australia's general elections are just around the corner for the year 2025 it will happen on the 3rd of May and many of international students and new migrants might be wondering how does Australian political system work in this short guide we'll explain that for you so without wasting much time let's get into the details so first thing first what kind of government does Australia have well Australia is a federal parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy now what does that even mean so our first thing is Australia is a federation of states and territories with the federal government also known as national government and then state and territory governments now in terms of democracy citizens have to elect their representatives for the parliament and in terms of constitutional monarchy king is the head of the state so just to make it simple king is the head of the state but his powers are limited by Australian constitution now the governor general represents the king in Australia and the prime minister is the head of the government who is the leader of the party that wins the election now in terms of hierarchy king sits at the top then comes the governor general then comes the prime minister so the current king King Charles 3 he's the head of state in Australia but mostly it's just a symbolic now let's look at the levels of government so Australia has a three levels of government the first one is a federal government consider it like a national government that manages the national issues like immigration defense trade and so on the second layer of the government is state and territory governments which manages your schools hospitals roads and stuff like that and the last level of government are local councils which take care of your local reserves parks and things like collecting rubbish and so on now let's move to the next part which is about parliament and political parties so Australian parliament has two houses the upper house which is also called as senate and the lower house which is the house of representatives now house of representatives have 151 members and these house of representative members actually form the government and in the upper house which is senate there are 76 senators 12 from each of the six states in Australia and two from each territories so Australia have a six states that is 72 senators from there and then the two states Australia has four senators from there these senators are usually responsible for checking and passing the laws and these senators usually debate and vote on the bills now let's talk about the major political parties in Australia now there are two major parties you will see here in Australia but apart from that there are other parties that are quite popular here as well the two major parties are Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party of Australia apart from that the Liberals also work with another party called the Nationals and together they form a coalition which means both of these parties the Liberal Party of Australia and the Nationals work together to form a government in Australia apart from that there is the Greens Party and there are many other independent and minor parties as well now in terms of where do these parties stands in terms of political spectrum if you look at this graph the Greens party usually stand on the left side of the political spectrum their focus is usually climate equality and social justice the Labor Party is on the center left which is about workers rights healthcare and education the Liberal Party is usually center right which focuses on economy business and individual freedom and last nationals they are usually the right wings their key focus is usually rural areas farming and tradition now the next part is who can vote in Australia and why it matters now it might be very interesting for some of you that the voting in Australia is compulsory for every Australian citizen aged 18 or above so if you are an Australian citizen 18 plus you need to vote however if you are permanent resident or temporary visa holder such as international student then you can't vote in Australia especially in the federal elections now you may not be voting in the elections in Australia but it's still very important for you to understand about the political system as it could impact you as a migrant or an international student especially in terms of immigration policies and the decisions made by the government of the day now very interesting part which is about how elections work in Australia we're going to keep it really short and simple the voting is done in Australia through preferential voting and some of you will be like what does that mean so instead of choosing one or the other candidate voters have to rank the candidates given in the ballot paper so let's say there are five candidates given in the ballot paper you can't just choose one of them and say that's it you have to give a rank to each of the candidate given so if there are five candidates you have to rank them based on your preferences from one to five one being your most preferred candidate and five being the least one and if your preferred candidate does not get enough votes to win your vote goes to the next preferred candidate this way your vote still counts even if your preferred candidate does not win now election day does feel like a community event where there is usually a sausage sizzle and polling places are usually located at local schools churches and community halls as I mentioned earlier in 2025 the elections will be held on May 3rd and once the voting is over they start counting the votes and usually you will get the picture by the end of the night who is the winner of the election in terms of numbers required to form a government it's 76 out of 151 members so whichever party wins 76 seats or more form the government sometimes if they're falling short they could form the government with a collaboration with others now here are some key roles in Australian politics now the first one is prime minister who is obviously the leader of the country and is the head of the party in power so whichever party is in power is usually the head of that party currently the prime minister of Australia is Anthony Albani obviously we don't know who's going to win the next election it could be Anthony Albanesei again or could be Peter Dutton or could be anyone else the another important role is member of parliament also known as in short MPs they represent your local area or electorate then the senators which represents your state or territory as I mentioned there are 12 from each state and then two from each territory and last but not the least the governor general who approves laws and does most of the ceremonies including the inauguration ceremony of a prime minister you might be wondering how can you get involved in Australian politics especially as an international student now even if you can't vote you can do certain things the first thing is volunteering so you can volunteer for one of the local political parties you can also join the community discussions that happen around in your local state or territory and knowing about the local political system will help you feel more included in the society if you would like to know more about the elections in Australia I recommend you to check the Australian Electoral Commission's website which is aec.gov.au there's plenty of resources available on this website so highly recommend you to check it out if you would like us to make a video on some other topics like this please let us know in the comment section below and if you have any questions put them in the comments as well and we'll try to answer as many as we can so hopefully that was useful now if you would like to know more about Australian currency then this video is very detailed and comprehensive regarding that it's quite an informative video and thousands of people who have watched it find it quite useful so click this video over there and I'll see you