Table of Contents
Introduction
Political stability of Australia is attributed to the country’s strong leadership system. Australia has a well-organized government that comprises of the Prime Minister as the head of the government. The Australian constitution states that the prime minister is the senior most member of the government and the chairperson of the National Security Committee. The various ministries in Australian government are chaired by the prime minister. Despite the position being senior among other roles, the Australian constitution considers the position as non-existent because of the presence of the queen. The longstanding political and tradition convention makes the Australian government to remain valid despite the challenges.
Australia has a governor general that represents the queen and is also responsible for commissioning the prime minister to office. The queen position is royal and can be passed from one generation to another. The queen does not participate in politics but she is a symbol of peace and unity. Another function of the governor general is to ensure that the interests of the queen are represented and implemented by the government. This means the governor general sometimes acts under the orders of the queen. The prime minister is the leader of all political activities, therefore in case of a political convention, the prime minister addresses people. The prime minister is also the head of the majority party in house of representatives. For a person to qualify as a prime minister, the individual or candidate must have majority of numbers in parliament.
The Australian government is slightly complicated because it has three major leaders; the queen, the prime minister and the governor general. The problem comes in between the governor general and the prime minister. The governor general seems to be superior because he or she represents the queen and can question the prime minister. Situations have arose where people argue that the governor general can dismiss the prime minister if the prime minister fails to pass a supply bill in government. This is a question for debate and it requires more research to understand the roles of both leaders. The queen is the overall leader in Australian government but the position is not for political activities, which is why the Australian government created a prime minister position to handle political issues. The queen can contribute to politics in case of a crisis but she is always represented by the governor general.
According to them, the General Governor did not have the power or jurisdiction to dismiss the prime minister. This paper looks into some of the issues surrounding the parties in Australia and the Prime Ministers. Over the last ten years, Australia has had five prime ministers. This is a very high number considering the time scope. In my opinion, this trend represents the instability in our political parties. This piece looks genuinely into this argument as it addresses how this trend affects our politics and policies.
The Labor Party
For quite some time now, the Australian politics have bewildered many. Our leaders have said and participated in a couple of mean, cruel and bizarre things which violate the international law. Some of the things include our treatment of refugees and our tendency to evict prime ministers. These activities have contributed mainly to tarnishing our carefree reputation overseas. The most common habit that has attracted the international community is the eviction of prime ministers. Tony Abbott served for only two years before the smooth Malcolm Turnbull replaced him. Before Turnbull, Kevin Rudd held the office but lasted for only one full term. He was dismissed and replaced by his deputy, Julia Gillard, who served for three years. Rudd then took office and maintained the position for only three months. This is a very worrying trend as it wreaks of instability. It is a disease that affects both the Liberals and the Labor party. The causes of this habit may differ from party to party. Instability in leadership in the Labor party shows lack of a moral compass.
The last two prime ministers from the party, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, had strikingly similar policies. Therefore, this reveals that their feud, which took up three government years, was purely personal. It had utterly nothing to do with having different visions or policies for Australia and building the Labor party. Also, it is worrying that this trend is moving along to other leaders in the Labor party. There are continued feuds which have entirely nothing to do with policy. When the party members are negotiating over legislation, it is challenging to define the position taken by most of their leaders, but once you start calculating the political advantage, the different places begin making sense.
The role of the Labor party as the opposition involves presenting programs that go beyond pure ideologies. In the real sense, they are only maintaining the status quo and promoting the growth of private firms. Their policies at a glance are beyond criticism, but they remain just that, pure politics. Most people in charge of building the Labor program will argue that it’s in a bid to bring balance between principles and governing. This makes it very easy for them to negotiate in Parliament. With their power of words, they can convince just about anyone to pass anything. It’s always a fight about who gets to take a particular office, and as Wyndham calls it, “the politics of politics” (Wyndham, 2015)
The Liberal Party
In the Liberals party, their problem is entirely different from that of the Labors. Their program is very concise and bold. The current plan that they stand for if somewhat extreme compared to past iterations of the same program. This is because it is made stronger by the success of rights in the UK and a considerable extent in Australia. With help from other parties, they have moved the debate on economics to the right, which made their policies look only partially outlandish. They now possess the power to build Australia into whatever image they deem right. Tony Abbot, a former prime minister, represented the actual ideologies of the modern right wing, which was inexplicable, cruel, mean and thrusting. To sell his programs, he backed it using lies since the whole idea was just a made-up program. Ideas he stood for did not make sense on any dimension. Some of them include ;that government has no right to control the lives of the rich people in society and that the disadvantaged brought the misfortune upon themselves since fortunate births into the right families determine whether we are worthy of help from the government. He moved on to actualize his policies by reducing funds set aside for education and health, introducing paramilitary forces into the streets of Melbourne to inspect immigration papers from the pedestrians and putting refugees in unsafe prisons. These moves shocked Australians considerably, and they mobilized to have him out of office. When representing a program like the Liberal’s, there is a need for a leader who does not resemble the program since it only leads to a catastrophe. The leader of a program largely determines its success (Malley, 2007). In a modern right-wing party, there is a need for leaders who seem to disagree with the stands of their Members of Parliament.
When Malcolm Turnbull took office, the program remained constant but now under a different leader. He shares the same vision as any other Liberal and will ultimately build the same Australia. We can be sure of this since he took part in the crafting and voting in of the Liberals programs. The program advocates for similar things as in Abbot’s time, which include, budgets to oppress the poor and keep on rewarding the well-off. His regime still advocates for privatization and reduction of public spending. However, Malcolm is quite smooth in his transitions compared to Abbot. Instead of dismissing funds for public healthcare at once, he introduces Medicare co-payment to blind the public for some time. This is only a distraction to the citizens. Abbot’s government will continue to rule and oppress refugees and immigrants as long as the program remains unchanged. Malcolm’s government is only a clone of Abbott’s government. Their party is selling the same policies, just with a different salesperson. They have not failed in this attempt since strategies that could not see the light of day previously, are now the subjects in mainstream debates. It is unthinkable that we are now discussing deployment of a border force to inspect our papers in our streets and cutting off the universal health care.
Australian politics is a vast subject which we could look into according to different dimensions. The prime minister has a very significant and demanding responsibility. In most cases, they are likely to pass policies or legislation to ensure they retain the confidence of their house members so that they maintain their positions. This will most probably conflict with what most citizens find to be favourable.As a country, we have focused so much on changing the prime ministers that we forgot they represent the same programs if they hail from the same parties. We do not have much choice over our desired prime ministers, but we sure have control over the members of parliament. Changing or eviction of prime ministers affects our public policies to a very minimal level. Unless the prime minister is from a different party, it’s always a question of how long and how they will implement the same policies advocated by our previous leaders. Our tendency to change prime ministers only represents the instability going on in our political parties. As stated earlier on, in the Labor party, the political divide is not created based on policies. The policies are considerably similar; the only difference is how much each benefit by supporting their side. This waters down on the critical issues that we should focus on as a country.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the position of the prime minister has insufficient control in my opinion. They are only a representative of the party with the responsibility of changing the public narrative (Bakvis.2016). Their role is to decorate even the worst of policies and bring them in slowly into our system. Only the prime minister knows what is going on (Weller, 2017) this is depicted clearly in the Abbot’s and Malcolm’s government. Abbot was outright cruel and mean but Malcolm is smoother. With his attitude to governance, he is changing policies towards a program similar in every sense to that of Abbot. However, he is yet to receive uproar from the public since he is breaking the narrative at a very slow pace. Without realizing it, over time, we will sit and watch as Abbot’s policies take charge. They only create a false impression and lead us to the same way as their predecessors.
We can do it today.
Australia has a constitutional monarchy with a constitution that sets rules on how the government shares its powers. The levels of government include the local, federal and state. The feral government comprises of governor general that represents the queen in the House of Representatives. The main functions of the state and federal parliament is to make laws. The Australian government has a rich history full of information based on the invention of the country laws. Henry Parkes was involved in the creation and unification of a great national government. He was known as the father of federation. In 1901 Australia had six colonies that were joined to form the common wealth of Australia. The first prime minister of Australia was Edmond Barton. The Australian democracy is defined by certain values. The first value is freedom of election and how to be elected. The value allows people to participate in elections or vie for any electoral post as long as the person meets the necessary requirements. The second value is freedom of political participation and assembly. Everyone has a right to be involved in political process of Australia. The third value is freedom of speech, religious belief and expression. Speech is a right for everyone because they can express themselves. There are different religions, therefore the Australian constitution allows people to choose their religion as long as they do not affect lives of other people. The Australian government has different branches one of them is the parliament. Which is responsible for creating laws that are implemented by the people. The legislature ensures that people adhere to these laws and people that break the law are punishable by the law. The constitution is the main document that can be used as a reference when a certain law is broken. The document can be edited to add new laws or remove laws as long a discussion has occurred in the Australian parliament.
Research suggests that Australia has normal government just like other countries. The difference comes in in some laws that must be created to support the local people. Australia is under leadership and the leaders are elected after a certain period as per the constitution. Human life is very important according to any constitution and it is the main reason the principles found in the Australian government were created. The principles ensure that any human life is comfortable and free from harm. This also applies to the values that deal with freedom of speech, religion, participation in election among others.
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