Parliamentary Government in Australia

Description

Alan Ward combines constitutional history and political science to compare all nine of Australia’s political systems, federal, state and territory, from colonial times to the present. Guided by a model of parliamentary government drawn from comparative politics he considers the selection of the government, the prime minister and cabinet, government control of the lower house, the primacy of the lower house in bicameral systems, the head of state and the influence of Australian federalism on parliamentary government. He also considers the growth of executive democracy in Australia, with its dominant executive. Only one of Australia’s nine constitutions accurately describes parliamentary government as practiced in the country and Ward argues, as a democratic imperative, that the other eight should be rewritten.