The Ins and Outs of the Australian Political System

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Speaker 1: Hi and welcome to this episode of the Pete George

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Experience, where we're going to be doing a few little things a

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bit different, where we're going to do some educational things,

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and the first one to step it off is all about Australian politics

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. Now, one of the things that you may work out over time is

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that I do enjoy politics, but what I enjoy doing is helping

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people understand how the political system works and why

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we do what we do with the political system, especially

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here in Australia. One of the things with Australian politics

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is we do not elect the leaders, and that being the Prime

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Minister or the Premier for the states, but, however, we do

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elect the local city mayor. So there are three levels of

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government in Australia, and just keep in mind the numbers

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that I'll mention later on. This is for a population of 26

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million people. So there's three levels of government federal,

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state and local. Federal government is the one that makes

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all the weird and wonderful decisions that govern us as

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people, so they manage the army or the armed forces, the borders

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, what we can and can't do as people, and make medical

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decisions and things like that. There are a grand total of 226

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federal politicians and that's broken up into two houses. One

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is the upper house and the lower house. Upper house is what we

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call the Senate and the lower house is the House of

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Representatives. Now, the lower house has more it's 151 elected

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members and to govern you need a minimum of 76 people to govern,

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people to govern. So that's made up of our two major parties,

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which is Liberal Labour. There's also the Greens, there's also

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National Party, which is part of the Liberal Party. They're

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joined together and then you've got other parties like One

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Nation, and then you have Independence and in the upper

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house it's the same. You've got a breakdown of Labour, liberal

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Nationals, one Nation, united Party and Independence, and

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there's 75 people that make that up. So if you have a look at the

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numbers, federally there's a politician for every 118

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people, so that's not too bad. Then we go to the state

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government and the state government basically runs the

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schools, emergency services and some infrastructure. They issue

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things like mining licenses for states, even though the federal

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has a say in it as well. So they have a fair bit of

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responsibility and they're broken up into each of the

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states. So Australia is broken up into

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six states, two territories, and the states are New South Wales,

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victoria, queensland, which is where I'm from Western Australia

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, south Australia, tasmania and then the two territories, which

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is the ACT, or Canberra is the capital, and that's where the

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federal parliament sits. And then we've got the Northern

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Territory as well. So each of those territories have 25

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representatives to parliament. So how does it all work in the

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state level? A little bit different, but 99% of the time

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it's the same. So we have the upper house and lower house for

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each of the states, except for the territories and Queensland.

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Now, queensland have committees, or what they call oversight

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committees, and what they do is the lower house. And this

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applies for all the two governance that I'm talking

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about at the moment. So federal and state the lower house they

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come up with the ideas, they put them forward, or the, the, the

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governing body, puts them forward. So in the case of

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federal, at the moment, labor, come up with some bills and

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ideas. They put that forward to the lower house. The lower house

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discuss it and then vote on it, and if that gets passed in the

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lower house, then it goes to the upper house. In the upper house,

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that's where it's kicked around and more people have a say on

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how that all goes about, and then from there they make any

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amendments to the bill and then that bill then returns to the

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lower house and then those amendments and it goes on and on

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and on. So that's how it sort of works.

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But before I go on to how local government works, I'd just like

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to ask a little favour If you could hit the subscribe button

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and the like and the notification if you're on

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YouTube or follow us on your favourite platform if you're

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listening to the audio of this. So let's get into the local

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government or council, depending how old you are. It's now called

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an LGA, which is the Local Government Association, and

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there is a whole heap of them. So and this is where it differs

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a little bit so they have fixed terms pretty much four years and

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it's all done pretty much in the same period around Australia. So

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you have your council member of your area. So we're in

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Queensland, on the Gold Coast, and we're Division 3 and our

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representative was just elected, who is Councillor Donna Gates.

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But where it differs is that we get to vote on who the mayor is,

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and the mayor being elected once again is Tom Tate, who is the

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mayor of the Gold Coast and so forth for Brisbane and all the

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different areas and the same for all the states and the

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territories don't have councils, they're just managed overall.

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So, in total, somewhere around in total of all the councils in

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Australia, there's 5 councillors councils in

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Australia, there's 5 councillors and, as I mentioned

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before, these guys do things a little bit different and their

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main role is to look after the rubbish. So they do all the

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rubbish collection, look after the roads and make sure that the

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water and the waste gets disposed of correctly. So, as I

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mentioned earlier, australia's population as of this year or

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end of 2023, roughly is 26 million. Now, this is where it's

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a bit scary. Overall, with state , federal and local government,

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there is a grand total of 6 people that the Australian

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taxpayers pay for. And what does that equate to? There is a

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politician in this country for every 4 persons. So are we

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over governed? Heck, yeah, but they do have a job to do and

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that is to manage all the different levels.

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I think, personally, I think, that we could nearly do away

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with state government and have the federals control pretty much

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all of it, and if we ever become a republic, then we'll have a

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president of some sort and then let the local government become

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state government. So the local government just looks after the

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state issues, federal looks after federal or get rid of

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local government, whichever way you want it to go, but I think

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we're just too far over governed government. So one thing I have

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noticed over a period of time and that is that councils are

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now becoming more and more of a political party orientation. It

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used to be, it just used to be like someone like myself. You

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would go in, nominate, hopefully get elected if you're active in

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the community, and then you go in, become a councillor and then

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you would be independent of any party. There's a lot of

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alignment to Labor, liberal, greens, so they're the main

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three parties. No one's really picked up on One Nation yet, but

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that's how it sort of runs. Now the other parts that we'll

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talk on so that you get a full understanding, parts that we'll

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talk on so that you get a full understanding, and the next one

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is going to be how the Australian Electoral Commission

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works, which is something that I don't think a lot of people have

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around the world. I will go and double check, but I definitely

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don't think the US have the Australian Electoral Commission

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equivalent. So that's going to be the next episode and then

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I'll do an interview and a full rundown of how our state

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politics runs so that you've got an understanding of how a state

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actually runs and what's involved. So hopefully I'll be

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able to get one of the state politicians to have a chat with

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me. So that's it in a nutshell. We've got the three levels

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federal, state, local. We pay for them all. They waste our

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money pretty well. And on top of that you've got the bureaucrats

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that run it all as well, that put their opinion in. But that's

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roughly in 12 minutes and probably be 13 minutes when I

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finish this how it all works in Australia. So thanks for

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watching this, the first of these educational episodes on

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the Australian political system, and just make sure that you

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subscribe, follow and, most importantly, when you wake up in

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the morning, just be the best version of yourself.