleagues disagreed with his stance, and he resigned as leader in September 1939. He was replaced by Archie Cameron, and after months of negotiations the coalition was revived in March 1940, with five Country MPs joining the second Menzies ministry.
After losing eight seats at the 1940 federal election, the Coalition was plunged into minority government for the first time in its history. Archie Cameron was an immediate victim of the election result, being replaced by Arthur Fadden and later defecting to the UAP. Menzies increasingly struggled to balance his management of Australia's war effort with domestic concerns, and his party began to rebel against him. However, the UAP was bereft of leadership despite having been in power for a decade. With this in mind, in August 1941 the Coalition collectively decided that Fadden and Menzies should swap positions, with Menzies becoming Minister for Defence Co-ordination and Fadden becoming prime minister. It was the first and only occasion on which the Coalition was led by the leader of the junior party. However, the Fadden government only lasted a few months before losing a confidence motion and being replaced by the Labor Party in the form of the Curtin government.
After the demise of the Fadden government, the Coalition voted to continue on under his leadership in opposition. Menzies had opposed this, and resigned as UAP leader, to be replaced by the ageing Billy Hughes. Up until the 1943 election, the Coalition effectively operated as a single unit, with separate party meetings being extremely rare. However, the landslide defeat it suffered – under Fadden as opposition leader – led to an immediate change in strategy. The UAP voted to break off its ties with the Country Party in opposition, and re-elected Menzies as its leader. This is the most recent occasion on which the senior partner in the Coalition has opted to withdraw.
The UAP was folded into the Liberal Party in 1945, with Menzies as leader. In the lead-up to the 1946 federal election, Menzies renewed the Coalition with the Country Party, which was still led by Fadden. They won the 1949 federal election as a Coalition, and stayed in office for a record 23 years. Since 1946, the Coalition has remained intact with two exceptions, both in opposition. The parties decided not to form a coalition opposition following their defeat in 1972, but went into the 1974 federal election as a Coalition. The Coalition remained together upon entering opposition in 1983 federal election. The Coalition suffered another break, related to the "Joh for Canberra" campaign, from April to August 1987, the rift healing after the 1987 federal election.
The solidity of the Coalition is so strong that when the Liberals won parliamentary majorities in their own right in the 1975, 1977 and 1996 federal elections, the Coalition was retained.
In the 2007 federal election, the Coalition lost to the Labor Party and went into opposition. The Coalition regained office in the 2013 federal election as a majority government. In October 2018, the Coalition went into minority government for the second time in its history, when the seat of Wentworth was won by Independent Kerryn Phelps in the by-election. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of incumbent Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull, who was ousted as Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader during a spill motion earlier in August 2018. The coalition formed majority government again following the 2019 federal election. In the 2022 Australian federal election, the Coalition lost to the Labor Party and returned to opposition. |
Coalition (Australia) | Suggestions to merge
In March 1973, former Prime Minister William McMahon publicly announced his support for a merger. McMahon reiterated his view after Labor won the 1974 election, and Billy Snedden, his successor as leader of the Liberal Party, also stated that he favoured a merger.
During the 1980s, former Nationals MP Peter Nixon reviewed the party and "concluded it should seriously consider amalgamating with the Liberals". Former Nationals leader Doug Anthony wrote not long afterward, "Any objective and rational National Party member who read this report would have to accept that amalgamation was the only realistic course. Regrettably, there are still too many who don't want to read it and who don't want to face reality, that the role of a specialist party looking after the needs of rural people is in decline." Nationals leader Ian Sinclair publicly rejected calls for a merger, citing the incompatibility of the National Party's conservatism and the "small-l liberal" wing of the Liberal Party.
In July 1989, Senator Fred Chaney, the deputy leader of the Liberal Party, stated his tentative support for a merger, but noted that it could not be led by politicians and should come from the grassroots.
In the wake of their 2007 federal election loss, there was again talk of a merger in 2007 and 2008, as a result of a shrinking National Party vote. It was argued that the decline in the National vote is linked to a declining rural population, and National Party policies have become increasingly similar to those of the Liberal Party. However no merger took place outside of Queensland. |
Coalition (Australia) | Electoral organisation
Coalition arrangements are facilitated by Australia's preferential voting systems which enable Liberals and Nationals to compete locally in "three-cornered-contests", with the Australian Labor Party (ALP), while exchanging preferences in elections. Such contests would weaken their prospects under first-past-the-post voting. From time to time, friction is caused by the fact that the Liberal and National candidates are campaigning against each other, without long-term damage to the relationship.
Indeed, the whole point of introducing preferential voting was to allow safe spoiler-free, three-cornered contests. It was a government of the Nationalist Party, a forerunner to the modern Liberal Party which introduced the legislation, following Labor's unexpected win at the 1918 Swan by-election where the conservative vote split. Two months later, the Corangamite by-election held under preferential voting caused the initially leading ALP candidate to lose after some lower-placed candidates' preferences had been distributed.
As a result of variations on the preferential voting system used in every state and territory, the Coalition has been able to thrive, wherever both its member parties have both been active. The preferential voting system has allowed the Liberal and National parties to compete and co-operate at the same time. By contrast, a variation of the preferential system known as optional preferential voting has proven a significant handicap to coalition co-operation in Queensland and New South Wales, because significant numbers of voters do not express all useful preferences. |
Coalition (Australia) | Nomenclature
Due to a disciplined coalition between the parties and their predecessors being in existence for almost 100 years with only a few brief cessations within a parliamentary system, most commentators and the general public often refer to the Coalition as if it were a single party. Polling and electoral results contain a two-party-preferred (TPP) vote which is based on Labor and the Coalition. The Australian Electoral Commission has distinguished between "traditional" (Coalition/Labor) two-party-preferred (TPP/2PP) contests, and "non-traditional" (Independent, Greens, Liberal vs National) two-candidate-preferred (TCP/2CP) contests. At the 2010 federal election, all eight seats which resulted in a two-candidate-preferred result were re-counted to also express a statistical-only "traditional" two-party-preferred result. |
Coalition (Australia) | Electorate
As of 2022, the biggest voting blocs of the Coalition are men, the Greatest Generation (people born between 1901–1927), the middle class (as opposed to the working class), who make between A$45,001–A$80,000 per year, and have a non-tertiary qualification or no educational qualification. Homeowners vote more for the Coalition than any other party, and the State of Queensland is its biggest electorate by two-party-preferred vote percentage (though by primary vote, Tasmania is the state with the highest Coalition vote).
The Coalition also gathers significant support from Australians in regional, rural and remote areas, whilst lacking significant support in most parts of the capital cities. However, there are regions of capital cities that do still vote for the Coalition; such as the Hills District and Sutherland and most of the Eastern Suburbs and Northern Suburbs of Sydney; some areas of Melbourne's east and northeast; many areas of Brisbane and Perth; and the southern part of Darwin.
The Coalition has below-average support among Indian and Muslim voters. Historically, Chinese Australians have voted for the Coalition over Labor, due to a perception that Liberal Party was more business-oriented than Labor. However, this has declined in recent years. In the 2022 Australian federal election, electorates with a higher concentration of Chinese-Australian voters experienced larger swings against the Coalition compared to other electorates; in the top 15 seats by Chinese ancestry, the swing against the Coalition on a two-party-preferred basis was 6.6 per cent, compared to 3.7 per cent in other seats. This resulted in the Liberal Party losing many federal seats with large Chinese communities in 2022 to Labor (losing Bennelong and Reid in Sydney and Chisholm in Melbourne to Labor and Kooyong in Melbourne to a teal independent), as well as losing Aston in 2023, which was the first time in over a century in which the government won a seat off the opposition in a by-election. In the 2023 New South Wales state election, the top 10 electorates in terms of Chinese ancestry all saw big swings to Labor. However, the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party managed to hold many state seats with large Chinese communities (such as the Sydney seats of Drummoyne, Epping, Holsworthy, Lane Cove, Miranda, Oatley and Ryde). |
Coalition (Australia) | Chronology
Federal election results
House of Representatives
States and territories
New South Wales
A Coalition between the Liberal (and predecessors) and National parties has existed without interruption in New South Wales since 1927. Predecessors of the NSW Liberal Party, including the UAP, Nationalist Party and the Democratic Party, maintained a coalition with the Country Party (old name of National Party).
The Liberal Party is led by Mark Speakman and the National Party by Dugald Saunders. The Coalition won the 2011 state election in a massive swing under Barry O'Farrell, the 2015 election with a reduced majority under Mike Baird, and the 2019 election under Gladys Berejiklian. The Coalition led by Dominic Perrottet lost the 2023 state election and is in opposition since.
New South Wales is the only state where the non-Labor Coalition has never broken, and yet has also never merged. This remained the case even in 2011, when the Liberals won a majority in their own right but still retained the Coalition. On 10 September 2020, the Nationals threatened to move to the crossbench over a dispute regarding koala protection laws, but the issue was resolved the next day and the Nationals remained in the Coalition. |
Coalition (Australia) | Queensland
Due to Brisbane having a much smaller share of Queensland's population compared to the other state capitals, Queensland is the only state in which the Nationals have consistently been the stronger non-Labor party. The Nationals were the senior partner in the non-Labor Coalition from 1925 until the Coalition was broken in 1983. At an election held two months later, the Nationals under Joh Bjelke-Petersen came up one seat short of a majority, but later gained a majority when two Liberal MLAs crossed the floor to join the Nationals. The Nationals then governed in their own right until 1989. The Coalition was renewed in 1991, and won power under Rob Borbidge from 1996 to 1998.
The Queensland Liberals and Nationals had contested separately for the Senate in federal elections until the 2007 election, when they ran a join Senate ticket for the first time in 30 years. In 2008, the two parties agreed to merge, forming the Liberal National Party (LNP), under the leadership of former National Lawrence Springborg. Although it is dominated by former Nationals, it has full voting rights within the Liberal Party and observer status within the National Party. Springborg stood down in 2009, and was succeeded by former Liberal John-Paul Langbroek. The LNP won an overwhelming majority government in the 2012 state election under the leadership of former Liberal Campbell Newman, who had taken over from Langbroek a year earlier. However, it lost power in 2015, and Springborg returned to the leadership, only to lose a challenge by former Liberal Tim Nicholls in May 2016. Following another loss in the 2017 election, Nicholls stood down as LNP party leader and was succeeded by Deb Frecklington, who holds the ancestrally National seat of Nanango, Bjelke-Petersen's old seat.
At the federal level, 15 LNP MPs sit with the Liberals, including federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton; six sit with the Nationals, including federal Nationals leader David Littleproud. LNP Senator Matt Canavan sits with the Nationals, while the LNP's four other senators sit with the Liberals. The highest-profile LNP MP in recent years has been former federal Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss. The LNP has an informal agreement with its federal counterparts as to which party room in which LNP members will sit. Incumbent MPs retain their previous federal affiliations, whereas members who win seats from the ALP that previously belonged to the Coalition will sit with the previous member's party. An amicable division of seats was decided upon for new seats or seats that have never been won by the Coalition. In practice, all LNP MPs from Brisbane and most LNP MPs from the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast sit with the Liberals, while those from rural seats usually sit with the Nationals. |
Coalition (Australia) | South Australia
The state branch of the Country Party merged with the Liberal Federation, the state branch of the UAP, in 1932 to form the Liberal and Country League. It later became the state division of the Liberal Party when the latter was formed in 1945. A separate Country Party (later Nationals SA) was revived in 1963, though the main non-Labor party in South Australia continued to use the LCL name until it was also renamed to the Liberal Party in 1974. The revived SA Nationals have never been successful in South Australia, due to the state's highly centralised population (some three-quarters of the population lives in Adelaide) and the Liberals' strong support in rural areas that would tilt National in most of the rest of Australia. The party's current incarnation has only elected two representatives: Peter Blacker from 1973 to 1993, and Karlene Maywald from 1997 to 2010.
From 2004 to 2010, Maywald was a Minister in the Rann Labor government, before losing her seat at the 2010 South Australian state election, thereby informally creating a Labor-National coalition in South Australia. The National Party, at the time, rejected the notion that it was in a coalition with Labor at the state level. State National Party President John Venus told journalists, "We (The Nationals) are not in coalition with the Labor Party, we aren't in coalition with the Liberals, we are definitely not in coalition with anyone. We stand alone in South Australia as an independent party." Flinders University political scientist Haydon Manning disagreed, saying that it is "churlish to describe the government as anything but a coalition". The party did not run candidates at the 2010 federal election, but ran one candidate in the seat of Barker and two for the Senate at the 2013 election. The Nationals candidate for Barker and several other Coalition figures assured electors that any Nationals elected from South Australia would be part of the Coalition, after comments from the Liberal candidate to the contrary. |
Coalition (Australia) | Tasmania
The National Party has never done well in Tasmania, even though its first leader, William McWilliams, was a Tasmanian. It has elected only two other lower house members. A Tasmania branch of the then-Country Party was formed in 1922 and briefly held the balance of power, but merged with the Nationalists in 1924. It was refounded in 1962, but never gained much ground. In 1969, Liberal MHA Kevin Lyons, the son of former Prime Minister Lyons, pulled together most of the Tasmanian Country Party into the Centre Party, which held the balance of power in that year's state election. It threw its support to the Liberals, and Lyons – the Centre Party's lone MHA – became Deputy Premier. The Liberal–Centre alliance fell apart in 1972, forcing an early election. In 1975, what remained of the Centre Party became the Tasmanian chapter of what was by now the National Country Party before fading away completely. A Tasmanian National Party branch was briefly revived in the 1990s before it too disappeared, leaving the Liberal Party as the sole major non-Labor party in the state. In 2018, Senator Steve Martin, formerly of the Jacqui Lambie Network, joined the Nationals, becoming the party's first federal member from Tasmania in either chamber in 90 years. However, Martin lost his bid for a new term. |
Coalition (Australia) | Victoria
A Coalition between the Liberal and National parties exists in Victoria. The Liberal Party is led by John Pesutto and the National Party by Peter Walsh.
The Country Party was the stronger coalition partner on multiple occasions from the 1920s through to the 1950s, and Country leaders served as Premier of Victoria on five separate occasions. However, the relationship between the two parties was somewhat strained for most of the second half of the 20th century. In 1948, the coalition was broken when the Liberal leader and Premier Thomas Hollway sacked Country leader John McDonald as Deputy Premier. In March 1949, the Liberals renamed themselves the Liberal and Country Party as part of an effort to merge the two non-Labor parties in Victoria. However, McDonald saw this as an attempted Liberal takeover of the Country Party, and the Country Party turned the proposed merger down. As a result, both parties competed against each other and fought elections separately from 1952 to 1989. The presence of John McEwen, a Victorian, as number-two man in the federal government from 1958 to 1971 (including a brief stint as interim Prime Minister) did little to change this.
The Liberals and Nationals reached a Coalition agreement in 1990. They fought and won the 1992 and 1996 elections as a Coalition under the leadership of Jeff Kennett. Although the Liberals won enough seats to govern alone, Kennett retained the Nationals in his government. When Peter Ryan became leader of the Nationals shortly after the Kennett government's 1999 election defeat, he terminated the Coalition agreement and led the Nationals into the 2002 and 2006 elections separately from the Liberals. However, the Coalition agreement was renewed in 2008 and the Victorian Liberal and National parties went into the 2010 election as a Coalition. The Coalition ended up winning the 2010 election with a one-seat margin under the leadership of Ted Baillieu, who resigned in 2013 and was succeeded by Denis Napthine. The Coalition lost power at the 2014 election. The Coalition arrangement was maintained while the two parties were in opposition.
According to The Age, between November 2018 and November 2021, the Coalition's Legislative Council members voted with the Andrews Government's position 28.9% of the time; of the parties in the Legislative Council, only the Liberal Democratic Party had a lower figure (22.1%). |
Coalition (Australia) | Western Australia
The Country Party was the stronger coalition partner from the 1933 state election to the 1947 state election, although the Coalition did not form government during this period. Western Australia has never had a premier from the Country/National Party.
In May 1949, the Liberal and Country League was formed to attempt to merge Country Party (then called County Democratic League or CDL) and Liberal Party together. This did not eventuate and the CDL did not join the new party.
The National Party was in Coalition with the Liberal Party government from 1993 to 2001 (see Hendy Cowan), but the Coalition was subsequently broken. In 2008, the Liberals under Colin Barnett, the Nationals under Brendon Grylls, and independent John Bowler formed a minority government after the 2008 election. However, it was not characterised as a "traditional coalition", with limited cabinet collective responsibility for National cabinet members. Tony Crook was elected as the WA Nationals candidate for the seat of O'Connor at the 2010 federal election. Although some reports initially counted Crook as a National MP, and thus part of the Coalition, Crook sat as a crossbencher.
The Liberals won enough seats for a majority in their own right in the 2013 state election, but Barnett had announced before the election that he would retain the coalition with the Nationals. However, Barnett would have likely had to keep the Nationals in his government in any event. According to the ABC's Antony Green, the rural weighting in the Legislative Council all but forces the WA Liberals to depend on National support even when the Liberals have enough support to govern alone. The Barnett government was heavily defeated at the 2017 state election, and the two parties went their separate ways with Liberal Party being the sole opposition party.
In the 2021 election, the Liberal Party ended up winning fewer seats than the National Party, headed by Mia Davies, with the National Party gaining opposition status and Davies becoming the first Nationals opposition leader since 1947. Following the election, the Liberal Party and Nationals Party entered into a formal alliance to form opposition, with National Party being the senior party and the Liberal Party being the junior party in the alliance. Shadow ministerial positions were also held by parliamentary members of both parties. This was similar to the agreements between both parties when they were in government following the 2008 and 2013 elections. Similar to the 2008 and 2013 agreements, the deputy leader of the senior party, Nationals deputy leader Shane Love, was the deputy opposition leader, instead of the leader of the junior party, Liberal Party leader David Honey. Under the alliance, each party maintained their independence, and could speak out on issues when there was a disagreement with their partner. |
Coalition (Australia) | Territories
Australian Capital Territory: The National Party is not affiliated in the Australian Capital Territory, leaving the Liberal Party as the sole major non-Labor party in the territory.
Northern Territory: The two parties' branches in the Northern Territory merged in 1974, forming the Country Liberal Party. The CLP governed the Territory from 1974 to 2001 and from 2012 to 2016. The CLP retains full voting rights within the federal National Party, and has observer status with the federal Liberal Party. The CLP directs its federal members of the House and Senate whether to sit with the federal Liberals or Nationals. In practice, since the mid-1980s, CLP House members have sat with the Liberals while CLP Senators sit with the Nationals. For example, Natasha Griggs sat with the Liberals when she held the Darwin-area seat of Solomon from 2010 to 2016. CLP Senator Nigel Scullion was the leader of the Nationals in the Senate from 2007 to 2008, when he was succeeded by Barnaby Joyce. He was the federal deputy leader of the Nationals, alongside Truss, from 2007 to 2013. Joyce became federal Nationals deputy leader after his successful transition to the House of Representatives at the 2013 election, and Scullion returned as the Nationals Senate leader. |
Coalition (Australia) | See also
Two-party system |
Coalition (Australia) | Notes |
Coalition (Australia) |
== References == |
National symbols of Australia | National symbols of Australia are the official symbols used to represent Australia as a nation or the Commonwealth Government. Additionally, each state and territory has its own set of symbols. |
National symbols of Australia | List of symbols
See also
District tartans of Australia
List of Australian flags |
National symbols of Australia | References
External links
National symbolsaustralia.gov.au Retrieved 18 March 2018.
Australian National Symbolspmc.gov.au Retrieved 18 March 2018.
Australia's National Symbolsdfat.gov.au Retrieved 18 March 2018. |
Christianity in Australia | Christianity is the largest religion in Australia, with a total of 43.9% of the nation-wide population identifying with a Christian denomination in the 2021 census. The first presence of Christianity in Australia began with British colonisation in what came to be known as New South Wales in 1788.
The Christian footprint in Australian society and culture remains broad, particularly in areas of social welfare and education provision and in the marking of festivals such as Easter and Christmas. Though the Australian Constitution of 1901 protects freedom of religion and separation of church and state, the Church of England held legal privileges in the early British colonial period, when Catholicism in particular was suppressed. Sectarianism was a feature of Australian politics well into the 20th century, as was collaboration by church and state in seeking the conversion of the Indigenous population to Christianity. Today, the Catholic Church is second only to government itself as a provider of government-funded social services, through organisations such as Catholic Social Services Australia and the St Vincent De Paul Society. The Anglican Church's Anglicare network is similarly engaged in areas such as emergency relief, aged care, family support service and help for the homeless. Other denominations assist through networks like UnitingCare Australia and the Salvation Army, and around a quarter of students attend church owned schools.
Historically significant Australian Christians have included the Reverend John Dunmore Lang, Saint Mary MacKillop, Catherine Helen Spence, Pastor David Unaipon, the Reverend John Flynn, Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls and General Eva Evelyn Burrows of the Salvation Army. High-profile contemporary Australian Christians include Tim Costello; Baptist minister and current CEO of World Vision Australia; Frank Brennan, Jesuit human rights lawyer; John Dickson, historian and founder of The Centre for Public Christianity; Phillip Aspinall the current Archbishop of Brisbane, Philip Freier the current Anglican Primate of Australia and Archbishop of Melbourne; and recent Prime Ministers John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison.
Like much of the Western world, Australia has been affected by the widespread decline in religiosity that has lowered the number of professing Christians and a diversifying immigration intakes that have lowered the overall percentage that Christians comprise in the Australian population, resulting in a national census decline from 96.1% at the time of the Federation of Australia in the 1901 census, to 43.9% in the 2021 census Census.
According to the 2021 census, religious distribution is 43.9% Christian (47.3% of those who answered the question, 7.3% did not), 38.9% none or secular belief system (41.9% of those who answered), 3.2% Islam (or 3.5% of those who answered), 2.7% Hinduism (2.9% of those who answered), 2.4% Buddhism (or 2.6% of those who answered), and 1.7% other (or 1.8% who answered). The largest Christian denominations (those with at least 1% of the population) were Catholic at 20.0% (21.5% of those who answered), Anglican at 9.8% (10.6% of those who answered), Uniting Church at 2.7% (2.9% of those who answered), Eastern Orthodox at 2.1% (2.3% of those who answered), Presbyterian/Reformed at 1.6% (1.8% of those who answered), Baptist at 1.4% (1.5% of those who answered) and Pentecostal at 1.0% (1.1% of those who answered). Those who answered Christian with no denomination were 2.7% of the population (2.0% of those who answered).
Post-war immigration has grown the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia and there are large and growing Pentecostal groups, such as Sydney's Hillsong Church. According to the 2016 census, Queensland (56.03%) and New South Wales (55.18%) had Christian majorities, while the lowest proportion of Christians were found in the Northern Territory (47.69%) and the Australian Capital Territory (45.38%). |
Christianity in Australia | History
Introduction of Christianity
Before European contact, indigenous people had performed the rites and rituals of the animist religion of the Dreamtime. Portuguese and Spanish Catholics and Dutch and English Protestants were sailing into Australian waters from the seventeenth century.
Among the first Catholics known to have sighted Australia were the crew of a Spanish expedition of 1605–6. In 1606, the expedition's leader, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, landed in the New Hebrides and, believing it to be the fabled southern continent, he named the land: Austrialis del Espiritu Santo ("Southern Land of the Holy Spirit"). Later that year, his deputy Luís Vaz de Torres sailed through Australia's Torres Strait. The English navigator James Cook's favourable account of the fertile east coast of Australia in 1770 ultimately ensured that Australia's Christian foundations were to reflect the British denominations (with their Protestant majority and largely Irish, Catholic minority).
The permanent presence of Christianity in Australia began with the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788. The Reverend Richard Johnson of the Church of England was licensed as chaplain to the Fleet and the settlement. In early colonial times, Church of England clergy worked closely with the governors. Johnson was charged by the governor, Arthur Phillip, with improving "public morality" in the colony, but he was also heavily involved in health and education.
According to Manning Clark, the early colonial officials of the colony had disdain for the "consolations of religion", but shared a view that "the Protestant religion and British institutions were the finest achievements of the wit of man for the promotion of liberty and a high material civilization." Thus they looked to Protestant ministers as the "natural moral policemen of society", of obvious social use in a convict colony for preaching against "drunkenness, whoring and gambling". Chaplain Johnson was an evangelical priest of the Church of England, the first of a series of clergymen, according to Clark, through whom "evangelical Christianity dominated the religious life of Protestant Christianity in Australia throughout the whole of the nineteenth century".
Chaplain Johnson led what is regarded as his first service under a tree in Sydney Cove on the first Sunday after arrival, 3 February 1788. On 7 February 1788, Arthur Phillip was sworn in over the Bible as the first Governor of the colony, and delivered a speech to the convicts counselling the Christian virtues of marriage and an end to promiscuity. Johnson celebrated the colony's first Lord's Supper in an officer's tent on Sunday 17 February 1788.
Johnson's successor, the Reverend Samuel Marsden (1765–1838), had magisterial duties and so was equated with the authorities by the convicts. He became known as the "flogging parson" for the severity of his punishments. |
Christianity in Australia | Early history of the Catholic Church in Australia
Some of the Irish convicts had been transported to Australia for political crimes or social rebellion in Ireland. This was due to the colonisation of the Irish people by the English, and resultant dispossession and cruel conditions forced on them by the English. Irish Catholics had been forced to pay tithes to the protestant churches, even though they were Catholics. Authorities were prejudiced against Catholics and Catholic convicts were compelled to attend Church of England services, with no provision or respect for Catholicism.
One-tenth of all the convicts who came to Australia on the First Fleet were Catholic and at least half of them were born in Ireland. A small proportion of British marines were also Catholic. Other groups were also represented, for example, among the Tolpuddle martyrs were a number of Methodists.
It was the crew of the French explorer La Pérouse who conducted the first Catholic ceremony on Australian soil in 1788 – the burial of Father Louis Receveur, a Franciscan friar, who died while the ships were at anchor at Botany Bay, while on a mission to explore the Pacific. The first Catholic priest colonists arrived in Australia as convicts in 1800 – James Harold, James Dixon and Peter O'Neill, who had been convicted for "complicity" in the Irish 1798 Rebellion. Dixon was conditionally emancipated and permitted to celebrate Mass. On 15 May 1803, in vestments made from curtains and with a chalice made of tin he conducted the first Catholic Mass in New South Wales. The Irish led Castle Hill Rebellion of 1804 alarmed the British authorities and Dixon's permission to celebrate Mass was revoked. Fr Jeremiah Flynn, an Irish Cistercian, was appointed as Prefect Apostolic of New Holland (Australia) and set out from Britain for the colony uninvited. Watched by authorities, Flynn secretly performed priestly duties before being arrested and deported to London. Reaction to the affair in Britain led to two further priests being allowed to travel to the colony in 1820 – John Joseph Therry and Philip Conolly. The foundation stone for the first St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney was laid on 29 October 1821 by Governor Lachlan Macquarie.
The absence of a Catholic mission in Australia before 1818 reflected the legal disabilities of Catholics in Britain. The government therefore endorsed the English Benedictines to lead the early church in the colony. William Bernard Ullathorne (1806–1889) was instrumental in influencing Pope Gregory XVI to establish a Catholic hierarchy in Australia. Ullathorne was in Australia from 1833 to 1836 as vicar-general to Bishop William Morris (1794–1872), whose jurisdiction extended over the Australian missions. |
Christianity in Australia | Foundations of diversification and equality
The Church of England lost its legal privileges in the Colony of New South Wales by the Church Act of 1836. Drafted by the Catholic attorney-general John Plunkett, the act established legal equality for Episcopalians, Catholics and Presbyterians and was later extended to Methodists. Nevertheless, social attitudes were slow to change. Catholic laywoman Caroline Chisholm (1808–1877) faced discouragements and anti-papal feeling when she sought to establish a migrant women's shelter and worked for women's welfare in the colonies in the 1840s, though her humanitarian efforts later won her fame in England and great influence in achieving support for families in the colony.
John Bede Polding, a Benedictine monk, was Sydney's first Catholic bishop (and then archbishop) from 1835 to 1877. Polding requested a community of nuns be sent to the colony and five Irish Sisters of Charity arrived in 1838. The sisters set about pastoral care in a women's prison and began visiting hospitals and schools and establishing employment for convict women. The sisters went on to establish hospitals in four of the eastern states, beginning with St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney in 1857 as a free hospital for all people, but especially for the poor. At Polding's request, the Christian Brothers arrived in Sydney in 1843 to assist in schools. In 1857, Polding founded an Australian order of nuns in the Benedictine tradition – the Sisters of the Good Samaritan – to work in education and social work. While Polding was in office, construction began on the ambitious Gothic Revival designs for St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne and the final St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney.
Since the 19th century, immigrants have brought their own expressions of Christianity with them. Particular examples are the Lutherans from Prussia who tended to settle in the Barossa Valley, South Australia and in Queensland, Methodists in South Australia, with notable pockets coming from Cornwall to work the copper mines in Moonta. Other groups included the Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Baptist churches. Establishing themselves first at Sevenhill, in the newly established colony of South Australia in 1848, the Jesuits were the first religious order of priests to enter and establish houses in South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory. While the Austrian Jesuits traversed the Outback on horseback to found missions and schools, Irish Jesuits arrived in the east in 1860 and had by 1880 established the major schools which survive to the present.
In 1885, Patrick Francis Moran became Australia's first cardinal. Moran believed that Catholics' political and civil rights were threatened in Australia and, in 1896, saw deliberate discrimination in a situation where "no office of first, or even second, rate importance is held by a Catholic". |
Christianity in Australia | The Churches became involved in mission work among the Aboriginal people of Australia in the 19th century as Europeans came to control much of the continent and the majority of the population was eventually converted. Colonial clergy such as Sydney's first Catholic archbishop, John Bede Polding, strongly advocated for Aboriginal rights and dignity
With the withdrawal of state aid for church schools around 1880, the Catholic Church, unlike other Australian churches, put great energy and resources into creating a comprehensive alternative system of education. It was largely staffed by nuns, brothers and priests of religious orders, such as the Christian Brothers (who had returned to Australia in 1868); the Sisters of Mercy (who had arrived in Perth in 1846); Marist Brothers, who came from France in 1872 and the Sisters of St Joseph, founded in Australia by Saint Mary MacKillop and Fr Julian Tenison Woods in 1867. MacKillop travelled throughout Australasia and established schools, convents and charitable institutions but came into conflict with those bishops who preferred diocesan control of the order rather than central control from Adelaide by the Josephite order. MacKillop administered the Josephites as a national order at a time when Australia was divided among individually governed colonies. She is today the most revered of Australian Catholics, canonised by Benedict XVI in 2010.
Also from Britain came the Salvation Army (its members sometimes called "Salvos" in Australia), which had been established in the slums of East London in 1865 to minister to the impoverished outcasts of the city. The first Salvation Army meeting in Australia was held in 1880. Edward Saunders and John Gore led the meeting from the back of a greengrocer's cart in Adelaide Botanic Park with an offer of food for those who had not eaten. The Salvos also involved themselves in finding work for the unemployed and in re-uniting families. In Melbourne from 1897 to 1910, The Army's Limelight Department was established as Australia's first film production company. From such diverse activities, The Salvos have grown to be one of Australia's most respected charitable organisations, with a 2009 survey by Sweeney Research and the advertising group Grey Global finding the Salvation Army and the nation's Ambulance Service to be Australia's most trusted entities. Australia's George Carpenter was General of the Salvation Army (worldwide leader) from 1939 to 1946 and Eva Burrows during the 1980s and 1990s. |
Christianity in Australia | Commonwealth of Australia
Section 116 of the Australian Constitution of 1901 provided for freedom of religion. With the exception of the indigenous population, descendants of gold rush migrants and a small but significant Lutheran population of German descent, Australian society was predominantly Anglo-Celtic, with 40% of the population being Church of England, 23% Catholic, 34% other Christian and about 1% professing non-Christian religions. The first census in 1911 showed 95.95 per cent identified themselves as Christian.
Sectarianism in Australia tended to reflect the political inheritance of Britain and Ireland. Until 1945, the vast majority of Catholics in Australia were of Irish descent, causing the Anglo-Protestant majority to question their loyalty to the British Empire. The Church of England remained the largest Christian church until the 1986 census. After World War II, the ethnic and cultural mix of Australia diversified and the Church of England gave way to the Catholic Church as the largest. The number of Anglicans attending regular worship began to decline in 1959 and figures for occasional services (baptisms, confirmations, weddings and funerals) started to decline after 1966. |
Christianity in Australia | Further waves of migration and the gradual winding back of the White Australia Policy, helped to reshape the profile of Australia's religious affiliations over subsequent decades. The impact of migration from Europe in the aftermath of World War II led to increases in affiliates of the Orthodox churches, the establishment of Reformed bodies, growth in the number of Catholics (largely from Italian migration) and Jews (Holocaust survivors). More recently (post-1970s), immigration from South-East Asia and the Middle East has expanded Buddhist and Muslim numbers considerably and increased the ethnic diversity of the existing Christian churches.
Russian sailors visiting Sydney celebrated the Divine Liturgy as long ago as 1820 and a Greek Orthodox population emerged from the mid-19th century. The Greeks of Sydney and Melbourne had a priest by 1896 and the first Greek Orthodox church was opened at Surry Hills in Sydney in 1898. In 1924, the Metropolis of Australia and New Zealand was established under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Greek immigration increased considerably following World War II, and the Metropolis of Australia and New Zealand was elevated to Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia and Metropolitan Ezekiel was appointed archbishop in 1959. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew visited Australia in November 1996.
In the 1970s, the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches in Australia united to form the Uniting Church in Australia. The church remains prominent in welfare services and noted for its innovative ministry initiatives such as those pioneered at centres like Sydney's Wayside Chapel in King's Cross.
1970 saw the first visit to Australia by a pope, Paul VI. John Paul II was the next pope to visit Australia in 1986. At Alice Springs, the pope made an historic address to indigenous Australians, in which he praised the enduring qualities of Aboriginal culture, lamented the effects of dispossession of and discrimination; called for acknowledgment of Aboriginal land rights and reconciliation in Australia; and said that the Christian Church in Australia would not reach its potential until Aboriginal people had made their "contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by others". In July 2008, Sydney hosted the massive international youth festival "World Youth Day" led by Benedict XVI. Around 500,000 welcomed the pope to Sydney and 270,000 watched the Stations of the Cross. More than 300,000 pilgrims camped out overnight in preparation for the final Mass, where final attendance was between 300,000 and 400,000 people.
In recent times, the Christian churches of Australia have been active in ecumenical activity. The Australian Committee for the World Council of Churches was established in 1946 by the Anglican and mainline Protestant churches. The movement evolved and expanded with Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches later joining and by 1994 the Catholic Church was also a member of the national ecumenical body, the National Council of Churches in Australia.
A 2015 study estimates some 20,000 Muslim converted to Christianity in Australia, most of them belonging to some form of Protestantism. |
Christianity in Australia | Percentage of population since 1901
Data for table up to 2006 from Australian Bureau of Statistics. |
Christianity in Australia | Indigenous Australians and Christianity
Christianity and European culture have had a significant impact on Indigenous Australians, their religion and their culture. As in many colonial situations the churches both facilitated the loss of Indigenous Australian culture and religion and also facilitated its maintenance. The involvement of Christians in Aboriginal affairs has evolved significantly since 1788. Around the year 2000, many churches and church organisations officially apologised for past failures to adequately respect indigenous cultures and address the injustices of the dispossession of indigenous people.
Christian missionaries often witnessed to Indigenous people in an attempt to convert them to Christianity. The Presbyterian Church of Australia's Australian Inland Mission, the Lutheran mission at Hermannsburg, Northern Territory, and many Catholic missions in remote areas being examples. Many missionaries often studied Aboriginal society from an Anthropological perspective. Missionaries have made significant contributions to anthropological and linguistic understanding of Indigenous Australians and aspects of Christian services have been adapted when there is Aboriginal involvement – even masses during Papal visits to Australia will include traditional Aboriginal smoking ceremonies. It was the practice of some Missions to enforce a 'forgetting' of Aboriginal culture. Others, like Fr Kevin McKelson of Broome encouraged aboriginal culture and language while also promoting the merits of western style education in the 1960s.
Prominent Aboriginal activist Noel Pearson, himself raised at a Lutheran mission in Cape York, has written that missions throughout Australia's colonial history "provided a haven from the hell of life on the Australian frontier while at the same time facilitating colonisation". |
Christianity in Australia | In the Torres Strait Islands, the Coming of the Light Festival marks the day the Christian missionaries first arrived on the islands on 1 July 1871 and introduced Christianity to the region. This is a significant festival for Torres Strait Islanders, who are predominantly Christian. Religious and cultural ceremonies are held across Torres Strait and mainland Australia.
Prominent Aboriginal Christians have included Pastor David Unaipon, the first Aboriginal author; Pastor Sir Douglas Nicholls, athlete, activist and former Governor of South Australia; Mum (Shirl) Smith, a celebrated Redfern community worker who, assisted by the Sisters of Charity, worked in the courts and organised prison visitations, medical and social assistance for Aboriginal peoples, and former Senator Aden Ridgeway, the first Chairman of the Aboriginal Catholic Ministry. The Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, associated with the Uniting Church in Australia, is an organisation developed and managed by Indigenous people to "provide spiritual, social and economic pathways for Australia's First People".
In recent times, Christians like Fr Ted Kennedy of Redfern, Jesuit human rights lawyer Fr Frank Brennan and the Josephite Sisters have been prominent in working for Aboriginal rights and improvements to standards of living.
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council is the peak body representing Indigenous Catholics in Australia and was formed in Cairns in January 1989 at the first National Conference of the Aboriginal and Islander Catholic Councils. In 1992 the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference officially recognised and welcomed it as the national representative and consultative body to the church on issues concerning Indigenous Catholics.
The members of the council stand down every three years and a new council is appointed. NATSICC's funding comes in the form of Voluntary contributions from schools, parishes and religious orders. In addition, Caritas Australia provides ongoing funding.
Encouraged by Pope John Paul II's words in the Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Oceania NATSICC is determined to continue, as the peak Indigenous Catholic representative body, to actively support and promote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation in the Catholic Church in Australia. |
Christianity in Australia | Social and political engagement
History
Christian charitable organisations, hospitals and schools have played a prominent role in welfare and education since Colonial times, when the First Fleet's Church of England chaplain, Richard Johnson, was credited as "the physician both of soul and body" during the famine of 1790 and was charged with general supervision of schools. The Catholic laywoman Caroline Chisolm helped single migrant women and rescued homeless girls in Sydney. In his welcoming address to the Catholic World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said that Christianity had been a positive influence on Australia: "It was the church that began first schools for the poor, it was the church that began first hospitals for the poor, it was the church that began first refuges for the poor and these great traditions continue for the future." |
Christianity in Australia | Welfare
A number of Christian churches are significant national providers of social welfare services (including residential aged care and the Job Network) and education. These include: |
Christianity in Australia | The Salvation Army. In 2012, the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard (herself not religious but with family connections to the work of Salvation Army), praised the welfare work of the Salvation Army in Australia as "Christianity with its sleeves rolled up" and which, she said, was each week reuniting 40 Australian families; assisting 500 drug, alcohol or gambling addiction affected people; providing 2000 homeless with shelter; and counselling thousands more.
The Uniting Church in Australia does extensive community work in aged care, hospitals, nursing, family support services, youth services and with the homeless. Services include UnitingCare Australia, Exodus Foundation, the Wesley Missions and Lifeline counseling.
The Anglican Church of Australia has organisations working in education, health, missionary work, social welfare and communications. Organisations include Anglicare and the Samaritans.
The Catholic Church: Catholic Social Services Australia is the church's peak national body. Its 63 member organisations help more than a million Australians each year. Catholic organisations include: Centacare, Caritas Australia, Jesuit Refugee Service, St Vincent de Paul Society, Josephite Community Aid; Fr. Chris Riley's Youth Off The Streets; Edmund Rice Camps; and the Bob Maguire Foundation. Two religious orders founded in Australia which engaged in welfare and charity work are the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart and the Sisters of the Good Samaritan. Many international orders also work in welfare, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor who work in aged care and the Sisters of Charity of Australia, who have played a prominent role in healthcare and women's welfare in Australia since the 1830s.
Hillsong Church's Hillsong Emerge is a local example in Sydney, New South Wales.
The Baptist Church's Tim Costello is CEO of World Vision Australia.
Other Christian humanitarian aid organisations operating in Australia include: Christian Children's Fund, Christian Blind Mission International; Mission Australia; St Luke's, the Christian Blind Mission; Compassion Australia; St John Ambulance Australia; |
Christianity in Australia | Health
Catholic Health Australia is the largest non-government provider grouping of health, community and aged care services in Australia. These do not operate for profit and range across the full spectrum of health services, representing about 10% of the health sector and employing 35,000 people. Catholic religious orders founded many of Australia's hospitals. Irish Sisters of Charity arrived in Sydney in 1838 and established St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney in 1857 as a free hospital for the poor. The Sisters went on to found hospitals, hospices, research institutes and aged care facilities in Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania. At St Vincent's they trained leading surgeon Victor Chang and opened Australia's first AIDS clinic. In the 21st century, with more and more lay people involved in management, the sisters began collaborating with Sisters of Mercy Hospitals in Melbourne and Sydney. Jointly the group operates four public hospitals; seven private hospitals and 10 aged care facilities. The English Sisters of the Little Company of Mary arrived in 1885 and have since established public and private hospitals, retirement living and residential aged care, community care and comprehensive palliative care in New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory. The Little Sisters of the Poor, who follow the charism of Saint Jeanne Jugan to 'offer hospitality to the needy aged' arrived in Melbourne in 1884 and now operate four aged care homes in Australia.
An example of a Christian Welfare agency is ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency). This welfare agency is an internationally recognized agency run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. ADRA is operational in more than 120 countries, around the world, providing relief and development, where ever needed. Within Australia they provide shelter, relief, and services to those in need. They have numerous refuges set up those suffering abuse, as well as shelters for those in need. As well many other things such as food distribution, op-shops etc.
The Reverend John Flynn, a minister of the Presbyterian Church founded what was to become the Royal Flying Doctor Service in 1928 in Cloncurry, Queensland, to bring health services to the isolated communities of the Australian The Bush. |
Christianity in Australia | Education
There are substantial networks of Christian schools associated with the Christian churches and also some that operate as parachurch organisations. The Catholic education system is the second biggest sector after government schools and has more than 730,000 students and around 21 per cent of all secondary school enrolments. The Catholic Church has established primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions in Australia. The Anglican Church has around 145 schools in Australia, providing for more than 105,000 children. The Uniting Church has around 48 schools as does the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Mary MacKillop was a 19th-century Australian nun who founded an educational order, the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, and has recently become the first Australian to be canonised as a saint by the Catholic Church. Other Catholic religious orders involved in education in Australia have included: Sisters of Mercy, Marist Brothers, Christian Brothers, Benedictine Sisters, Jesuits and The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
Church schools range from elite, high cost schools to low fee locally based schools. Churches with networks of schools include: |
Christianity in Australia | Anglican
Catholic
Uniting Church
Baptist
Eastern Orthodox
Lutheran
Nondenominational
The Australian Catholic University opened in 1991 following the amalgamation of four Catholic tertiary institutions in eastern Australia. These institutions had their origins in the 19th century, when religious orders and institutes became involved in preparing teachers for Catholic schools and nurses for Catholic hospitals. The University of Notre Dame Australia opened in Western Australia in December 1989, and now has over 9,000 students on three campuses in Fremantle, Sydney and Broome. |
Christianity in Australia | Politics
Church leaders have often involved themselves in political issues in areas they consider relevant to Christian teachings. In early Colonial times, Catholicism was restricted but Church of England clergy worked closely with the governors. The Reverend Samuel Marsden had magisterial duties and so was equated with the authorities by the convicts. He became known as the "flogging parson" for the severity of his punishments. An early Catholic missionary, William Ullathorne, criticised the convict system, publishing a pamphlet, The Horrors of Transportation Briefly Unfolded to the People, in Britain in 1837. Australia's first Catholic cardinal, Patrick Francis Moran (1830–1911), was politically active. As a proponent of Australian Federation he denounced anti-Chinese legislation as "unchristian"; became an advocate for women's suffrage and alarmed conservatives by supporting trade unionism and "Australian socialism". Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne was a controversial voice against conscription during World War I and against British policy in Ireland.
Aboriginal pastors David Unaipon and Sir Douglas Nicholls, former Catholic priest Pat Dodson and Jesuit priest Frank Brennan have been high-profile Christians engaged in the cause of Aboriginal rights.
The Australian Labor Party had largely been supported by Catholics until prominent layman B. A. Santamaria formed the Democratic Labor Party over concerns of Communist influence over the trade union movement in the 1950s.
In 1999, Catholic cardinal Edward Clancy wrote to the prime minister, John Howard, urging him to send an armed peacekeeping force to East Timor to end the violence engulfing that country. Previous Archbishops of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell (Catholic) and Peter Jensen (Anglican), have concerned themselves with traditional issues of Christian doctrine, such as marriage or abortion, but have also raised questions about government policies such as the Work Choices industrial relations reforms and the mandatory detention of asylum seekers.
Tim Costello, a Baptist minister and the CEO of World Vision Australia, has often been vocal on issues of welfare, foreign aid and climate change.
Christian political parties in Australia include Australian Christians. |
Christianity in Australia | Politicians
When taking their oath of office, ministers in the Australian federal government may elect to swear that oath on the Bible. In 2007, half of the 40 member cabinet of the Rudd Government chose to do so. Historically most Australian prime ministers have been Christians of varying denominations. Of recent prime ministers, Bob Hawke was an agnostic son of a Congregational minister; Paul Keating is a practising Catholic; John Howard and Kevin Rudd are practising Anglicans, and Tony Abbott is a practising Catholic. Former prime minister Julia Gillard was raised by Christian parents but is herself an atheist.
Religion is often kept "low-key" as topic of discussion in politics in Australia, but a number of current and past politicians present themselves as Christian in public life, these include: |
Christianity in Australia | Federally: Scott Morrison (Pentecostal, former prime minister), Tony Abbott (Catholic, former prime minister), Kevin Rudd (Anglican, former Catholic, former prime minister), Joe Hockey, (Catholic, treasurer) Christopher Pyne (Catholic, Liberal MP), Andrew Robb, (Catholic, Liberal Party of Australia), Kevin Andrews, (Catholic, Liberal Party of Australia MP). Historically, most Australian prime ministers have been Christians and recent oppositions leaders Kim Beazley (Anglican); Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull (Catholic) were all practising Christians. Prominent senators Brian Harradine, Tasmanian independent (1975–2005) and Steve Fielding (Pentecostal, Family First former senator) often referred to their Christianity and Brian Howe Labor deputy prime minister (1991–1995). Though the monarch is not the head of the Anglican Church of Australia, the monarch must be an Anglican. In recent decades, Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls served as Governor of South Australia and Archbishop Peter Hollingworth served as Governor General of Australia.
State: Former New South Wales premier Kristina Keneally is a theology graduate and another former premier, John Fahey, had been a seminarian. Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is a practising Catholic. The Reverend Fred Nile and the Reverend Gordon Moyes have been two long serving members of the New South Wales Legislative Council. Andrew Evans in the South Australian Legislative Council and Joh Bjelke-Petersen Premier of Queensland (1968 to 1987) were also Christians. NSW premier Mike Baird and NSW Commissioner of Police Andrew Scipione are both Christians.
The Parliamentary Christian Fellowship, also known as the parliamentary prayer group, is a gathering of Christian politicians in Parliament House, Canberra. The group organises informal prayer, as well as the ecumenical service for the commencement of the Parliamentary year, along with the annual National Prayer Breakfast. |
Christianity in Australia | Culture and the arts
Festivals
The Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter are marked as public holidays in Australia. |
Christianity in Australia | Christmas
The Christian festival of Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. As in most Western nations, Christmas in Australia is an important time even for non-religious people and is generally celebrated on 25 December. Churches of the Western Christian tradition hold Christmas Day services on this day but most churches of Eastern Christian tradition – Ethiopian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox or the Armenian Church celebrate Christmas on 6 or 7 January. Both Christmas Day and 26 December (Boxing Day) are public holidays throughout Australia.
Although Christmas in Australia is celebrated during the Southern Hemisphere summer, many Northern Hemisphere traditions are observed in Australia – families and friends exchange Christmas cards and gifts and gather for Christmas dinners; sing songs about snow and sleighbells; decorate Christmas trees; and tell stories of Santa Claus. Nevertheless, local adaptations have arisen – large open-air carol concerts are conducted on summer evenings before Christmas – such as the Carols by Candlelight in Melbourne and Sydney's Carols in the Domain. The Christmas song Six White Boomers, by Rolf Harris, tells of Santa undertaking his flight around Australia hauled by six white-boomer kangaroos in place of reindeer. Christian carols such as Three Drovers or Christmas Day by John Wheeler and William G. James place the hymns of praise firmly in an Australian context of warm, dry Christmas winds and red dust. Although a hot roast dinner remains a favourite Christmas meal, the summer temperatures can tempt some Australians toward the nearest watercourses to cool down between feasts. It is a tradition for international visitors to gather en masse at Sydney's Bondi Beach on Christmas Day.
The Assyrian Church of the East is also known to be a crowd drawer for the special Christmas Eve midnight mass. More than 15,000 faithful gather at churches in Sydney, notably the St Hurmizd Cathedral in Sydney's west. |
Christianity in Australia | Easter
The Christian festival of Easter commemorates the Bible's account of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Australia, in addition to the religious significance of Easter for Christians, the festival is marked by a four-day holiday weekend starting on Good Friday and ending on Easter Monday – which generally coincides with school holidays and is an opportunity for family and friends to travel and reunite. Across Australia, church services are well attended, as are secular music festivals, fairs and sporting events. One such Easter event is Easterfest an annual Christian Music Festival in Queen's Park Toowoomba and known as the largest drug and alcohol free festival in Australia.
Traditional Easter foods commonly consumed in Australia include hot cross buns, recalling the cross of the crucifixion, and chocolate Easter eggs – symbolic of the promise of new life offered by the resurrection. Although chocolate eggs are now eaten throughout the period, eggs were traditionally exchanged on Easter Sunday and, as in other nations, young children believe their eggs to be delivered by the Easter Bunny. A local variant on this tradition is the story of the Easter Bilby, which seeks to raise the profile of an endangered Australian native, the Bilby whose existence is threatened by the imported European rabbit population.
Other Easter traditions have been brought by migrant communities to Australia. Greek Orthodox traditions have a wide following among descendants of Greek immigrants; and a fishermen's tradition brought from Sicily, the Ulladulla Blessing of the Fleet, takes place on the New South Wales South Coast with St Peter as patron. |
Christianity in Australia | Architecture
See also
Most towns in Australia have at least one Christian church. One of Australia's oldest is St. James Church, Sydney, built between 1819 and 1824. The historic Anglican church was designed by Governor Macquarie's architect, Francis Greenway – a former convict – and built with convict labour. It is set on a sandstone base and built of face brick with the walls articulated by brick piers. Sydney's Anglican Cathedral of St Andrew was consecrated in 1868 from foundations laid in the 1830s. Largely designed by Edmund Thomas Blacket in the Perpendicular Gothic style reminiscent of English cathedrals. Blacket also designed St Saviour's Goulburn Cathedral, based on the Decorated Gothic style of a large English parish church and built between 1874 and 1884.
The "mother church" of Catholicism in Australia is St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney. The plan of the cathedral is a conventional English cathedral plan, cruciform in shape, with a tower over the crossing of the nave and transepts, and twin towers at the West Front, with impressive stained glass windows. 106.7 metres in length and a general width 24.4 metres, it is Sydney's largest church. Built to a design by William Wardell from a foundation stone laid in 1868, the spires of the cathedral were not finally added until the year 2000.
Wardell also worked on the design of St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne – considered among the finest examples of ecclesiastical architecture in Australia. Wardell's overall design was in Gothic Revival style, paying tribute to the mediaeval cathedrals of Europe. Largely constructed between 1858 and 1897, the nave was Early English in style, while the remainder of the building is in Decorated Gothic. St Paul's Anglican Cathedral, from a foundation stone laid in 1880, is another Melbourne landmark. It was designed by distinguished English architect William Butterfield in Gothic Transitional.
Tasmania is home to a number of significant colonial Christian buildings including those located at Australia's best preserved convict era settlement, Port Arthur. According to 19th century notions of prisoner reform, the "Model Prison" incorporates a grim chapel into which prisoners in solitary confinement were shepherded to listen (in individual enclosures) to the preacher's Sunday sermon – their only permitted interaction with another human being. Adelaide, the capital of South Australia has long been known as the "City of Churches" and its St Peter's Anglican Cathedral is a notable city landmark. 130 km north of Adelaide is the Jesuit old stone winery and cellars at Sevenhill, founded by Austrian Jesuits in 1848. |
Christianity in Australia | The oldest building in the city of Canberra is the picturesque St John the Baptist Anglican Church in Reid, consecrated in 1845. This church long pre-dates the city of Canberra and is not so much representative of urban design as it is of the Bush chapels which dot the Australian landscape and stretch even into the far Outback, such as that which can be found at the Lutheran Mission Chapel at Hermannsburg in the Northern Territory. A rare Australian example of Spanish missionary style exists at New Norcia, Western Australia. Founded by Spanish Benedictine monks in 1846.
A number of notable Victorian era chapels and edifices were also constructed at church schools across Australia.
Along with community attitudes to religion, church architecture changed significantly during the 20th century. Urban churches such as that at the Wayside Chapel (1964) in Sydney differed markedly from traditional ecclesiastical designs. St Monica's Cathedral in Cairns was designed by architect Ian Ferrier and built in 1967–68 following the form of the original basilica model of the early churches of Rome, adapted to a tropical climate and to reflect the changes to Catholic liturgy mandated at Vatican 2. The cathedral was dedicated as a memorial to the Battle of the Coral Sea which was fought east of Cairns in May 1942. The "Peace Window" stained glass was installed on the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.
In the later 20th century, distinctly Australian approaches were applied at places such as Jambaroo Benedictine Abbey, where natural materials were chosen to "harmonise with the local environment". The chapel sanctuary is of glass overlooking rainforest. Similar design principles were applied at Thredbo Ecumenical Chapel built in the Snowy Mountains in 1996. |
Subsets and Splits