Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Tracey Arklay and Neil Laurie
Key terms/names
bicameral, confidence, Constitution, executive, governor-general, House of
Representatives, hung parliament, legislature, minority government, responsible
government, Senate, supply, unicameral, Westminster system, Washminster
Australia’s new national Parliament House opened in 1988. It is one of the most
recognisable and routinely scrutinised workplaces in Australia. Parliament House
is much more than an impressive building. It is a symbol and a link to history, a
meeting place and a debating chamber. It is the building where our laws are made,
where governments rise and fall, where leaders are made and broken and where the
theatre of Australian politics is played out. It is where compromise and consensus
sit, sometimes uncomfortably, alongside partisanship and power. Parliament is a
place of ideas, ideology, debate and deliberation. It is also a place that provides
checks and balances on political power, including the power to impose taxes and
the power to decide who can become a citizen. Parliament makes policies that affect
all our lives.
The Australian parliament has been the setting for some of the most memorable
political events in the nation’s history. It is where the will of the people can
triumph, such as in the 2017 same-sex marriage laws, and where historical wrongs
are officially recognised, as exemplified by the apology to the Stolen Generations.
In short, parliament is an important democratic institution. Yet despite its central
Arklay, Tracey, and Neil Laurie (2019). Parliaments of Australia. In Peter J. Chen, Nicholas Barry, John
R. Butcher, David Clune, Ian Cook, Adele Garnier, Yvonne Haigh, Sara C. Motta and Marija Taflaga,
eds. Australian politics and policy: senior edition. Sydney: Sydney University Press. DOI: 10.30722/
sup.9781743326671
70