The Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory were formed after federation and it was many years before they obtained full political representation in the Commonwealth Parliament. Initially representation was in a very limited form. This Research Note sets out the history of the Territories, the steps by which they obtained Members in the House...

This paper reviews the near-century of Parliamentary development of the Commonwealth electoral system: the 'rules for representation' devised by Parliament regulating the requirements of representation for the Senate and House of Representatives and the electoral process more generally. One of the few constants in this story is the frequency of change, as successive Parliaments have...

Public policy in Australia underwent a major change during the last quarter of the 20th century. From the Whitlam Government to the Howard Government public policy has sought to modernise Australian society and its economy. This Research Note is the first in a series that examines how much Australia has changed during this period. It...

Outside of the requirement for free, regular, unavoidable, non-corrupt, competitive elections, there is no standard set of rules for defining a democracy. As a result, care needs to be taken not to generalise. This research paper attempts to judge certain aspects of Australia's parliamentary democracy in their own terms. In particular it looks at the...

The 1999 Victorian election was one of the most remarkable State elections of the last 50 years. It removed the apparently impregnable Liberal-National Coalition Government, it produced the retirement of two of the three party leaders, and it pitchforked into office a party that was remarkably unprepared-a number of its new ministers were sworn into...