GOVERNMENT

Since 1901, the six former British colonies of Australia have been governed as an independent federal commonwealth with a British-style parliamentary system. Australia is a member of the British Commonwealth group of nations (such as others live Canada, India, Malaysia, Singapore).

There is a three-tiered system of government: federal, state and local. The Prime Minister heads the Federal Government and is the leader of the party holding the greatest number of seats in the lower house, known as the House of Representatives. The upper house is the Senate. The Head of State is the Governor-General, nominated by federal government and appointed by the Queen (of Britain). Voting in Australia is compulsory and employs a preferential voting system. A Premier leads each state government.

There are two main political groups; the more progressive Australian Labor Party and a conservative coalition of the Liberal Party and the National Party. Governors in each of the states, along with the Governor-General, represents the British-Crown in Australia. This is generally a symbolic, opening sort of role. It does occasionally get out of hand as in the 1975 when the Governor-General dismissed the elected Federal Government. Currently, there is a vigorous debate on whether Australia should become a republic totally independent of England.

[more - see virtual heritage tour of Australia]

ECONOMY

Australia has a robust free-market economy with a fairly extensive social welfare system. It has depended on wool, wheat, beef and mineral exports as its main source of foreign income. This is not sustainable as the �Lucky Country� was finding enough markets to the aforementioned. Tourism is now the targetted big �export�.

The tariffs that previously protected small local industries from being swamped by Asian and European manufacturers have been drastically cut in the interest of economic rationalism. Unemployment is generally around 7.5 percent, and despite some economic growth in recent years, the overseas debt increases each year. The Government hope that growth in international tourism will save the day.

There is now bipartisan political agreement on the need to develop manufactured goods for export though the current government policy of reducing tariff barriers has caused unemployment. However, there can be no argument about the need to integrate better with the economies of both South-East Asia and the Pacific Rim � Australia�s closest neigbours as well as traditionally Europe.