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Policy

The Australia is a constitutional monarchy with a division of power federal. It uses a system of

Government parliamentary with Queen Elizabeth II at their apex as Queen of Australia, a role

that is different from his position as Queen of other realms ofCommonwealth. As the Queen

resides in United Kingdom, executive powers invested in it by Constitution are ordinarilyexercised by its viceroys in Australia (the Governor-General, at the federal level and the

Governors, State level), by the Convention on the advice of Ministers of the Queen.

The Federal Government is divided into three branches:

y The legislature: the Parliament bicameral, composed by Queen (represented by theGovernor General), Senate and House of representatives;

y The Executive: the Federal Executive Council, in practice, the Governor-General asadvised by Prime Minister and Ministers of State;

y The judiciary: the Supreme Court of Australia and other federal courts, whose judgesare appointed by the Governor-General in Council opinions.

In the Senate (upper house), there are 76 Senators: each of the twelve States and two from eachcontinent's territory (the Australia capital territory and Northern Territory). The House ofrepresentatives (lower house) has 150 members elected from single member of the electoral

divisions, commonly known as "electorate" allocated to States according to population, with

each original State guaranteed a minimum of five seats. Elections for both cameras are normallyheld every three years, simultaneously, the senators have overlapping mandates of six years,

except for those representatives of the territories, which only have three-year term, therefore,only 40 of 76 posts Senado are placed every election unless the cycle is interrupted by a

dissolution double.

The electoral system of Australia uses the preferential voting in all elections for the lower housewith exception of Tasmania and TCA, which together with the Senate and most houses of top

state combines it with the proportional representation on a system known as the singletransferable vote. The voting is mandatory for all citizens with 18 years or older recorded in

each jurisdiction, so how is the record (with the exception of Australia Southern). Although thePrime Minister is appointed by the Governor-General, in practice, the party with support of the

majority in the House of representatives forms the Government and their leader becomes Prime

Minister.

There are two big groups that usually form the Federal Government and the States: the

Australian Labor Party and Coalition, which is a formal grouping of the Liberal Party of

Australia and its minority shareholder, the national party of Australia. Independent membersand several small parties, including Green and Australian Democrats, have achieved

representation in parliaments regulatins, mainly in upper houses. The last federal election was

held in 2007 and led the labour party to the post with Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. After a

domestic dispute, Julia Gillard became the first woman Prime Minister in June 2010.

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Religion

The Australia does not have a official religion. In the 2006 Census, 64% of Australians declaredthemselves as Christians, being 26% Catholics and 19% Anglicans. About 19% of the

population declared itself as "without religion" (which includes the humanism, atheism,agnosticism and rationalism), being the group that more grew between 2001 and 2006 and 12%

have not responded (this is optional) or have not given an adequate response to the question.

The second largest religion in Australia is the Buddhism (2.1%), followed by Islam (1.7%), theHinduism (0.8%) and the Judaism 0.5%. In General, less than 6% of Australians identify

themselves with the non-Christian religions.[144]

weekly attendance at church services in 2004

was around 1.5 million: about 7.5% of the population.

The religion does not play a central role in the life of much of the population.